Anand, a call-center employee in Mumbai, is forced to spend ten days at his ancestral village to mourn the loss of his father at the behest of his mother, Suman. As the mourning period begins post-cremation, he faces subtle but relentless badgering from relatives to get married. Anand finds himself stifled, as coming out to extended family could alienate his mother from the relatives when she needs them the most.

He finds solace in his childhood friend, Balya, as he accompanies him on his daily outings into the mountains to herd goats. Balya has been using the “educated girls favoring city-dwellers over farmers” as a ruse to stay unmarried as he undergoes similar pressures relating to his sexuality from his family. To escape their pressures, the two men spend time together. Hailing from different worlds but bound by childhood memories, they connect over their common struggle.

Rohan Parashuram Kanawade comes from a humble background, raised in a one-room house in a Mumbai slum by a chauffeur father and homemaker mother. He is a self-made filmmaker with a background in interior design. His shorts have been screened globally. U FOR USHA won the prestigious Satyajit Ray Short Film Award at London Indian Film Festival 2019. His first feature CACTUS PEARS was developed in Venice Biennale College Cinema 2022/2023.

Filmography: 2013 LONELY WALL, 2016 SUNDAR, 2017 KHIDKEE, 2019 U FOR USHA (all short films), 2025 CACTUS PEARS

Awards (selection): Grand Jury Prize (Nashville Film Festival, USA 2025), Premio Maguey (Guadalajara International Film Festival, Mexico 2025), Grand Jury Prize (Sundance Film Festival, USA 2025)

Nominated for the Amnesty International Wiesbaden Film Award for Best Film about Human Rights. A three-member expert jury will decide the winner of this competition.