Nila Madhab Panda’s Spying Stars selected for Busan fest’s inaugural competition line-up

When the Busan International Film Festival, one of Asia’s premier film festivals, announced on Tuesday the lineup for its inaugural competition section in its 30-year history, 14 films made the cut.

Among the selected films is filmmaker Nila Madhab Panda’s Spying Stars – an Indo-French-Sri Lankan coproduction directed by Sri Lanka’s Caméra d’Or-winning filmmaker Vimukthi Jayasundara.

‘IT TOOK US THREE YEARS TO MAKE THIS FILM’Nila says, “This selection is especially significant because for the first time, the festival, in its 30th edition, will move from a non-competitive to a competitive format, and Spying Stars is the only Indian film selected in this section.”The filmmaker adds, “It’s a sci-fi film and it took us three years to make it. Producing a film is not just about creation. For me, supporting a filmmaker like Vimukthi and making this film has been a spiritual journey. His deep reflection on nature, AI and his poetic connection with the metaphysical world makes Spying Stars a powerful and timely film.”‘SPYING STARS IS A SPIRITUAL SCI-FI’The story follows Anandi (Indira Tiwari), a biotechnician who travels to Hanuman Island to perform the last rites for her father, only to find herself quarantined in a pandemic-ravaged, machine-dominated world.

Pursued by a mysterious star, she escapes to take refuge with a mother and her transgender daughter.Vimukthi, the first Sri Lankan filmmaker to win the Caméra d’Or at Cannes in 2005, described the work as “a liberation film that is spiritual in nature.” He says, “My film is a representation of how the tidy, and so-called device-controlled world we were familiar with, broke down (in the pandemic), and became an unknown and uncomfortable reality.The film is spiritual in nature.It asks one question – at a time of pervasive voyeurism and technological control, how do we retain our humanity?”Busan’s new competition sectionBIFF’s new competitive section has 14 Asian films vying for five prestigious awards – the grand prize, best director, special jury prize, best actor/actress and artistic contribution. For the first time, the grand prize winner film will be screened as the festival’s closing film.