Little Jaffna
2025-10-10 19:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Roxie Theater, 3117 16th Street, San Francisco, CA, 94103, United States
Q&A with director Lawrence Valin!
The gripping and exuberant crime thriller LITTLE JAFFNA, directed by Lawrence Valin (3rd i Fest Alumnus for THE LOYAL MAN short film, 2020), is layered with nuanced sociopolitical underpinnings. This stunning film is an impressive debut feature that explores identity and belonging within the Tamil Community in Paris, France.
Set in the lively La Chapelle district in Paris, fondly known as Little Jaffna, the film follows Michael, a young undercover French police officer of Sri Lankan descent, portrayed by Valin himself, who is assigned to infiltrate a local Tamil gang. As Michael delves deeper into the gang’s operations, he confronts the cultural complexities of his dual identity.
Stylistically, Valin skillfully blends elements of Western crime thrillers with the vibrant aesthetics of South Indian cinema. The film explores authoritarian gang loyalties and patriotic nationalistic ideologies, and captures the challenges faced by immigrants, who strive to preserve their roots and integrate into French society while also celebrating the joy and resilience of the vibrant Tamil diaspora. The film also features Tamil stars Radhika Sarathkumar and Vela Ramamoorthy.
This program is sponsored by Villa Albertine, the French Institute for Culture and Education, a division of the French Embassy in the United States.
NOMINEE – Zurich Film Festival, 2024: Best International Feature Film, Golden Eye Award
PREMIERED – Venice Film Festival, 2024
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Boong
2025-10-11 13:00
A vibrant, endearing and upbeat coming-of-age film, BOONG, written and directed by Lakshmipriya Devi, is about a young schoolboy who, along with the help of a friend, aims to reunite his divided family.
Adventurous and mischievous schoolboy Boong and his friend Raju don’t see long distances and state borders as significant obstacles. At least not when it comes to giving Boong’s mother the best surprise gift ever: bringing back Boong’s father.
In her debut feature, Devi expertly centers themes of enduring friendship within a narrative in which ethnoracial discord and political unrest are ever present in Manipur, India. To find answers, Devi designs moments within the fabric of this intimate tale that lay clear many prejudices and divisions, giving the viewer insight into Manipur’s complex sociopolitical structure.
With memorable performances and a heartfelt narrative, this film about a child’s sincere quest is filled with excitement and tempered by the complex realities of political and social divisions. Since the film’s production, the ethnic tensions referenced have erupted into violence, making Devi’s portrayal of childhood resilience a poignant and necessary reminder of our taken-for-granted ability to find hope even in the darkest times.
PREMIERED – Toronto International Film Festival, 2024
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Cactus Pears
2025-10-11 15:00
CACTUS PEARS (Sabar Bonda), written and directed by Rohan Parashuram Kanawade, is gorgeously shot in picturesque vignettes in open landscapes and small villages, with a poetic and open-hearted narrative that skews predictable tropes.
Kanawade’s debut feature follows two men navigating societal pressures in a rural community in Western India (Maharashtra). The story centers on Anand, a 30-something gay city dweller forced to spend a 10-day mourning period for his father in his ancestral home in India’s countryside, where he bonds with Balya, a local farmer struggling to remain unmarried. As the mourning period ends and Anand must return to the city, he faces a crucial decision about their relationship.
A sensitive study of bereavement, along with a powerful exploration of a mother-son bond, CACTUS PEARS is a tender, intimate, and sensual portrait of being queer in a rural, lower-class Indian community. The emotionally resonant drama has connected with audiences across borders. It premiered and triumphed at the Sundance Film Festival as the first Indian and Marathi language film to win in the world cinema competition.
“…exhilarating moments, sudden and inevitable.” – Siddhant Adlakha, Variety
“…shot decisively with unapologetic realism or transportive reverie.” – Ritesh Mehta, IndieWire
WINNER – Sundance Film Festival, 2025: World Cinema Grand Jury Prize, Dramatic
WINNER – SXSW London, 2025: Best Feature Film Award
WINNER – Inside Out Toronto 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival 2025: Best Narrative Feature
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Farming The Revolution
2025-10-11 17:15
Q&A with director Nistha Jain and Priya Satia!
Nishtha Jain’s (3rd i Fest alumna GULABI GANG, THE GOLDEN THREAD) immersive and stirring documentary captures the unwavering resolve of ordinary people with extraordinary courage, chronicling the revolutionary standoff between Indian Sikh and Punjabi farmers and the Modi government.
In November 2020, Gurbaz Sangha, a young farmer from Punjab, embarked on a remarkable journey. Riding his tractor 400 kilometers to Delhi, he joined forces with thousands, and later more than half a million, men and women from many parts of the country. Their united mission: to stand against the newly enacted farm laws. These farmers believed that if implemented, these laws would negatively impact the government-protected farmers’ markets, leaving the farmers to the vagaries of the free market.
Amid a COVID lockdown, the farmers—representing over half of India’s workforce—vowed to remain at the borders until the laws were repealed. The protest cities that mushroomed outside Delhi created a parallel world where they redefined coexistence, with women emerging as equal political partners. Day after day, the protesters showcased India’s pluralistic, defiant, and resilient spirit. As the movement gained momentum, farmers from across the country, along with trade unions of industrial workers, rallied in solidarity. The scale of these protests echoed the spirit of India’s independence movement, culminating in an unexpected, triumphant outcome.
WINNER – Hot Docs Festival, 2024: Best International Feature Documentary
WINNER – International Documentary Short Film Festival of Kerala, 2024: Special Jury Award
WINNER – Toulouse Indian Film Festival, 2025: Mention Spéciale
PREMIERED – Hot Docs Festival, 2024
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Pinch
2025-10-11 19:45
Q&A with director Uttera Singh!
A vibrant dark comedy with nuanced and deeply engaging social commentary, PINCH, directed and written by Uttera Singh, is a confident debut feature that shouldn’t be missed.
With saturated color, swinging rhythm, and sharp emotional edges, the film dives into the generational fault lines of truth, trauma, and tradition—all through the eyes of a young travel vlogger named Maitri, played by Uttera Singh.
Thinking it will make good content for her travel-centric YouTube channel, Maitri tags along with her mother, neighbors, trusted landlord Rajesh, and his wife to a temple during the Navratri festival. When Matri is groped by Rajesh on the way to the festival, she feels shocked and furious, and impulsively decides to take retributive steps, setting off a chain of events that rocks her tight-knit community.
The film’s lens alternates between wry observation and emotional intensity, all carried by Singh’s clear narrative trajectory and her performance. PINCH is a beautifully plotted exploration of voice, guilt, trauma, collective action and the strength it takes to stand up to power.
PREMIERED – Tribeca Film Festival, 2025: International Narrative Competition
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Humans in the Loop
2025-10-12 12:15
Aranya Sahay’s engaging and poignant debut feature, HUMANS IN THE LOOP, offers a nuanced exploration of Artificial Intelligence technology in India through the perspective of a tribal woman’s experience and her beliefs in the natural order.
The film portrays Nehma, an Adivasi woman who returns to her Jharkhand village with her children, post-divorce. To sustain her family, she becomes a data annotator, a role reflecting the real-life involvement of many indigenous tribal women in India’s burgeoning AI industry.
This uniquely whimsical film weaves a story about the significant yet often unrecognized contributions of women from rural backgrounds in India who undertake meticulous data-labeling tasks foundational to the development of AI.
Sahay explores identity, technology, and empowerment through Nehma and her children’s journey by empathetically exploring how the lived experiences of data annotators can influence AI biases.
The film is a tale that is both cautionary and endearing, prompting viewers to reconsider AI’s ethical dimensions and its impact on social conditioning and on formalizing societal biases, as well as its effects on marginalized communities.
PREMIERED – Mumbai Film Festival (MAMI), 2024
WINNER – 16th Bengaluru International Film Festival: FIPRESCI Award and “Best Film”
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3rd i Shorts 2025
2025-10-12 13:45
Q&A with filmmakers!
From comic relief to social insights, the 2025 edition of 3rd i’s signature short films spans vast differences—both literally and metaphorically—with films and filmmakers from South Asia to California and throughout the Diaspora. This year’s selection of narratives and docs lifts up stories of immigration, relationships, identity, gender and sexuality, and social justice.
HARIJ WEDS SAJILI, Prataya Saha (USA, 2025, 19 min)
A whimsical tale about a young bride in India who fakes her suicide to reclaim her freedom, with the help of a sex worker.
ZARI, Shruti Parekh (USA, 2025, 19 min)
American teen Neelu feels like a fish out of water amidst preparations for her sister’s wedding in Delhi—until she forges a brief and unexpected connection with Zeyb, a quiet sari-store clerk who moonlights as an internet drag queen.
THE TEST, Benjamin Sutton (UK 2025, 4 min)
A hilarious short film about a man who gets more than he bargained for from a routine eye test.
ESPERANZA, Shruti Parekh (USA, 2023, 18 min)
When an immigrant taxi driver in upstate New York takes a hopeful young couple to an unmarked Canadian border crossing, he must confront how far he will go for his American Dream.
THE PATEL MOTEL STORY, Amar Shah and Rahul Rohatgi (USA, 2025, 13 min)
The Patel Motel Story reveals how South Asian immigrants, led by one undocumented man’s journey from Gujarat, built a hotel empire—transforming American hospitality through resilience, identity, and belonging.
PORELESS, Harris Doran (Co-produced by Fawzia Mirza), (USA 2025, 13 min)
Fun and farcical—a fabulous queer Muslim beauty entrepreneur must figure out how to compete in a Shark Tank-like product pitch contest after suffering an untimely allergic reaction.
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Your Touch Makes Others Invisible
2025-10-12 15:45
Q&A with director Rajee Samarasinghe!
YOUR TOUCH MAKES OTHERS INVISIBLE, directed by Rajee Samarasinghe, is a surreal and lyrical exploration of disappearances in a small post-war community in northern Sri Lanka, where memories of interactions between the Tamils and the Sinhalese linger.
Fusing allegorical magic realism and investigative documentary, and made collaboratively with impacted locals, the film is an examination of thousands of missing persons through 26 years of civil war in Sri Lanka. The nonfiction elements in this film are structured by a fictional narrative thread, which tells the tale of a mother who loses her son to a supernatural entity plaguing her community—a nod to the actual disappearances in the region.
Sinhalese filmmaker Samarasinghe’s feature debut is both a documentary about forced disappearances during the government’s war against the Tamil Tiger separatists, and a hushed, often nonverbal tone poem on the themes of mourning, trauma, and absence. The hybrid near-impressionistic film creates a shifting monument to memories, and is a stirring, staunch defiance of the inevitability of disavowed justice.
“25 New Faces of Independent Film, 2020” – Filmmaker Magazine
PREMIERE – International Film Festival Rotterdam, 2025
WINNER – Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival, 2025: collective New Cinema Award
SPECIAL JURY MENTION – Austin Asian American Film Festival, 2025: “Creative Vision”
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