"Our grandparents are from West Punjab, which is now Pakistan. But we have grown up in Delhi and have never really known Punjab, except for what we read in books or saw in films,” says director and cinematographer Shashank Walia about his and editor and co-producer Reema Kaur’s backgrounds. Their Punjabi-language feature Birds in the Dark (Hanere De Panchi), which will have its World Premiere in the Vision section at the 31st Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) this month, grew out of their extensive travels through the state.

A grant for a documentary on Punjabi folk music in 2015-16 first got them journeying across Punjab’s Majha, Malwa, and Doaba regions looking for folk artistes. It was during these trips that they found the people who would become a part of Walia’s debut film. “It’s a people’s film,” he insists, “The landscape is explored through its people — their hopes, ambitions, histories, and struggles.”