Sahil Shah’s Birds on Ice and Sandeep Kumar Paul’s About an Intimate Matter are also part of the selection. The films will screen in A Window on Asian Cinema, the festival’s non-competitive section showcasing notable new works from across Asia.

The festival will be held from October 6 to 15 at the Busan Cinema Center in Busan, South Korea.

Das returns to Busan with Not a Hero, a coming-of-age drama about an 11-year-old boy who moves from the city to a village. The filmmaker previously premiered Village Rockstars 2 at the festival, where it won the Kim Jiseok Award.

Roy’s Lovers in the Blue Light will make its Asian premiere at Busan. Roy became the first Indian filmmaker to win the Best Director award at the Venice Film Festival for her debut feature Songs of Forgotten Trees, which competed in the Orizzonti section. The new film is also selected for Venice.

Malayalam filmmaker Thaddeus will present The Soul Whisperer, starring Dileesh Pothan and Pauly Valsan. The film explores a more intimate and restrained form of storytelling, moving away from the pace and conventions of mainstream cinema.

Khoriya, directed by Singh, is a Nepali-Hindi drama about two Nepali half-brothers running a poultry farm on the outskirts of Delhi NCR. Their livelihood comes under threat following a bird flu outbreak. The film previously won the post-production grant at the NFDC Waves Film Bazaar 2025 Work in Progress Lab.

The Indian line-up extends to other sections of the festival. Sailesh Rathnakumar’s Selvi and Shashank Walia’s Birds in the Dark have been selected for Vision Asia, while Paromita Dhar’s Salt Electric will compete in the Wide Angle: Asian Short Film Competition.

The strong Indian presence at Busan highlights the growing international visibility of independent cinema from the country, with filmmakers bringing stories rooted in diverse languages, communities and cultural experiences to a wider Asian audience.