To galvanize support for her once-thriving lake, now depleted due to environmental degradation, a gutsy prawn-picker hosts a delectable feast that includes some extraordinary ingredients, once plentiful, now almost extinct. Her distinguished sole guest is a local politician who also happens to be an unabashed foody.
In his superb first foray into fiction, two-time IFFLA alum Rishi Chandna (Tungrus, Party Poster) directs a cast of both professional actors and locals from the community to bring us the first of an anthology of three short films exploring vulnerable communities faced with the detrimental effects of climate change. Breathtakingly photographed amidst the last remaining mangroves of Lake Pulicat and peppered with a delicious humorous touch, this Clermont-Ferrand Special Jury Prize winner introduces us to an unlikely heroine who, armored with age-old communal wisdom, intuitively understands how deeply food can tap into our deposits of memory and uses it as a formidable form of protest.
Rishi Chandna
Rishi Chandna’s debut short, Tungrus, was shown at Hot Docs, Visions Du Reel, BFI London FF, and IDFA, and won a Grand Jury Prize at the 2019 Slamdance Film Festival. His second short, Party Poster, premiered at Palm Springs, Krakow, and DocAviv. His feature film in development, Ghol, was selected in 2021 at the Sundance Script Lab, Cannes Film Market, NDFC’s Co-production market, and Hong Kong Asia Film Financing Forum – where it won the top Fiction Award. The Feast (Virundhu) is his first work of short fiction.
