Adh Chanani Raat

After 15 years in prison, for committing a murder to save his father’s honour, Modan returns to his village in Punjab. In his absence, the village’s power structure has shifted towards a landowner, to the detriment of his family. Worse still: his brother is the landowner’s lapdog.

Based on Gurdial Singh’s eponymous Crescent Night, this is the third part in Gurvinder Singh’s trilogy about patriarchal, hierarchic life in rural Punjab – after Alms for the Blind Horse (IFFR 2012) and The Fourth Direction (IFFR 2016). Here, Modan tries to restart his life. He repairs the family home, cares for his elderly mother, and finds love with a widow who has a young child. Yet, the past continues to affect this new life, and violence seems like the only a solution.