The trailer of Vinod Kapri’s Pyre hasn’t just found an audience — it has found champions. Filmmaker Vishal Bhardwaj, actor Manoj Bajpayee and actor Ayushmann Khurrana have all taken to social media to praise the upcoming drama, with Bajpayee urging his followers to watch it, Bhardwaj calling it a beautiful film he is waiting to see, and Khurrana describing the trailer as beautiful and wishing the team well.
Their enthusiasm is easy to understand. Set in Uttarakhand’s Kumaon Himalayas, Pyre tells the quiet, aching story of an elderly couple — Padam Singh and Tulsi — whose children have moved away, leaving them to face ageing, illness and loneliness together. The film stars 80-year-old Padam Singh Kapri and 70-year-old Heera Devi, two residents of Uttarakhand who had never faced a camera before this project, and examines the emotional cost of migration: the emptiness left behind when a village’s young leave for the cities.
Pyre is produced by Kapri alongside Arindra Rai Chaudhuri and Suresh Joshi, with lyrics by Gulzar and a score by Oscar winner Mychael Danna and Saar Singhal. After a celebrated run on the international festival circuit — 18 awards, including 15 Best Film honours — the film arrives in Indian cinemas on October 30 in Hindi and Malayalam, distributed by Cinépolis. With endorsements like these, the little film about waiting may finally be about to have its moment.
