If ants in Vivek Shanbaug’s novel indicate infiltration, control and impending violence ghachar-ghachar (2015), in Shishir Jha’s Santhali documentary on uranium-mining in Jharkhand, turtle under the earth (2022), Ants talk about displacement of tribal villagers. in your early 20sth In the turn-of-the-century Expressionist painting of the same name, Salvador Dali depicts giant ants gnawing on uprooted ears of wheat. Surrealism meets reality to reveal deeper meanings connected to Dalí’s own personal fears and desires. The word migrant is ant. Always on the move, driven by a purpose. Roaming in a colony, it symbolizes hard work, diligence, resilience, knowledge, foresight and cooperation. Also, to create, displace, reroute, and rebuild lives in worlds.
In his second Tamil feature, shot in the cinéma-vérite style, theater (2025), Puducherry native Nishanth Kalidindi draws on the symbolism of ants taking over land abandoned by humans – Indianostrum Theater was “evicted” from their White Town location last year. He says, “Whenever I went to Indianostrum, I saw ants as often as I saw artists. Theater artists may lose their place but no one can take the ants away.” theater It had its world premiere at the prestigious International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) in February and is set to have its Asian premiere at the Indian Cinema Now segment at the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK), Thiruvananthapuram in mid-December.
Kalidindi has been a friend of the Indianostrum theater group for some time. “It’s been a long association and seeing their lifestyle made me think about how these theater artists live their lives,” he says. The filmmaker has also produced the debut film of the group’s founder, Franco-Tamilian Koumrane Valvane. A former member of Paris’ avant-garde Théâtre du Soleil, Valvane was most famously seen playing the eponymous hero of Arun Karthik’s award-winning Tamil indie. Nasser (2020). The Auroville region of Puducherry had already adopted Mumbai’s Veenapani Chawla’s Adishakti performance-research-based theater laboratory in 1993, and in 2007 came Valvane’s Indianostrum Theater – both experimental and physical theatre; But while the former is rooted in techniques and Indian traditional mythological folk forms Kalaripayattu, Theyyametc., subsequent intercultural and socio-political theater borrows from Western dramaturgy and Tamil folk storytelling traditions.
A scene from the ‘theatre’. , Photo Credit: Barycenter Films
Comments based on Kalidindi wall become impressionistic theatre, In which Das, a cattle farmer who aspires to become a stage actor, works with a liberal, cosmopolitan theater troupe. What Alfred Hitchcock said was that all actors should be treated like cattle, Cattle Slaves seem to have the most importance of this. The image on the poster of the film is not of the hero Das but of a cow. He and his actor-colleagues are treated no better by their angry, foul-mouthed director. When the director’s tantrums expose buried resentments among the group members, the play they have been rehearsing threatens to fall apart.
If this film were about a person it would be very moody and tumultuous. Kalidindi also brings narrative dissonance to his style, cutting in and out of dialogue, across tone, mood, landscape and languages, creating a mix of disparate audio and visuals. He says, “Technically, the approach here was to embrace aberrations such as shots moving in and out of focus. The same approach was brought to sound design and editing. That’s why I opted to crop out certain details of certain shots, rather than taking an entirely new shot each time.”
A scene from the film ‘Theatre’. Photo Credit: Barycenter Films
A scene from the film ‘Theatre’. Photo Credit: Barycenter Films
This second feature is quite different from his debut Kadsila Biryani (2021), a Tamil revenge-themed black comedy, narrated by Vijay Sethupathi and available on Netflix. His first film was a mix of masala and indie, comedy and violence super deluxe“we finished Kadsila Biryani And it was moved around for three years before it saw the light of day,” says the director, for whom Rotterdam was the first time he had sent a film to a festival.
Director Nishant Kalidindi Photo Credit: Barycenter Films
goes to the cinema theater
Men practicing for literal theater and drama is a recurring theme in Malayalam indie films in recent years. From chavittu (2022) by Rahman Brothers Shinos and Sajas, for National Award winner Anand Ekarshi attam (2023). And, was it because a movie by that name already existed theater IFFK does not select Malayalam filmmaker Sajin Babu’s Reema Kallingal-starrer in its line-up Theatre: Myth of Reality (2025)?
A scene from the film ‘Theatre’. Photo Credit: Barycenter Films
Unlike others, Kalidindi’s theater Not making any direct social commentary. ,theater This is the incident in my life when I was observing Indianostrum. For me personally, this film is a reflection of that period of my life. The actors that I observed and selected for the film literally lived and slept in this particular theater while working on their plays. I just wanted to explore their lives, and it mainly happened around this place,” he says.
character arc
A in the movie Malkhamb (ancient martial art) The performer shares the stage with a circus clown – one a traditional Indian form and the other a borrowed Western form – like the troupe’s intercultural performers shown. Is theater a democratic, classless, casteless and raceless space for people like Das? “My intention is not to make social commentary,” says Kalidindi, “but only to peek into the confluence of diverse artists in this region, a very positive and beautiful synergistic environment.”
A scene from the film ‘Theatre’. Photo Credit: Barycenter Films
A scene from the film ‘Theatre’. Photo Credit: Barycenter Films
In both his films, the protagonist is a caring, gentle man who has a certain vision/dream for himself, and who can be violent when necessary. We are involved in their lives and yet emotionally distant. “I am definitely attracted towards interesting characters, people who are very normal on the outside but may have very different psychological turmoil inside them. I am constantly looking for the opportunity to study such people through my films. And yes, avoiding melodrama in any of my work is definitely a very conscious choice,” says Kalidindi, who is working on his next feature film, which could be a period piece, British Administrator. An Indo-French film based on the times of Joseph-François Dupleix. India. Traditionally, independent producers rarely participate in a film, or invest in the same filmmaker a second time, for myriad reasons. However, this next project will also be co-produced by Bengaluru-based Thanikachalam SA Barycenter FilmsWho says, “But theaterI have had the best experience of director-producer collaboration.
Supporting indies: a contradictory approach
“India produces more than 200 indie features,” says Thanikachalam, an alumnus of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune. Everyone Year. But we only hear about about 30 movies (a generous estimate). What about the other 170 films, most of which are debuts? And in these 200 films there are less than 20 repeat-producers. When he says that there is no need for co-production at all, he presents a contradictory view. “In my experience, it’s best not to have many domestic production companies on indie films. But funding to complete a film becomes a necessity, because we have a poor model of support in India for indie cinema – which is no support at all,” he adds.
Thanikachalam co-produced theater Kalidindi with its production house Maestros and Panoramas, including art director Neil Sebastian, composer and sound designer Vinoth Thanigasalam and co-cinematographer Hestin Jose Joseph. He evolved from becoming a screenwriter and creative head at a production house to starting his own indie production company, “making exactly the kind of movies that no one else is doing.” He has also supported liberal films like Maisam Ali in retreat (2024), which was India’s first selection in the Sidebar ACID segment of the Cannes Film Festival. Ali is also the batchmate of FTII alumnus and Cannes Grand Prix winner Payal Kapadia. “I am still a cinephile who enjoys artistic and independent cinema and now participate in them more closely as a stakeholder,” says Thanikachalam.
Co-producer Thanikachalam SA, who runs Barycentre Films. Photo Credit: Barycenter Films
After several debut films, he is currently co-producing the 15th feature film of “living legend” National Award winning Kannada director Girish Kasaravalli. sky and cat“We’re still putting all the pieces of the financing puzzle together on this,” he says, adding that start-up millionaires can pursue independent films – something famed Iranian director Jafar Panahi dedicated his 2025 Gotham Award win to, it was just an accidentFor all independent filmmakers. And, Thanikachalam quips, “We need accountability – we just have to take a look at (the recent International Film Festival of India) IFFI’s Indian Panorama section and IFFI’s programming to see how arbitrary it was. As it is with national awards that resemble the (populist) Filmfare Awards.”
Talks are currently being finalized and the film is likely to release in theaters in early 2026.
The theater will have its premiere at IFFK on December 13 (New 1 Theater at 11:45 am), followed by two more shows on December 16 (Kalabhavan at 6:15 pm) and December 17 (Kairali at 9 am).
