{"id":3758,"date":"2026-07-08T08:05:40","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T08:05:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=3758"},"modified":"2026-07-08T08:05:40","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T08:05:40","slug":"ghosts-grief-and-a-vanishing-highway-the-ink-stained-hand-and-the-missing-thumb-from-indias-yashasvi-juyal-arrives-at-karlovy-vary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=3758","title":{"rendered":"Ghosts, Grief and a Vanishing Highway: \u2018The Ink Stained Hand and the Missing Thumb,\u2019 From India\u2019s Yashasvi Juyal, Arrives at Karlovy Vary"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\nYashasvi Juyal did not pitch his way into filmmaking. He shot his way in.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe never went through the route of pitching from development,\u201d the Indian filmmaker says of \u201cThe Ink Stained Hand and the Missing Thumb,\u201d his debut feature, which premieres in the Proxima Competition at Karlovy Vary. \u201cWe shot the film and then we started pitching.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Netflix\u2019s Mexican Drama \u2018I\u2019m Not Afraid\u2019 Is a Gut-Wrenching Mystery and Exhilarating Coming-of-Age Tale: TV Review<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tThe film follows Rajji, a toll booth worker in North India, whose lover Santosh dies in a truck accident and returns 24 hours later as a spectral presence, drifting between memory and the disappearing world of the highway toll booth where they worked. For Juyal, the setup was not a genre exercise. It was reporting.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cGhost for us is something which exists. We don\u2019t believe that it\u2019s in stories,\u201d Juyal says of growing up in the upper Himalayas, where the film\u2019s supernatural register comes from. \u201cMany times we just talk about it naturally that, \u2018Oh, you saw a ghost yesterday?\u2019 My friend say, \u2018Oh, I saw day before yesterday.\u2019 So, it\u2019s like as common as that, and we all have had our experiences in the upper Himalayas.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat folklore has a specific source. \u201cIt\u2019s also a tribute to my grandmother,\u201d Juyal says, \u201cbecause my grandmother used to live in a village in the upper Himalayas, and she had this relation with the supernatural that she used to tell me very naturally.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film\u2019s central character is drawn from life. Juyal had interviewed real toll booth workers for a short documentary, and one of them, also named Santosh, was living with a girlfriend near the booth who was saving money for a physics degree while their relationship strained under the pressures of work and separation. Toll stations, Juyal notes, are also some of the most dangerous spots on India\u2019s highways, with accidents a near-constant occurrence. Running into the real Santosh again amid that backdrop, Juyal asked him if the danger scared him. \u201cI said that, \u2018You\u2019re still working here, are you not scared?’\u201d Juyal recalls. \u201cSo, he said that, \u2018I am not that, I have died and I am a ghost.’\u201d The joke became the seed of the film.<\/p>\n

\n\tBehind the ghost story is a more concrete anxiety: infrastructure. Juyal describes commuting constantly between Dehradun and Delhi as a new highway reshaped his hometown, and a real accident, a truck crashing into a booth near his house, left him watching workers tape up the structure \u201cas if it\u2019s a human being.\u201d The image of pre- and post-highway village life, and of his own family\u2019s generations-long migration from Karachi through the upper Himalayas to Dehradun, feeds directly into the film\u2019s sense of people caught in transit.<\/p>\n

Read more \u2018The Kitchen\u2019 Director Alonso Ruizpalacios at BAM: \u2018We Need More Trojan Horses\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tHumor runs alongside the grief, by design rather than accident in the edit. \u201cI strongly felt that humor is the most\u2026 strong tool to identify the character,\u201d Juyal says, adding that spending time with workers under a flyover during their off-hours, including while they drank, shaped the film\u2019s tone as much as its script did.<\/p>\n

\n\tInfluences arrived from outside India as much as within it. Juyal cites Apichatpong Weerasethakul for a shared interest in regional folklore and man-animal relationships, and experimental filmmaker Scott Barley for a way of building image and sound around abstraction rather than conventional narrative. Documentarian Shaunak Sen, who serves as executive producer on the film, offered a working model as much as mentorship. Sen\u2019s \u201cAll That Breathes\u201d was nominated for the 2023 Academy Award and won prizes at Cannes and Sundance, among more than two dozen other festivals. \u201cShaunak has always been this huge inspiration,\u201d Juyal says. \u201cIf they can do it then we should also try to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe funding came after the shoot, and in stages: a Take Ten grant from the Netflix Fund for Creative Equity got the production moving, a selection at the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum introduced the team to the Red Sea Fund, and a one-on-one mentorship with Spike Lee through the Red Sea Directors Program followed. The Red Sea Post-Production Fund came next, then the Prasad Lab DI Award for post-production at NFDC\u2019s Film Bazaar in Goa, and Visions Sud Est after Juyal\u2019s short documentary \u201cRains Don\u2019t Make Us Happy Anymore\u201d premiered at Visions du R\u00e9el. \u201cEverything fell into place by the end,\u201d Juyal says. \u201cThis film is a pure effort of just working till the end and developing and developing, and got the funding somehow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film stars Dheeraj Kumar as Santosh and Bhumika Dube as Rajji, and is produced by Vikas Kumar, Sharib Khan, Viraj Sikand, Bhavna Kankaria and Neha Kaul, a team whose recent credits include Anuparna Roy\u2019s Venice Horizons winner \u201cSongs of Forgotten Trees.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Dwayne Johnson Laughed \u2018So F\u2014ing Hard\u2019 When He Saw the Memes About His \u2018Moana\u2019 Wig: \u2018It Was Very, Very Funny\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

India’s Yashasvi Juyal on grief, ghosts and highways behind Karlovy Vary Proxima title ‘The Ink Stained Hand and the Missing Thumb.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3757,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1438,3084,3085],"class_list":["post-3758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","tag-karlovy-vary-film-festival-2","tag-the-ink-stained-hand-and-the-missing-thumb","tag-yashasvi-juyal"],"yoast_head":"\nGhosts, Grief and a Vanishing Highway: \u2018The Ink Stained Hand and the Missing Thumb,\u2019 From India\u2019s Yashasvi Juyal, Arrives at Karlovy Vary - Relocation Observer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=3758\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ghosts, Grief and a Vanishing Highway: \u2018The Ink Stained Hand and the Missing Thumb,\u2019 From India\u2019s Yashasvi Juyal, Arrives at Karlovy Vary - 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