Indian filmmaker Nidhi Saxena’s directorial debut “Sad Letters of an Imaginary Woman” has unveiled a first trailer and poster ahead of its world premiere at the 29th Busan International Film Festival this October. The film will screen in the “A Window on Asian Cinema” section.
The trailer offers a glimpse into a poignant world where memory and reality intertwine. Set in a dilapidated ancestral home, the film follows Nidhi, a middle-aged woman, and her ageing mother, Meera, as they grapple with deep-rooted trauma and unfulfilled lives.
Saxena, who previously received Busan’s Asian Cinema Fund in the post-production category, describes the project as deeply personal. “It feels as if I’ve laid down all my defenses, standing bare, exposed before the world, consciously choosing to embrace both vulnerability and courage,” she said. “The trailer and poster capture the suffocating loneliness and the feeling of being trapped – echoes running through this story’s heart. It’s about women bound by memory, lost in the past. In India, so many women carry this silence, and I hope the film speaks to them in ways that feel intimate and true.”
The film is produced by Nila Madhab Panda, Ajender Chawla, and Sri Lanka’s Vimukthi Jayasundara, who won the Caméra d’Or at Cannes for “The Forsaken Land.” Jayasundara praised the project’s bold approach: “Bringing ‘Sad Letters by an Imaginary Woman’ to life has been a fantastic journey, with every frame filled with embracing boldness and experimentation. It is deeply personal and the kind of pure, uncompromising cinema that I stand for. This is what I call ‘pure cinema’, it challenges the norms and dares to be different. It is not an easy path, but that’s what makes this experience so thrilling. I am proud to back such a unique and powerful story.”
The Busan International Film Festival takes place in Busan, South Korea, Oct. 2-11.
Watch the trailer here:
Poster by Jahan Singh Bakshi