Ahead of its World Premiere at the 31st Busan International Film Festival, the makers of ‘Birds In The Dark’ (Hanere De Panchhi) have unveiled a striking new poster that offers a glimpse into the world of the Shashank Walia directorial.
Set in rural Punjab, the film explores gender, caste and class through a disillusioned informer, a man he wronged and a Dalit woman’s struggle for human rights and communal land for the marginalised.
Taking to Instagram, the makers wrote, “Under the night sky, guided by the stars, our birds search for new ways to love. To a new horizon.”
Set against a muted, weathered olive-grey backdrop, the poster brings together multiple stories within a single image, with symbolism embedded in every element.
A strand of barbed wire runs through the composition, becoming both a path and an obstacle — something they must find their way through. Along its course, small black silhouettes depict one man restraining another as he attempts to move forward. The path then continues to a farm labourer carrying a heaped bundle of fodder, sickle in hand, before leading towards a woman and a goat standing together and looking towards the horizon.
The typography is trilingual, presenting the Punjabi title in Gurmukhi, followed by its English and Urdu titles. Rendered in a loose, handwritten cursive, the lettering carries a personal and fragile quality.
The imagery reflects the film’s exploration of lives shaped by caste, class, gender, land and labour, while evoking the larger currents of conflict, resistance, desire and solidarity that run through the narrative.
The poster art is designed by Siva Chand M S, with typography by Sudarshan Devadoss.
The official logline reads: a disillusioned police informer and a man he once wrongly captured find their way back to each other in a caste-divided village, where a landless woman’s fight for land unsettles the old order, pulling their lives into a gathering struggle of desire and solidarity. The film stars Mauli Singh, Sapna Das, Harwinder Singh Aujila, Navdeep Bajwa and Shahnawaz Bhat.
Written, directed and cinematographed by Shashank Walia, Birds In The Dark (translates to ‘Hanere De Panchhi’ in Punjabi) is produced by Reema Kaur for Two Black Squares, and by Hansal Mehta and Sahil Saigal for True Story Films. Set in rural Punjab, this intersectional film will take the audience through various thematics across gender, caste and class.
