{"id":607498,"date":"2026-08-28T18:14:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T18:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/607498\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T18:14:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T18:14:09","slug":"payal-kapadia-neeraj-churi-set-for-toronto-market-with-new-films","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/607498\/","title":{"rendered":"Payal Kapadia, Neeraj Churi Set for Toronto Market With New Films"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe South Asian Screen Office of Canada and IFFSA<\/a> Toronto, in collaboration with Storiculture, have selected eight South Asian feature film projects for a new pathway to financiers and industry partners at the Toronto Film Festival<\/a>\u2018s inugural market, under an initiative called South Asian Screen Futures. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe slate includes talent tied to recent Sundance, Cannes and Toronto honors, among them \u201cAll We Imagine as Light\u201d director Payal Kapadia<\/a>, \u201cCactus Pears\u201d producer Neeraj Churi and \u201cSecond Chance\u201d writer-director Subhadra Mahajan.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe lineup includes six single-country projects from Canada and India, plus one additional entry co-produced across Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands and Canada.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cA Varnam in Silence\u201d (Canada, India) is written and directed by Kalainithan Kalaichelvan, produced by Shaista Roshan and Alison Almeida. The film follows a woman who loses her voice after her mother\u2019s funeral and her family\u2019s belief that it was stolen. Kalaichelvan\u2019s short \u201cKarupy,\u201d about a Tamil matriarch who announces plans to end her life at her own birthday party, premiered at Toronto in 2025 and was nominated for best live action short drama at the 14th Canadian Screen Awards. Roshan produced that short as well as \u201cUnbraided,\u201d below, while Almeida is currently producing \u201cThe Temple,\u201d directed by Calvin Thomas and Yonah Lewis, and has associate-produced titles including Reza Dahya\u2019s \u201cBoxcutter\u201d and Durga Chew-Bose\u2019s \u201cBonjour Tristesse.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMoh\u201d (India), from writer-director Subhadra Mahajan, follows an Indian widow and her late husband\u2019s lover as a shared trip reshapes their bond. Mahajan\u2019s feature debut \u201cSecond Chance\u201d premiered in competition at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival\u2019s Proxima section in 2024 and traveled to more than 40 festivals, including Busan and AFI Fest, before a 2025 Indian theatrical release. She previously co-wrote Pan Nalin\u2019s \u201cAngry Indian Goddesses,\u201d which premiered at Toronto, and served as second unit director on \u201cLast Film Show,\u201d India\u2019s 2023 Oscar submission.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPink City Skies\u201d (Canada), directed by Maya Bastian and produced by Leslie Hope and Tina Vacalopoulos for Parallila Pictures, centers on a teenager who leaves home after being discovered with his boyfriend. Bastian\u2019s short \u201cTigress,\u201d backed by the Netflix\/CFC Calling Card Accelerator, screened at Reel Asian and Reykjavik and was nominated for a Canadian Cinema Editors award. Hope, a Nova Scotia-born actress known for playing Teri Bauer on \u201c24,\u201d has directed television episodes including \u201cSnowpiercer\u201d and \u201cStar Trek: Strange New Worlds\u201d and produced the 2019 feature \u201cLie Exposed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cA Suitable Wife for Her Husband\u201d (Canada), written and produced by Avi Grewal and Sunny Gill, follows an Afghan-Canadian salon owner secretly seeking a second wife for her husband.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSoma Helang\u201d (India), co-written and co-directed by Shubham Negi and Sourav Yadav and produced by Neeraj Churi and Beesham A. Seecharan, follows a woman working to hold her polyandrous Himalayan family together after a hailstorm destroys their harvest. Negi\u2019s short \u201cHills Don\u2019t Dance Alone\u201d won a Netflix TakeTen grant and premiered at BFI Flare, while Yadav\u2019s short \u201cMalwa Khushan\u201d won the Kashish QDrishti Grant and screened at the BAFTA-qualifying Iris Prize. Churi produced \u201cCactus Pears\u201d (Sabar Bonda), which became the first Indian fiction feature to win the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic at Sundance in 2025 and opened in U.K. and Ireland cinemas in June this year. Seecharan\u2019s credits include co-executive producing the PGA-nominated \u201cMediha\u201d and the BAFTA- and Emmy-nominated \u201cBeyond Utopia.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLefty\u201d (Canada) comes from writer-producer Seth Mohan and director-producer Esther Caszo, and follows a young man finding recovery from anxiety and addiction through cricket.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cUnbraided\u201d (Saudi Arabia, Netherlands, Canada), written and directed by Razan Alsoghayer and produced by Shaista Roshan, tracks two childhood friends navigating a changing Saudi Arabia. Alsoghayer, who trained at La Femis in Paris and the British Film Institute, has screened short films at the Red Sea International Film Festival; her short \u201cA Breath\u201d was nominated for best student film at the 2020 Saudi Film Festival. Roshan\u2019s other producing credits include \u201cKarupy\u201d and \u201cQueen Mother,\u201d and she is a 2026 participant in the Red Sea Feature Films Program.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSwarnapuchhri\u201d (India), from writer-director Ritwik Goswami and producer Nidhi Girish Salian, follows a mother\u2019s search for answers after her son vanishes amid protests against a nuclear power plant. Goswami\u2019s screenplay won the West Meets East Screenplay Lab at the Dhaka International Film Festival. Salian, a former lawyer who was part of Vice India\u2019s founding team, oversaw Prime Video\u2019s GLAAD-nominated \u201cRainbow Rishta\u201d as creative director at VICE Studios Asia-Pacific. Payal Kapadia serves as executive producer; her fiction feature debut \u201cAll We Imagine as Light\u201d won the Grand Prix at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for best director and best foreign language film at the 2025 Golden Globes, while her documentary \u201cA Night of Knowing Nothing\u201d won the Golden Eye at Cannes in 2021.<\/p>\n

\n\tScreen Futures links the projects to sales agents, distributors and other prospective partners rather than functioning as a lab or mentorship program. Organizers describe it as project-first, tailoring outreach to the specific opportunities available to each film.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe push forms part of a wider Canada\u2013South Asia Screen Corridor, an effort organizers say will help stories and talent move more freely between Canada, South Asia and other international markets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The South Asian Screen Office of Canada and IFFSA Toronto, in collaboration with Storiculture, have selected eight South…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[93,61,257396,60,270,257397,1998],"class_list":["post-607498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-iffsa","tag-ireland","tag-movies","tag-payal-kapadia","tag-toronto-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}