Independent Indian filmmaker Anuparna Roy, whose first film won a top prize at the Venice Film Festival last year, said that it had been blocked by censors and would not be shown in her home country.
Songs of Forgotten Trees from Roy, just 28, picked up the best director prize in the secondary Horizons section of the festival in 2025 and she is back in the Italian city this week with a follow-up. But her joy at returning to one of the world’s most prestigious film events has been tempered by a decision from India’s powerful film board to block distribution of her first feature.
“A few days back, they called us and they said that it’s a ‘threat to society’. Can you believe that Songs of Forgotten Trees is a threat to society?” Roy said. “I am terribly upset about the censorship,” she said, adding: “I represented the country here, I won for the country.” Songs of Forgotten Trees is a tender story about friendship, featuring two migrant women who share an apartment in Mumbai, one a part-time sex worker, the other a call centre employee.
The film’s difficulties mirror those of the more overtly political Santosh, by British-Indian director Sandhya Suri, which won critical acclaim after premiering at the Cannes Film Festival in France in 2024, only to fall foul of censors.
