Daastaan

The status quo in the lives of best friends Manjari and Kripa is shaken when a film crew arrives in their quiet village and Kripa becomes obsessed with them. As she begins to spend all her time on set, neglecting Manjari, the latter is overcome by anger and jealousy that she cannot understand. The situation escalates when Kripa tells Manjari the details of her unexpected first kiss with a much older man from the crew, prompting a possessive Manjari to react with petty cruelty to punish her. In this coming-of-age drama, two previously inseparable teenagers struggle to weather the first storms of friendship.

Upstream, the Kukadi River has dried up. Downstream, it has been dammed and its waters exploited. Filmmaker Aisha Jain explores the activities that take place along this river that runs through rural India, as well as the more intimate relationships people have with its waters. An inventive portrait of a territory and the people who inhabit it.