Three films with India connect chosen for 2023 Sundance Film Festival

Three films with an India connection have been selected for the 2023 edition of the Sundance Film Festival -- Poacher, a drama directed by Richie Mehta of Delhi Crime fame, Reema Maya's short Nocturnal Burger, and Shalini Adnani's White Ant.

The boost for the Indian independent cinema circuit comes after Shaunak Sen's All That Breathes won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary at the 2022 Sundance.

The upcoming edition will be held from January 19 to January 29 in Park City, Utah, in the US. It is presented by Sundance Organisation, a nonprofit that discovers and supports independent artists, and introduces audiences to their work.

According to the gala's website, Mehta's Poacher will have its world premiere in the Indie Episodic segment.

Inspired by true events, the film features The Great Indian Kitchen breakout Nimisha Sajayan, Darlings star Roshan Mathew and "Rocket Boys" actor Dibyendu Bhattacharya.

"A group of Indian Forest Service officers, NGO workers, police constables and Good Samaritans risk their lives trying to track down the biggest elephant ivory poachers in the history of India and bring them to justice," reads the official logline of the film.

An India-US production, Poacher is backed by Mehta, Sean McKittrick, Raymond Mansfield, and Edward H Hamm Jr.

Maya's Nocturnal Burger will receive its world premiere on January 21 in the 'US Fiction Short Films' section. It stars Bebo Madiwal, Millo Sunka, Trupti Khamkar, Shrikant Mohan Yadav, Pushpendra Singh, Somnath Mondal, Vicky Shinde and Mukesh Pachode.

The short film is about a 13-year-old girl and a 30-year-old man who is brought to a police station in Mumbai in the middle of the night by two strangers. Amidst questionable motives and unreliable narrators, a frustrated woman constable investigates what happened that night, and what could've happened.

Maya, who previously went to the 2018 edition of Sundance with her acclaimed short "Counterfeit Kunkoo", said she is grateful to the festival organisers for their continued support.

"Getting nominated the first time was a lifelong dream come true, I never even imagined being a two-time Sundance nominated filmmaker. It has helped me believe more in my voice and the stories I want to tell. Sundance 2018 was life-changing. I can't wait to see what Sundance 2023 has in store for us!" the filmmaker said in a statement.

Nocturnal Burger is a Catnip film presented by XRM Media and produced by Maya and Michael Y Chow and executive produced by Surekha Sengupta and Sue Turley.

Adnani's White Ant is selected to have its world premiere under the 'International Fiction Short Films' programme. Denzil Smith, Harish Kesariya, Pushpa Madam Singh Chauhan, and Sushannt Sapare round out the cast of the film.

"A man is summoned from Mumbai to his village to deal with a termite infestation threatening to destroy his childhood home," reads the official synopsis of the movie.

The producers of the project are Sara Bonakdar, Michael Graf, Kaarthekeyen Santhanam, and Mrunalini Havaldar.

Previously, Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh's documentary Writing with Fire, India's 2022 entry to the Academy Awards, had received the Audience Award at the 2021 edition of the Sundance Film Festival.