NEW DELHI: Filmmaker Anuparna Roy, who made her debut with Songs of Forgotten Trees, bagged the Best Director award at the Venice International Film Festival.
Presented by filmmaker Anurag Kashyap, the film premiered in the festival's prestigious Orizzonti Competition section, an international competition for films that highlight new trends, with a focus on debut works, young talents, indie features, and lesser-known cinema, on September 1.
Roy said the film is a tribute to all the women who are "silenced, overlooked, or underestimated." She said in a statement, "This film is a tribute to every woman who's ever been silenced, overlooked, or underestimated. May this win inspire more voices, more stories, and more power for women in cinema and beyond."
According to the film's official synopsis, Songs of Forgotten Trees follows the story of Thooya, a migrant and aspiring actress, who survives the city by leveraging beauty and wit, occasionally trading intimacy for opportunity.
When she sublets her sugar daddy's upscale apartment to Swetha, a fellow migrant working a corporate job, the two women seemingly from different worlds begin to share more than just a space.
Amid the relentless pulse of Mumbai, they discover a silent empathy. But as personal histories, desires, and wounds resurface, their delicate connection is tested. What follows is not a rupture, but a strange and tender unfolding of selfhood, of survival, of unexpected kinship, it read.
The film stars Naaz Shaikh and Sumi Baghel.
Produced by Bibhanshu Rai, Romil Modi and Ranjan Singh, the cast also includes Bhushan Shimpi, Ravi Maan, Pritam Pilania and Lovely Singh.
It features cinematography by Debjit Samanta, editing by Ashish Patel and music by Nishant Ramteke The Venice International Film Festival concluded on Saturday.