New Delhi, Oct 14 “Birds in the Dark”, a rural drama from filmmaker Shashank Walia, has won the Songwon Vision Audience Award at the 2026 Busan International Film Festival.
The Hansal Mehta-backed Punjabi movie had its world premiere at the film gala under the Vision category. It was one of the two Indian films in the lineup of 24 movies.
Sponsored by the Songwon Culture Foundation, the award is presented to the Asian film in the Vision section that receives the most audience votes. The award carries a cash prize of KRW 10,000,000 (approximately Rs 7.1 lakh).
Titled “Hanere de Panchhi” in Punjabi, the movie stars Mauli Singh, Sapna Das, Harwinder Aujla, Shahnawaz Bhat and Navdeep Bajwa. Besides Mehta, Reema Kaur and Sahil Saigal are the other two co-producers on the movie.
“I am deeply grateful that ‘Birds in the Dark’ has won the Audience Award at Busan. We have always thought of this as a people’s film, and this recognition belongs, above all, to the people of the five villages in Punjab who came together to make it. We owe the film to them. This award is theirs.
“I dedicate it also to the workers and lovers of the world, and to everyone who still believes that love, mutual aid, and solidarity can bring us closer to a more just world. To the people of Busan: thank you for receiving our film with such warmth,” Walia said in a statement.
Mehta, who has produced the movie through his banner True Story Films, said he is proud that “Birds in the Dark” has won the Songwon Vision Audience Award as well as received immense love from Korean audiences.
“When an audience embraces a fresh voice, chooses subtlety over spectacle, and responds to a film about gender, labour, justice, love and resistance, you realise that as long as cinema like this lives on, there is hope in our world. This award fills me with that hope. I’m very proud of Shashank, Reema and their exceptional cast and crew. Their labour of love has begun its journey with a bang,” he added.
Shot in black and white, the film explores themes of sexuality, patriarchy, farmers’ resistance, and the caste hierarchy.
The story follows Jagtar, a disillusioned police informer who frees Amir, a Kashmiri Muslim man he has wrongly detained, and returns to his village.
There, he reconnects with Raman, a wealthy landowner and his former lover, while his childhood friend Dilraj, a Dalit farm labourer and activist, leads a struggle for the rights of landless workers.
BIFF concludes on Thursday.
(PTI News)
