Cinef programme of the 79th Cannes Film Festival

FILM AND TELEVISION INSTITUTE OF INDIA 

The Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune is pleased to share that a student film produced by the Institute has been officially selected for the La Cinef programme of the 79th Cannes Film Festival, scheduled to be held from May 12 to May 23, 2026, in Cannes, France.

The selected film, Shadows of The Moonless Nights, is directed by Mehar Malhotra, a 2020 batch student of the Post Graduate Diploma in Direction and Screenplay Writing. The film follows a night factory worker grappling with exhaustion and the invisible toll of sleepless urban labour.

La Cinef is a prestigious section of the Cannes Film Festival dedicated to student films from leading film schools worldwide. Selection in this section is considered a significant international recognition for emerging filmmakers.

This marks the fifth FTII student film to be represented at La Cinef since 2017, reaffirming the Institute’s continued presence on the globally respected cinematic platform.

About the Film

Title: Shadows of The Moonless Nights 

Film Language: Punjabi, Hindi, Marathi

Log Line/ Oneliner :Rajan, a weary night factory worker, endures grueling shifts and a volatile home life, drifting through sleepless nights in the city as he tries to reclaim the rest that always seems just out of reach. 

Short Synopsis: Rajan works nights in a busy Pune warehouse, taping boxes while dodging his supervisor's sharp whistle. Exhausted, he returns at dawn to sister Anju's small flat, shared with her husband, daughter, and niece. Constant noise, cooking, alarms, kids, keep him awake. After trying alcohol like his coworker to steal sleep, he comes home drunk, sparking family tension. Ashamed, he wanders pre-dawn streets past sleeping guards and the homeless, mirroring his sleeplessness. A bus drifts him to a coastal village, waves echoing his inner turmoil. Back at work, he cuts his hand badly and gets sent home. Dazed, he slumps on a hospital bench—an absurd sanctuary where rest comes not from escape but collapse. 

Director's Note: “I wanted to make Shadows of the Moonless Nights because Rajan’s story felt like one we all carry but rarely name: the bone-deep fatigue of surviving a city that runs on sleeplessness. I approach Rajan not simply as a character, but as a vessel through which we explore the invisible wounds of contemporary India and the human spirit’s fragile endurance under relentless pressure. As a child I have watched my Maasi (aunt) vanish into night shifts at a call centre to make ends meet, returning hollow-eyed to a home too small for privacy, her body paying a quiet toll no one acknowledged. Rajan became my way to ask what does it cost to keep going when rest is a luxury you can’t afford? He’s not a hero or a victim, just a young man packing boxes under flickering lights, dodging his sister’s worry, and stumbling through pre-dawn streets with strangers who mirror his unraveling. The film stays simple, rooted in the everyday: long, steady shots of packing boxes and crumpled tape capture the grind’s monotony, with handheld chaos only in the drunken fight at home. Cool, desaturated tones choke the factory scenes, warming slightly in fleeting street encounters under sodium lamps reflecting in puddles—a nod to life persisting amid isolation. The city around rajan has been shot in an almost vérité realism style. Sound carries the weight: the tape and boxes screech relentlessly, household clamor invades silence, dialogue stays sparse—unfinished words, loaded glances—inviting you to feel what Rajan can’t voice. His insomnia haunts every frame, tightening until the hospital bench, bathed in soft sunlight, offers absurd relief amid groans and flies. In that final drift into sleep, the film doesn’t resolve but reveals: rest comes not from escape, but collapse. I hope audiences leave unsettled, recognizing their own exhaustion in Rajan’s, and questioning the systems that demand we endure without pause.” 

Crew Members Details: