Due to unforeseen circumstances, director Ashish Avikunthak is unable to be present for the post-screening discussion.

Original Title: Nirakar Chhaya
Director: Ashish Avikunthak
Runtime: 80 mins
Country: India
Language: Bengali with English subtitles
Rating: NC16

Synopsis

Drawing from Setumadhavan’s Malayalam novella Pandavapuram, Nirakar Chhaya (Shadows Formless) unfolds as a film trapped between two monologues. Suspended between fantasy and emotional isolation, a lonely wife’s imagined desires begin to blur the boundaries between memory, longing, and reality.

The film marked filmmaker Ashish Avikunthak’s debut feature and premiered in competition at the 2007 edition of the Locarno Film Festival.

About Ashish Avikunthak 

Ashish Avikunthak is an Indian filmmaker and scholar whose rigorous and meditative works draw from ritual, mythology, performance, and Indian philosophical traditions. Often resisting conventional narrative structures through long takes, repetition, and durational strategies, his films explore themes of time, corporeality, religion, and death. His debut feature Nirakar Chhaya (Shadows Formless, 2007) premiered at the Locarno Film Festival, followed by the acclaimed Katho Upanishad (2012), Rati Chakravyuh (2013), Kali of Emergency (2016), and Glossary of Non-Human Love (2021). His films have screened at major international festivals and institutions including the Berlin International Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Tate Modern, and Centre Pompidou. He is currently Professor of Film and Media at the University of Rhode Island.

This screening is part of the programme Reciprocal 2026. For more screenings of this programme. Please click here. 

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