Elephants in the Fog

This Cannes Un Certain Regard Jury Prize–winning thriller set among a Nepalese third-gender community sees one matriarch choosing between duty and love.

On the fringes of the village of Thori, near a forest inhabited by wild elephants, live a community of Kinnar women united by a vow of chastity. They often perform sacred rites for the villagers, but their third-gender status brings both reverence and ridicule. One of the Kinnar matriarchs, Pirati, has fallen for a local man and dreams of eloping with him to Delhi. But when her adoptive daughter Apsara disappears and the townsfolk refuse to help, she’s faced with an impossible decision.

Receiving a seven-minute standing ovation at Cannes, Elephants in the Fog is the first Nepali feature ever selected for the festival’s Un Certain Regard section, where it won the Jury Prize. The feature directorial debut of Shambhala (MIFF 2024) and The Black Hen (MIFF 2016) co-writer Abinash Bikram Shah, it’s at once a riveting crime saga and a robust dramatisation of threats to trans rights across South Asia. Real-world LGBTQIA+ activist Puspa Thing Lama embodies Pirati’s defiant fortitude with an authenticity born of lived experience, while the on-location cinematography by Noé Bach (Animalia, MIFF 2023) permeates proceedings with an otherworldly, almost menacing air.

Content: Melbourne International Film Festival