25th Social Justice Film Festival 2025 : List of films

25th Social Justice Film Festival 2025

12-14 April, multiple venues, Chennai 

Category – Indian Short Fiction

Mind the Cart
Dir: Madhu Dhurve, Pushpa, Narendra Singh Pardhi; 22:12 min; Short fiction; India

Synopsis: Mann, a 13-year Pardhi boy, lives with his mother and two siblings. His mother rears goats and does odd jobs to support the family..His thela (pushcart) holds a special place in his heart, like a cherished family member. With his trusty thela by his side, Mann earns daily wages, has some fun and also tries to study.

But one day, A day which starts like any other day, Mann looses his trusted friend …

Reminiscence
Dir: Anup Kumar Chakraborty; 17:30 min; Short fiction; India

Synopsis: The film is based on the directior's childhood nostalgia for the flawless and continuous song played by a blind flute player in his area the child wants to know the magic behind it persuade him to follow this blind man when ever sees him. His music had an enchanting power to bind him to listen to this blind man flute

Playing with atnoshingly the directior's childhood character is finely played by our child artist

Kanchana
Dir: Sriram Kanchana Thangaraj; 17:08 min; Short fiction; India

Synopsis: Following ancient customs, a 10 year old girl is banished to a basic hut outside the village for menstruating. There she goes through a trauma of isolation, pain and feels ostracized.

Category – International Documentary

Lago Escondido, soberanía en juego
Dir: Camilo Gómez Montero; 1:17:00 min; Documentary; Argentina

Synopsis: A group of Argentines try to reach Lake Escondido, in the south of their own country, where the British billionaire Joe Lewis has created a fiefdom of twelve thousand hectares that functions as a parallel state.

This documentary narrates the Seventh March to the Hidden Lake in 2023, with a camera that records the events directly, but also investigates dark geopolitical interests, business/judicial lobbies and complicities of some sectors of Argentine politics with foreign interests, including against his own country.

Hues & Blues
Dir: Vinayakram C; 44:56 min; Documentary; Australia

Synopsis: Prasanna, Prasenjit, Ayushi and Vivek throw a camping festival ŪRU for the queer community in India. This documentary tries to explore what queerness means for these individuals in the lead up to the festival as they work together to bring their vision to life.

The festival attendees add to the vision by sharing their stories about sexuality, gender, and society. Their stories call for a change in the way queer community is perceived in India - the first step in progressing towards acceptance.

Dindigul Diaries
Dir: Annette Danto; 01:07:41 min; Documentary; United States

Synopsis: Shot over a twenty-three year period, Dindigul Diaries is a feature length documentary telling the stories of four women living in the Dindigul region of Southern India.

Dindigul Diaries is about the dignity of labor and the resilience of working women. It addresses human rights topics of girls education, dowry, and cultural restrictions and expectations of females around the world.

On Hold
Dir: Machiel van den Heuvel; 50:03 min; Documentary; Netherlands

Synopsis: This documentary is about a refugee who is stuck in an asylum procedure. The film especially zooms in on the waiting process with images that express the atmosphere and the state of mind.

Category – Indian Documentary

Seed Stories
Dir: Chitrangada Choudhury; 42:00 min; Documentary; India

Synopsis: In a village in the Niyamgiri mountains of the Eastern Ghats in Odisha, eastern India, a heroic effort is underway: barefoot ecologist Dr. Debal Deb and his 3 member-team are conserving over one thousand endangered heirloom varieties of rice, the world’s largest project of its kind. Odisha’s Eastern Ghats region is one of the world’s surviving biodiversity hotspots, with farmers and shifting cultivators, particularly from Adivasi (Indigenous) communities like the Kondhs possessing the knowledge of growing multiple crops with their own heirloom seeds, evolved over centuries. At the same time, the village and the wider region is irreversibly changing with the coming of genetically modified Bt and herbicide-tolerant cotton seeds and associated agrochemicals. ‘Seed Stories’ takes a worm’s eye view of how the swift expansion of a chemical-intensive cotton monoculture is reshaping a geography and a people steeped in agro-ecological knowledge, and altering their attitudes towards farming, food and ecology. It invites audiences to reflect on the question, ‘What is sustainability?’

 'Ladeej Problem? Sohrai Chapter'
Dir: Arika Shukla; 36:31 min; Documentary; India

Synopsis:
'Ladeej Problem? Sohrai Chapter' is a documentary film about reducing period poverty through a community adoption model, with interventions around products, awareness and accessibility.

The highlight of the film is showcasing the journey of a community adapting sustainable menstrual practices in India, for the first time primarily through reusable period underwear.

The documentary film 'Ladeej Problem? Sohrai Chapter' is a graduation project of Arika Shukla in her Bachelor of Design program (2019-2023) at the National Institute of Design, Madhya Pradesh, being sponsored and managed by Onpery®.

Kaagaz
Dir: Samiksha Dnyaneshwar Kherde; 11:45 min; Documentary; India

Synopsis: "Kaagaz" reveals the untold struggles of a marginalized community in Bhopal seeking caste certificates, as they navigate bureaucratic hurdles and societal indifference in their quest for recognition and rights. The documentary also sheds light on the community's perception, often blamed by outsiders for their inability to obtain caste certificates, despite the systemic challenges they face.

Parai: Beats of change
Dir: Joel Fernando; 11:38 min; Documentary; India

Formless Form
Dir: Deba Ranjan; 59:56 min; Documentary; India

Synopsis: Casteism, in India, is deeply rooted in the social hierarchy based on birth and occupation, and with Brahmins it was at the top. This system fosters discrimination, prejudice and social exclusion. In course of time, various religious movements and teachings have arisen across the subcontinent to abolish such oppressive caste system and advocate for equality.

Cry to be heard
Dir: Sathvegan S; 37:49 min; Documentary; India

Synopsis: "I want to feel how it is to be a citizen again" - a Rohingya refugee. The legal documentary questions the functioning of the detention centers in india from the purview of Rohingya refugees , who have been detained for an indefinite period.

Astitva ka Khanan
Dir: Jacinta Kerketta; 8:14 min; Documentary; India

Noises From The Basement
Dir: Abhay P; 19:24 min; Documentary; India

Synopsis: Cities are growing rapidly around us. Each city has their own story to tell amidst their growth. Changes are happening at such a fast pace that we don't acknowledge what it does to us as a society. The film is a portrait of one such fast growing city, Ahmedabad which is in its run for development. It’s about the city and the city makers who exist in different strata and the invisible city makers who continue to exist in the Basement.

When Pomegranate Turns Grey
Dir: Thoufeeq K, Khurrram Muraad Siddiquie; 37:02 min; Documentary; India

Synopsis: The documentary follows Muraad's journey to uncover the traumatic memories of Hyderabad's annexation (Police Action) in 1948. Through his grandmother, Gulnar, a living repository of time, he connects to a violent past, forging a link to a history he only knew through hearsay. As she slowly recollects the indelible patches of a forsaken chapter in the history of the subcontinent, the past, present, and future are interwoven. As an auto-ethnographic work, the film juxtaposes personal anecdotes with historical context, providing a critical understanding of past events often absent in official accounts. Gulnar's storytelling not only brings to light the emotional and psychological scars left by the annexation but also embodies the resilience and continuity of cultural memory.

Category – Experimental Film & Music Video

Mary and Manju (Two films that work as a pair) - Manju Link
Dir: Sarala Emmanuel; 43:00 min; Experimental films; Sri Lanka

Synopsis: These two short films screened in a duo format, are a audio-visual journey through moments in the lives of two elders of the transgender community in Jaffna, northern Sri Lanka. They are both around 60 years old and lived through conflict and war in Sri Lanka since the 1970s onwards. The films bring together the modalities of documentary and experimental film to create openings which invite the viewers to get to know Mary and Manju. Through these traces of Mary and Manju’s lives, we get to know different parts of Sri Lanka, especially the Jaffna region. We learn about experiences of war and post-war life and the negotiation of everyday life in those contexts. This includes negotiating - state and non-state armed groups; control of public and private lives; displacement; loss of life and property; inter-ethnic strife; migration; expression of gender and sexuality; medical procedures required for some trans folks; love, desire and sex; different forms of transphobia, stigma and hatred; livelihood and poverty; family and non-familial relationships including with other trans people; faith, spirituality and religion; and art in that context. The films follow the flow of Mary and Manju’s private spaces and immediate surroundings while engaging in free-flowing conversations about aspects in their life that they wish to highlight in this current moment. The films seek to be an opening towards a conversation about interconnected identities and experiences with the intention of diversifying these conversations by presenting complex stories from the margins.

Babasaheb In Bengaluru
Dir: Mahishaa; 4:41 min; Experimental films; India

Synopsis: Bengaluru is a metropolitan city but you can escape the imagery of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar as sigh of assertion from India's subaltern Marginalized castes. Statues are built by the blood and sweat of the people. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar or Babasaheb as his admirers affectionally call him has the most amount of statues in India but the interesting fact is that none of these are built by the government like other statues.

The film is a dedication to the people who have kept the philosophy of Dr. B R Ambedkar alive through his statues, we hear from the filmmaker and young people in the city & their relationship with these imageries.

Music Video

Varsha - Raw-Gu
Dir: Mahishaa; 5:49 min; Music Video; India

Synopsis: 'Varsha' is a rap song depicting the story of a young girl Varsha who wants to get educated and has high aspirations for herself but they are cut short by the patriarchal society.