MIFF 2026, 10: Film fare at the 19th MIFF, Part I
MIFF 2026, 10: Film fare at the 19th MIFF, Part I
Good Luck to You All/Cordell Barker/Canada/2025/8.15 minutes/Animation/English
Bad luck. When you see film like that the Opening of a film festival, it does not augur well for the remaining part of the festival. Best described as an LSD trip of a 5-6 year-old girl, it is whimsical and absurd. The only thing you make sense of is a little girl playing with her toys, which are crane forwarders, with fragmented voices of scientists and thinkers as the sound track. Body pars get chopped, and re-joined once too often. The girl is unaware that she might be holding the future of humanity in her hands. Director Barker has had a long association with the National Film Board (NFB) of Canada, and has been nominated for an Oscar twice. I wonder if the films he was nominated for were anything like this one. One would have serious doubts about the Oscars committee’s choice, if they were. NFB has given us some outstanding animation films. Count this one out.
Welcome Home/Anuradha Singh/India-USA/2025/49 mins/English, Hindi
Documentary
Welcome to a labour of love and pain, compassion and hope. This well-made documentary took 9 years to complete, and the long wait was worth every minute of those 9 years. It deals with the subject of homelessness, in Mumbai, Memphis (USA), Los Angeles and Oshawa (Ontario, Canada). The fact that homelessness is a serious problem in the West too, including areas outside Hollywood, might come as a revelation to many viewers. Even more of a great concern is that there are 150 million homeless people in the world. Getting these pavement-dwellers to tell their stories was a tough task, because these unfortunate people move away from one location to another, either evicted by the police or Municipalities, or to shield themselves in inclement weather. Often, Anuradha Singh would meet some of them, fix a shooting schedule and return to the spots where she met them, only to find that they are missing. And there is no way to trace them. In Mumbai, director Anuradha Singh has mainly focussed on the homeless in Powai. While the problem is far from being solved, there is hope.
She has interviewed a man who was homeless for years, and rose to become the Mayor of Oshawa. Most eyes that see the pain and suffering of these homeless, who use plastic and wood to sleep in make-shift homes, and their children who have no hope of a better future, including no education, will be moist. Tears will roll down from the sensitive and empathetic eyes, as Anuradha gives a voice to the voiceless. Anuradha trained as an editor at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), and her work includes Slumdog Millionaire.
About the Cow/Anton Simukhin, Nikolai Alekseev/Russian Federation/2025/27 mins/Russian/Short Fiction
Here’s another little gem. A Moscow-based woman travels to a remote village to bury her stepfather, who has just died, and claim her inheritance, which is just a rundown house. She has no money to pay for the burial, so she decides to sell her stepfather’s cow. What follows is a heart-warming and involving narrative, and shows that a lot can be said in 27 minutes, including a twist at the end. Director Simukhin trained as an actor, while Alekseev served as an advisor at Gosfilmofond. Gosfilmofond is the national film archive in Russia, located in Moscow Region of the Russian Federation. Gosfilmofond houses the largest collection of motion pictures in Russia, a collection that includes more than 55,000 titles and it is a member of the International Federation of Film Archives.
Anbirku En Ondrai Azhuthavum/Vignesh Paramsivam/India/2025/5 mins./Tamil/Short fiction
If it took 27 minutes for About the cow to tell its tale, this pone does it in mere 5. Highlighting the co-existence of two generations, a young man and his mother, with the mobile phone as a metaphor, the film succeeds in coveting both realities in a convincing manner. Director Vignesh Paramsivam won the Creative Minds of Tomorrow honour 
at the 54th International Film Festival of India. For the plot, a young man is giving a job interview, when he realises that he has forgotten to bring a vital document, a certificate that will help in his job-prospects. Only his mother is at home, and she is not very familiar with operating mobile phones, though she can make and receive calls. The son calls her and tells her to take a picture of the certificate and send it to him via WhatsApp. Can she do it? My fears of Bad Luck seemed unwarranted, if I were to go by the three films impressive listed above. No. 4 coming-up
Peanut/Sheila Sawhny/United States of America/2025/11 mins/English/Short fiction
This one is one of those films that can be seen as a motivational, positive, self-help book. A middle-aged man walks into the woods and sits down on a bench. He then brings out a bottled of anti-depressants, and a bottle of liquor, planning to commit suicide. Out of the blue, a woman appears, sits down next to him, and strikes a conversation, about nature, songs of the birds, her best times of the day, and similar, sweet nothings. All this while, she keeps eating and offering peanuts. The topic of their conversation then shifts to peanuts. She asks him whether he knows some facts about peanuts, and he says, “Well, I know that a peanut is not a nut.” Who is this mystery woman? And will she be able to talk the man out of killing himself? A humane, feel good and touching film, that is too much feel-good to be true.
Mumbai girl Sheila Sawhny, who directed this ‘all about peanuts’ film, is a producer, writer actor and director.
Harinarayan/India/Utpal Dutta/2025/20 mins/Assamese/Documentary
A short biopic, the film pays a tribute to Harinarayan Dutta Baruah, a leading figure of the Indian independence movement, from Assam, also called the Renaissance Man, Utpal Dutta is a critic-cum-filmmaker, who has won awards in both capacities, both at his state level and the national level. As expected, the film weaves in interviews along with images and documents. It can be described as an above average documentary, made in the documentary tradition.
To be continued.
