Anu
2023 · 14m · New Zealand
Directed by Pulkit Arora
Genres: drama
Tones: contemplative, darkly comic, melancholic
A recently widowed Indian woman arrives in New Zealand to see her son but is forced into mandatory COVID hotel quarantine, where she improvises a sacred Hindu funerary ritual using hotel amenities—takeout rice, creamer cups, and marigolds cut from a brochure—while following a YouTube tutorial.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Widow trapped in COVID hotel quarantine improvising a Hindu funeral rite from creamer cups and brochure marigolds, following a YouTube priest. Two words of dialogue. This is the kind of small, very strange, very precise idea I came here for.
Arora rendering a sacred Hindu funerary ritual through hotel-room substitutes and a YouTube tutorial — a recently widowed Indian woman improvising sanctity under COVID quarantine, with only two spoken words. NZIFF Audience Award; this is the Lulu Wang specificity at fourteen-minute scale.
The protagonist speaks two words across the entire film while improvising a sacred Hindu funerary ritual from takeout rice and creamer cups, following a YouTube priest cheerfully asking for likes — that's an exquisite premise where the formal restraint and the cultural specificity earn each other. 13:39 MUBI premiere.
Reviews
Prabha Ravi expertly portrays Anu's sorrow, desperation, and resilience with barely any dialogue.
A very appealing direction positions the film among the finest pandemic-era short films.
Festivals
- New Zealand International Film Festival 2023, Audience Award
- New Zealand International Film Festival 2023, Creative New Zealand Emerging Talent Award
- Melbourne International Film Festival 2023
- Kaohsiung Film Festival 2023
- Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles 2023