At the Self-Discovery: Rediscovering India Festival 2026, led by Neville Tuli, emerging filmmakers engaged in powerful intergenerational conversations with Saeed Mirza and Dibakar Banerjee, exploring creative integrity, social responsibility, and the courage to create meaningful, honest cinema.

For two days in February, within the thoughtful, idea-rich environment created by the Tuli Research Centre for India Studies, something rare unfolded. Young filmmakers and established auteurs sat across from one another not as hierarchies but as fellow travellers. What emerged from the Self-Discovery: Rediscovering India Festival 2026 was not merely a set of screenings and discussions, but a reaffirmation of cinema as a moral, intellectual and deeply personal act.

Led by Neville Tuli, the festival formed part of a larger, multidisciplinary programme spanning exhibitions, lectures, film screenings, curriculum-building initiatives and conversations across the arts. The intention was clear: to locate cinema within the broader cultural and intellectual history of India and to explore its social responsibility.  

Within this expansive framework, the intergenerational conversations—held in collaboration with the Waterfront Indie Film Festival—became a crucial space for dialogue between emerging filmmakers and mentors Saeed Akhtar Mirza, Dibakar Banerjee and Gurvinder Singh.

Cinema as a Sacred, Honest Practice

Across the two days of screenings and discussions, one idea surfaced repeatedly: filmmaking is a sacred act rooted in honesty. For many of the young filmmakers, this was not rhetoric but revelation.

Kabeer Khurana described the experience as “mind-expanding,” recalling how conversations with Saeed Mirza, Dibakar Banerjee, Gurvinder Singh and Neville Tuli circled around a central truth—filmmakers must trust the intelligence of their audiences. Making films merely to please or to fit into market expectations, they argued, underestimates viewers and diminishes the art form. Respect lies in integrity.

These conversations urged young directors to see themselves not as content producers but as auteurs—individual voices with a responsibility to cultivate a worldview and express it with courage. It was, as Khurana reflected, “two beautiful days of dialogue, doubt and defiance.”

Simar Singh echoed this sentiment, noting the rare pleasure of presenting work in a space where storytelling was not just screened but deeply analysed. For Sivaranjini, whose debut feature Victoria was part of the screenings, the discussions on social responsibility and artistic identity were both inspiring and grounding. Jalpan Nanavati and Vidar Joshi spoke of the privilege of engaging with mentors whose journeys have shaped contemporary Indian cinema and of how these dialogues helped address the internal battles young filmmakers inevitably face.

The Screenings: A Tapestry of Voices

The films screened during the programme reflected an astonishing range of themes, forms and concerns—each rooted in personal vision yet resonant with broader social realities.

Divya Kharnare’s P for Paparazzi followed a Nepali photographer navigating Mumbai’s celebrity culture while grappling with moral dilemmas and personal hardship. Sivaranjini’s Victoria explored faith, desire and identity through the story of a young beautician in Kerala confronting familial and religious expectations. Simar Singh’s Karel & Arnost offered a quiet meditation on regret and inherited dreams through the life of an elderly railway worker.

Jalpan Nanavati’s Death Walks into a Bar unfolded as an intimate philosophical encounter between a bartender and Death, while Vidar Joshi’s experimental And the Sun Said drew from Plato’s Allegory of the Cave to examine patriarchy and obedience within domestic space. Kabeer Khurana’s Marottichal traced the transformation of a Kerala village through chess, replacing alcoholism with collective imagination and discipline.

These screenings, followed by intense discussions, allowed each filmmaker to reflect not only on craft but on the ethical and philosophical dimensions of storytelling. The question guiding the mentorship sessions—“Is there any significant space for social responsibility within the creative artistic spirit?”—remained central throughout.  

The Mentors and Their Legacy

The presence of Saeed Akhtar Mirza and Dibakar Banerjee gave the conversations both historical depth and contemporary urgency. Mirza, delivering the Khwaja Ahmad Abbas Memorial Trust Lecture and participating in panels and screenings, spoke of cinema as an instrument of social engagement and personal truth.  

His reflections on Khwaja Ahmad Abbas—writer, filmmaker and chronicler of India’s moral complexities—offered a lineage of socially conscious filmmaking that continues to shape Indian cinema. The dialogue between Amit Khanna and Mirza along with Neville Tuli was riveting.

Dibakar Banerjee’s sessions ranged from examining his own two-decade cinematic journey to conversations on creative freedom and the philosophy of expression. His dialogue with Neville Tuli, titled “There are no lines to be drawn,” explored the evolving nature of rights and freedoms in artistic practice.

For young filmmakers, these interactions bridged generations—not as nostalgia but as continuity. The mentors did not prescribe formulas; they invited introspection.

A Festival of Context and Continuity

The Self-Discovery programme extended beyond cinema to include exhibitions of modern and contemporary Indian art, archival explorations of figures such as Chittaprosad and Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, and academic presentations on the history of Bombay cinema and the fine arts market.  

By situating filmmaking within this broader cultural landscape, Neville Tuli and the Tuli Research Centre stressed a key principle: cinema cannot be isolated from the artistic, social and intellectual currents that shape it. It must be studied, preserved and practised as part of a larger continuum of Indian thought and creativity. 

Carrying the Dialogue Forward

As the young filmmakers returned to their respective cities and projects, they carried with them more than feedback on their films. They carried a renewed sense of purpose.

The intergenerational conversations at the Self-Discovery: Rediscovering India Festival did not offer easy answers. Instead, they opened doors—to doubt, to courage, to self-examination. In a time when cinema risks being reduced to content and algorithms, the festival reaffirmed a more enduring truth: filmmaking, at its best, is an act of conscience.

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