Mumbai, 9th November 2025

Instituted at the 46th International Film Festival of India, the ICFT-UNESCO Gandhi Medal is an international honor presented in collaboration with the ICFT Paris under the aegis of UNESCO. The honor is given to an excellent film which promotes peace and inter-cultural dialogue, and honors Mahatma Gandhi's vision of non-violence and peace.

This year’s 10 notable films will be judged by an esteemed Jury panel comprising of Dr. Ahmed Bedjaoui, Film and Television Director-Producer and the Artistic Director of the International Film Festival of Algiers (Jury Chairperson); Xueyan Hun, Vice-President of the International Council for Film, Television and Audiovisual Communication (CICT-ICFT) and Director of the Platform for Creativity and Innovation (PCI); Serge Michel, Vice-President of UNICA (Union Internationale du Cinéma); Tobias Biancone, Former Director-General of the International Theatre Institute (ITI); and Georges Dupont, Director-General of the International Council for Film, Television and Audiovisual Communication (CICT-ICFT), former Senior International Civil Servant at UNESCO.

 

Brides

Playwright and filmmaker Nadia Falls’s debut drama Brides premiered at the Sundance Film Festival 2025, where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize in the World Cinema (Dramatic) category.

The film follows the journey of two British-Muslim teenaged girls who run away from their troubled lives to find belonging away from their broken homes. However, they have to confront what they’ve left behind before they can come to terms with where they’re going.

The film is a gripping yet humane take, away from sensationalism, on the issue of radicalisation, youth identity, belonging, faith, and choice in an increasingly polarised world.

 

Safe House (Original Title – Før mørket)

Norwegian writer and filmmaker Eirik Svensson, from the new generation of Norwegian filmmakers, brings his latest civil war drama Safe House. The film had its World Premiere as the Opening Feature of the 48th Göteborg Film Festival 2025, where it won the Audience Dragon Award (Best Nordic Film).

Inspired by true events, the film is set over 15 harrowing hours inside a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Bangui during the 2013 civil war in the Central African Republic. Though driven by tense, real-time drama, Safe House stays rooted in the ethics of care, courage, and humanity under siege.

 

Hana

Award-winning Kosovan filmmaker Ujkan Hysaj’s debut feature Hana makes its World Premiere at the 56th International Film Festival of India 2025.

The film follows an actress who joins an art-therapy program at a women’s rehabilitation center in Kosovo, helping war survivors transform pain into expression — until their stories trigger her own buried trauma and fractured identity.

Hana is a deeply affecting exploration of memory, healing, and the power of art to confront wounds that history refuses to silence.

 

K Poper

Iranian actor and screenwriter Ebrahim Amini makes his directorial debut with K Poper, which screened at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival 2025.

The film follows an Iranian teenage girl obsessed with a K-pop idol, determined to travel to Seoul both to watch him perform and compete in a contest she has already qualified for. Her mother’s firm refusal sets off a tender yet tense clash of dreams, fears, and generational values.

Told with warmth and restraint, K Poper examines youth aspiration, parasocial relationships, parental anxiety, and the widening distance between what we long for and what we are allowed.

 

The President's Cake (Original Title – Mamlaket Al-Qasab)

Iraqi writer, filmmaker, and teacher Hasan Hadi makes his directorial debut with The President’s Cake. The film had its World Premiere at the Directors' Fortnight section of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the section's Audience Award and the Caméra d'Or. It was selected as the Iraqi entry for Best International Feature Film at the 98th Academy Awards.

Set in 1990s Iraq, the film follows 9-year-old Lamia, who must bake the President's birthday cake. In times of political unrest, as people struggle daily to survive under UN food sanctions, she scrambles to find ingredients for this compulsory task while facing potential punishment if she fails.

Through the recurring motif of hunger, the film exposes the stark vulnerability of children caught in war and political turmoil. What begins as a simple quest for flour becomes a haunting allegory for deprivation — of food, safety, and the right to a childhood.

 

The Wave (Original Title – La Ola)

One of the leading filmmakers of Chilean cinema, Sebastián Lelio, brings The Wave, his first musical drama film. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival 2025.

Loosely inspired by the 2018 Chilean feminist protests and strikes, the film follows Julia, a university student, who wrestles with the realities of a recent sexual assault within the context of the burgeoning movement.

Lelio stages an audacious fusion of musical form and political urgency — using choreography, chorus, and cathartic performance to turn collective rage into electrifying cinematic spectacle.

 

Yakushima’s Illusion (Original Title – L'Illusion de Yakushima)

Acclaimed Japanese auteur Naomi Kawase teams up with Luxembourgish-German actor Vicky Krieps for this existential drama, which premiered at the Locarno Film Festival 2025, where it was nominated for the Golden Leopard.

A French transplant coordinator in Japan works to save a boy's life while searching for her missing partner, who becomes one of the country's thousands of annual 'Johatsu' — people who vanish without trace.

In trademark Kawase fashion, the film unfolds as a profound meditation on mortality, abandonment, and the invisible threads that bind human lives.

 

Tanvi the Great

After asuccessful theatrical run, actor and director Anupam Kher’s celebrated directorial venture Tanvi the Great marks its IFFI premiere.

Tanvi Raina, a woman with autism, learns of her deceased Indian Army father's dream to salute the flag at Siachen Glacier. Despite barriers facing those with autism in military service, she resolves to complete her mission.

Through Tanvi’s journey, the film shows that courage, heart, and determination define true heroes.

 

White Snow

National Award-winning filmmaker and previous ICFT-UNESCO Gandhi Medal winner Praveen Morchhale’s latest feature film White Snow is an Urdu-language drama. The project was also shortlisted for the 21st Hong Kong–Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF) grant.

Amir, a young filmmaker, has his film banned by a religious leader in the mountain region after its first screening, simply for depicting postpartum blood — a natural moment absurdly deemed socially disruptive. Seeing no hope, his mother, Fatima, risks her life to carry a small TV and DVD player on a yak, traveling to remote villages to fulfill Amir’s artistic dream.

The film is a sharp critique of suppression and patriarchal control.

 

Vimukt (English Title – In Search of the Sky)

Jitank Singh Gurjar’s sensitive feature drama premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and won the prestigious NETPAC Award, marking his strong signature as a contemporary independent filmmaker.

A Braj-language Indian film, it follows a poverty-stricken elderly couple who take their son with intellectual disabilities on a pilgrimage to the Maha Kumbh festival hoping for a cure.

It explores themes of faith, desperation, resilience, and the social stigma surrounding disability.

***

Edgar Coelho/Parshuram Kor

 

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