Blossoming, emergent South Asian cinema and key milestones take stage at the 19th Tasveer Film Festival. This year’s festival screens 110 films and 91 shorts, 36 of which are world premieres, spanning 14 countries and 22 languages and local dialects. The festival enters its second year as the only Oscars-qualifying South Asian film festival in the world.

As a film festival founded on the urgency of social justice, Tasveer reflects the changing and shifting cultural dynamics across South Asia and its diaspora. This year highlights more LGBTQ and feminist films from South Asia than years prior. Issues of caste discrimination, health, and shifting men’s representation also are highlighted. Tasveer also continues to draw attention to filmmakers and pieces from growing industries in countries like Nepal, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan.

The inaugural debut of the Tasveer Film Market is a key milestone for this year’s proceedings. The film market will be the first of its kind outside of South Asia. The market, inspired in-part by India’s renowned Film Bazaar, will connect emerging local and independent filmmakers with film industry representatives and leaders from major studios and companies in the United States and abroad. To spearhead the effort, Tasveer has brought on veteran Film Bazaar Advisor and Curator Anupama Bose as Film Market Associate Director. The market thus far has attracted over 270 applicant projects seeking production, distribution, and financial support.

According to Festival Director Rita Meher, the film market is responding to enormous gaps in resourcing for South Asian filmmakers to start and finish projects. Connecting emergent filmmakers and resources is just the beginning — Tasveer Film Market has the potential to be another watershed site for South Asian film, changing the face of independent film production for South Asians at home and in the diaspora.

Attendees can also expect numerous discussion panels and Q&A with directors, staff, and actors. One important panel will discuss the increasing prominence of women in South Asian cinema.

Wakhri

The festival will open with Wahkri by Pakistani filmmaker Iram Parveen Bilal at the PACCAR IMAX Theatre. This drama is inspired by the true story of slain social activist Qandeel Baloch.

In Wakhri, Noor, a widowed single mother and school teacher is faced with diminishing prospects for girls attending her primary school. Noor dreams of fully funding her idea for a women’s school amidst clashing social views. By night, she lives a second life amidst Lahore’s queer nightclub scene. There she discovers a hidden talent as an activist for women’s causes. She is aided by her charismatic best friend Guchhi who pushes her to continue fighting in spite of the odds. However, Noor’s escapades unleash unintended consequences, and true to the social media savvy world we inhabit, things begin to spiral out of control.

Wakhri is an exciting tale that blends drama, heart, and humor to present a look into the life of women and queer people in Pakistan, as well as the ongoing social conflicts over women’s roles in traditionalist society. Q&A with the cast and staff of Wakhri will take place after screening.

The Umesh Chronicles

The Umesh Chronicles (directed by Pooja Kaul) is Tasveer’s centerpiece film. Set in 1980s India and spanning to the present day, the film examines the life of a middle class girl Radha growing up in an educated and distinguished family. She is given many opportunities to excel as a student in a private Catholic school. Her family allows her access to all sorts of culture and learning from radio, television, and cinema. All the while her life is surrounded by servants out of sight and out of mind. Among them is an afterthought of a boy named Sundar who takes a liking to Radha.

Radha slowly begins to notice the social dynamics happening all around her. She excels in school while Sundar sees his future stagnating in servitude to the family. These considerations begin to weigh on her as she approaches adulthood and is considering her own future.

The Umesh Chronicles is an intimate and quiet look into the invisibility of class issues — they comprise the water that Radha’s world swims in and Sundar’s drowns in. Spanning decades, the film is also a mirror back toward the years just before the digital age, when life was just a bit slower paced.

Yatra

Yatra (directed by Hemal Trivedi, Matt Alesevich) is a documentary following the travels of Aney, a medical doctor called to home in Gujarat following the passing of her mother amidst a strained rural healthcare system.

Aney considers what her role should be in a system that failed her mother. In her time, she integrates into the lives of rural Mir people in Gujarat and observes their day-to-day work and activities. She conducts numerous home visits and meets with locals in the field, always asking questions and inquiring into their living conditions. She befriends a girl named Farida — the two form a close bond.

Aney’s work is cut short due to the COVID-19 lockdown. She is at a loss and feels she cannot leave; a feeling of duty is calling her back. Nonetheless, Aney must go.

Aney meets Farida again upon returning in 2021. A family and social tragedy has Farida taking on enormous responsibilities, forcing her to drop out of schooling. As Aney and Farida pick up where they left off, Aney is faced with more questions about the kind of social system they suffer under.

Yatra shows hope and desperation in a time of ongoing crisis only exacerbated by an unprecedented pandemic. Throughout the film, Aney reflects on the social pressures placed on poor women to respond to unjust tragedies born of such crises.

Other notable premieres will be Micdrop (directed by Kallol Mukherjee), a documentary following the origins of FPC ANK, an upstart Bundelkhandi rapper and artist from the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. The documentary is filmed entirely in the Bundelkhandi local dialect.

The film festival will close with fantasy short Blue Boy (directed by Nik Dodani) and queer comedy A Nice Indian Boy (directed by Roshan Sethi) — two pieces that will close out with the emergent themes of this year’s festival. 

These are just a few of the many films presented at this year’s Tasveer Film Festival. Festival-goers will see the incredible diversity and perspectives on display across many cultures and languages.

With the debut of the Tasveer Film Market, Tasveer continues to break milestones as a premiere site for innovative socially-focused South Asian cinema. As Tasveer grows, so too will the roots that join the Pacific Northwest and South Asia as major destinations for worldwide cinema.

Tasveer Film Festival & Market 2024 opens October 15th and runs to October 20th.