India’s Dharamshala International Film Festival will return to the Himalayan foothills for its 14th edition, opening with Neeraj Ghaywan’s “Homebound” and closing with Anuparna Roy’s Venice prizewinner “Songs of Forgotten Trees.”
Running from Oct. 30 to Nov. 2 at the Tibetan Children’s Village in Upper Dharamshala, DIFF has established itself as one of India’s premier showcases for independent cinema, drawing global filmmakers and audiences to its non-competitive platform.
Ghaywan’s “Homebound,” adapted from a 2020 New York Times article by Basharat Peer, follows two childhood friends from a North Indian village who aspire to become police officers. The film, which debuted at Cannes, explores how mounting pressures strain their friendship as they pursue respect and opportunity.
The festival continues its partnership with Sydney Film Festival, welcoming two Australian films and their filmmakers: Emma Hough Hobbs and Leela Varghese’s queer sci-fi “Lesbian Space Princess” and Gabrielle Brady’s “The Wolves Always Come at Night,” Australia’s Oscar submission.
Programming highlights include Bhutan’s Oscar entry “I, The Song” by Dechen Roder; Rohan Parashuram Kanawade’s Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner “Cactus Pears”; Rich Peppiatt’s Irish-language “Kneecap“; and Raoul Peck’s documentary “Orwell 2+2=5.”
The lineup also features Spanish director Carla Simón’s “Romeria”; Hlynur Pálmason’s Cannes entry “The Love That Remains”; Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni’s “Cutting Through Rocks”; Prabhash Chandra’s “Alaav”; and Kunsang Kyirong’s “100 Sunset.”
The festival will host a masterclass with acclaimed Indian filmmaker Kiran Rao.
Closing night belongs to Anuparna Roy’s “Songs of Forgotten Trees,” which won the Horizons award for best director at the Venice Film Festival earlier this year. The Mumbai-set drama follows a migrant actor and sex worker who sublets her apartment to a call-center worker, forming a fragile bond.
Programming director Bina Paul has curated a lineup that includes Andrey Tarkovsky’s son presenting the documentary “Andrey Tarkovsky: A Cinema Prayer” in person, featuring rare archival footage of the legendary Russian filmmaker.
Dharamshala is best known internationally as the seat of the Dalai Lama, who has been based there since being exiled from Tibet in 1959. The festival directors Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam are filmmakers in their own right. Their chronicles of the Tibetan condition including 2005’s “Dreaming Lhasa,” 2010’s “The Sun Behind the Clouds: Tibet’s Struggle for Freedom” and 2018’s “The Sweet Requiem” have received considerable festival play, including at Toronto and San Sebastian. The pair’s last venture, one of the shorts in Tibetan anthology film “State of Statelessness,” premiered at Busan in 2024.
“We never set out to become one of the most prominent independent festivals in the country. We simply believed that meaningful cinema deserved a home in the mountains,” say Sarin and Sonam. “DIFF has grown organically over 14 years — not through flash or hype, but through the passion of filmmakers, the trust of our audiences, and the community that returns year after year.”
DIFF remains deliberately non-competitive, prioritizing dialogue over awards. The festival credits tech partner PictureTime’s inflatable digital theaters with bringing independent cinema to the remote mountain location.
