New Delhi: Filmmaker Anuparna Roy’s film Lovers in the Blue Night received the NETPAC Award for Best Asian Film at the Venice Film Festival.
The Orizzonti title marks Roy’s second consecutive Venice award, following her Best Director win for her debut feature Songs of Forgotten Trees in 2025, according to a press release.
The NETPAC jury recognised the film for the sensitive portrayal of marginalised lives in Mumbai, describing it as a “delicately sensitive vision of the intersecting lives of migrant workers” and praising Roy’s “confident voice” and the film’s “cohesively nuanced” exploration of displacement, urban survival, hidden desire, gender, poverty and class.
Roy said she is grateful for the recognition. “Winning the NETPAC Award means a lot to me because this film comes from a very personal place. These are characters and lives that are often pushed to the margins,” she said in a statement.
“I wanted to approach them with tenderness, dignity and honesty. To receive this recognition at Venice, a year after my debut was awarded here, is deeply moving. I’m grateful the film has found a space with the audience and jury,” she added.
The film is set in Mumbai and is backed by Vikas Kumar, Sharib Khan, Bibhanshu Rai and Romil Modi. Orizzonti Competition is the second most important competition segment at the festival after Spotlight.
It competed with 14 other titles that included names such as La Ragazza con la Leica, The Burning Giants, What Belongs to Others, Falling House, The Difficult Bride and Until the Day Ends among others.
Vikas Kumar, producer, Khan and Kumar Media, said Roy made the film with “remarkable emotional and cinematic confidence”.
“An award like this is deeply meaningful because it recognises not just a film, but the sensitivity, courage, and conviction. ‘Lovers in the Blue Night’ asks us to look closely at lives that are often pushed to the margins, and to recognise the humanity, desire, and dignity within them,” he said.
Neeraj Churi, Beesham A Seecharan, and Navin Shetty serve as co-producers in the film.
PTI
