Critics Campus 2025 participant Parth Rahatekar speaks to Cactus Pears writer/director Rohan Parashuram Kanawade about cultural specificity, silence in film and the importance of going beyond the ‘queer cinema’ label.

Twin mango trees cast shadows over two lovers, a bird trills, and a mother and son hold each other through grief. In Rohan Parashuram Kanawade’s Cactus Pears, rural Maharashtra is painted with a lingering tenderness. The village is a site of return for Mumbai call centre worker Anand (Bhushaan Manoj) following the death of his father. There, he reunites with farmhand Balya (Suraaj Suman), a “special friend” from his childhood. After screening as the first Marathi-language film to premiere at Sundance, Cactus Pears went on to win the Grand Jury Prize in the festival’s World Cinema Dramatic Competition.

I speak to the self-taught filmmaker about developing the film’s characters, working with memory and his thoughts on queer cinema.

How did you approach the characterisation for this film – particularly that of Balya?

Things like characterisation are not necessarily part of my process. When I started making films, everything was intuitive, and it’s still the same. When I was thinking about the story, I thought of the people I’m writing about, and my experiences. They are inspired by the lives and social realities of people around me – my cousins, the people in our village I used to frequently visit from Mumbai. For example, farmers back home are having trouble getting married, apparently. The people in our village are inherently sweet. These are parts of what I borrowed from for Balya.

Can you talk a little bit about the dynamic between mother and son?

The relationship between Anand and his mum is partly inspired by my partner’s relationship with his mum. We lost her to cancer a year ago, but I remember travelling to Allahabad with him and his mother for a 12-day trip, and seeing their very talkative and affectionate dynamic. I don’t share that with my mother, but this film allowed me to create characters and moments that I could not experience in my life.

The use of sound in Cactus Pears is very interesting – it’s almost as if the silence is a narrator. Could you elaborate on this choice?

I wanted to create a portrait of the time I was in the village, grieving my father. I was only listening to nature and silence at that time. I decided I didn’t want any background music then. I only used the sounds of nature to give the movie a layered soundscape. I knew this would give a soft and tender quality to this film.

Which movies served as your inspirations?

To be honest, no movies inspired me to make this film. When I was pitching it for funding, I was asked to send some references, but I couldn’t find any. A Maharashtrian village; these rituals; two Indian boys holding hands, being intimate; the movie being a sad story but with such tenderness – [this] was really not enough. So I had to photograph these things when I went for recces on my own. I will say, watching some world cinema gave me a perspective on how I did want to treat this movie. I didn’t want it to be quintessentially Bollywood or Hollywood, but I did get inspired to push myself past them.

Cactus Pears

There’s a lot of specific cultural rituals in the film. Do you feel like you had to write with an international audience in mind?

Not necessarily. I don’t want to assume that any of my audience understands everything. Our audiences are no longer bound to India, so I wanted to work around that. This is a very specific culture and place I’m taking them to – even in India, rituals and cultures change every 20 kilometres. I wanted everyone watching to feel like they were a part of this film. I wanted them to understand that the rituals are also in place to help with coping with loss.

Has the film reached the village it was made in? If so, how have its residents responded to it?

We haven’t shown it to the villagers yet. It’s a bit complicated in India because we need censor clearance. We don’t want to risk anything as yet – to complicate a film’s future before it has a chance. But I will say, we screened my previous film [U for Usha, 2019], which talks about a single mother discovering her queerness, as well. The schoolteacher from the village was very moved. He asked us to bring that film to the village. I think stories like these require tact. We need to get audiences on board with how you tell that story. People understand what you are conveying. Let’s see!

What’s your relationship with the term ‘queer cinema’?

A lot of people who watch [Cactus Pears] walk away feeling that it isn’t just a queer film. It is beyond just queerness. And that’s what I want to do – to depict my queer characters as fully formed people. I don’t ever want to create movies that centre the struggle around coming out or a tragic ending. Queer people don’t need to be fed the narrative that their life is doomed because they’re queer. I think only then will the movies push the needle.

If budgets and hurdles were not a concern, what would your dream project look like?

I’m actually putting more restrictions on myself. Look at Iranian cinema – it had to rise above restrictions and censorship to create stories that were so powerful. I think, sometimes, limitations enable us to create stories that stand out. I would like to have a budget to get the production quality to a certain level, but I have a few directions and treatments in mind already.

Cactus Pears screened as part of the MIFF 2025 program.

The above has been written as part of MIFF’s Critics Campus program. The opinion expressed is the author’s and does not necessarily reflect that of the festival.