29th Social Justice Film Festival 2026
15-19 April, Chennai
Organised by MARUPAKKAM 30
Selection List 01
The First Film
Dir : Piyush Thakur; 20 min; Short film ; India; 2025
In a small town in 1960s India, where cinema is forbidden for women, a 14-year-old girl embarks on a quest to watch her first film.
Maraiya Nizhal
Dir : Paro Salil; 19 min; Short Film; India; 2025
Recurring dreams turn out to be repressed memories for a group of friends who reconnect after a decade to confront and unravel troubling events that took place while they were in school.
Theendaatha Vasantham
Dir : Saravana Bharadhi; 27 min; Short Film; India; 2025
Theendadha Vasantham is a gripping docu-drama inspired by a real honour killing case from Namakkal, Tamil Nadu. It sheds light on the brutal realities of caste atrocities and the struggle for justice.
Through a blend of documentary truth and cinematic storytelling, the film voices the pain of victims, the courage of those who fought back, and the questions society refuses to answer.
Encountering Hage
Dir : Lalit Vachani; 48 min; Documentary; India; 2025
Revolving around three case studies of hate crime in North India, the film follows human rights lawyer Akram Akhtar Choudhary as he provides legal help to his clients - victims of mob lynchings, vigilante violence and police encounter killings.
The film is a frightening reminder of the precarity of Muslim lives in Hindu nationalist India.
Zindagi Ki Chaal
Dir : Anjali Raghwani; 11 min; Documentary; India; 2025
A meditative portrait of urban labour, Zindagi Ki Chaal observes florists, potters, street vendors and construction workers, revealing the quiet choreography of everyday labour that keeps the city alive. The film approaches work as rhythm and routine, sustaining city life through repetition, texture and sound.
Zubaan
Dir : Aayush Singh; 9 min; Short film; India; 2025
Ayaan, a boy from UP living in Mumbai, enters a Marathi speech competition for a scholarship. When he fails to speak the language and is bullied, he boldly shares his views on language and respect.
The Delivery Guy
Dir : Debarun Dutta; 30 min; Documentary; Germany; 2025
The Delivery Guy follows the stories of two South Asian immigrants who came to Berlin as students and now work in the food delivery sector. The film sheds light on their hopes, disappointments, and daily struggle for dignity within a system that barely acknowledges their presence.
Mr Invisible, Mumbai Out of Frame
Dir : Christine Ithurbide; 82 min; Documentary; France; 2025
In Mumbai, production of contemporary art is often a collective process that relies on a diversity of art workers. They are fabricators, artisans, artists' assistants and represent an invisible workforce behind the art scene. Through a series of portraits, this documentary film explores their stories, their relationship to the art world, and their struggles in one of Asia's largest metropolises undergoing major economic and urban transformations
The Othering
Dir : Harshit Patil, Veechika Durga Pingali; 16.35; Documentary; India; 2025
The documentary talks about the societal phenomenon of "othering" of the LGBTQ community. The film explores the different ways in which individuals identifying as LGBTQ are marginalized, ostracized, and excluded from mainstream society. It sheds light on the systemic discrimination, cultural stigmatization, and legal barriers that continue their marginalization. By amplifying the voices of those directly affected, the documentary aims to bring empathy and awareness, challenging prevailing prejudices and advocating for greater inclusivity, equality, and dignity for all members of society, irrespective of sexual orientation or gender identity.
Jyothi
Dir : Shaurya Gupta; 1.16 min; Animation; India; 2025
This short film uses a symbolic, charcoal-animated narrative to explore the impact of child marriage in India. It opens with two candles burning side-by-side—one tall, one already melting away—as a mother prepares her daughter for the wedding rituals.
KYC
Dir : Aravindan; 18.52 min; Short film; India; 2025
By day, Ganesh Rajasekharan navigates his workplace with patronizing authority, dismissing female colleagues and clients while championing traditional masculinity. At home, he maintains a detached dynamic with his wife, whose quiet resilience hints at an unspoken strength. By night, as "monkbharat," G posts misogynistic vitriol on social media, targeting progressive women with hate. Set against the modest routines of life in Kerala, the film tries to contrast G’s obsessive grooming and adherence to manosphere-driven idealism with his digital malice.
Eid ka Kurta
Dir : Farha Khatun; 5 min; Documentary; India; 2025
An untouched, white kurta becomes witness to the maze of hatred engulfing human conscience.
The Daily Bread
Dir : Anil Kumar Anand; 21.46 min; Short film; India; 2025
Maimuna (30) faces a predicament when her ex-husband, Wazeer (40) comes back alive after 3 years of his disappearance who was supposedly dead, now, demanding from her and her current husband, Ziya (25) either a considerable amount of money or his breadwinner wife back.
Sangama
Dir : Sunanda Bhat; 76 min; Documentary; India; 2025
A behind-the-scenes look at how a people’s movement against divisive politics takes on an authoritarian party in power in the Indian Election-2024. Wake-up Karnataka unites with citizens’ groups across India, dramatically shifting conversation from ‘mandir’ (temple) to ‘mudda’ (people’s problems), making this a closely fought election.
About My Father
Dir Sumit Sisodiya; 85 min; Documentary; India; 2025
Despite everything breaking down around him – my father started nurturing a dream. A dream to reconcile, repair his relationship with my mother and to unite his two families. But the scars of the past are so deep for the families…that it seems impossible.
And yet, for some reason, I believe in him and his dream.
Toy Gun
Dir : Parshuram Thingnam; 15 min; Short film; India; 2025
In a conflict-affected region, a mother’s fear of violence begins to blur the line between play and reality.
Toy Gun is a 14-minute short film about a widowed mother raising her young son in the shadow of personal loss. When the boy becomes fixated on owning a toy gun like the other children, his innocent play begins to awaken the mother’s buried trauma of real violence.
Analogue Natives
Dir : Bernd Lützeler; 25.33 min; Documentary; Germany; 2025
In 2010, a 106-year-old dilapidated residential building is on the verge of collapsing in Mumbai, the financial capital of India and the heart of the Hindi film industry. All tenants have been evacuated, and many of them now gather on the opposite train station platform, waiting to watch their building collapse. Some are filming the loss of their own homes with their mobile phones. Later, after the fire brigade clears the road of rubble, residents start climbing into the ruins of the building to retrieve their belongings.
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