Tenfa

30 Mins | 2026 | India, USA No restriction

Australian premiere

In Kinnaur, in the Western Himalayas, hydroelectric dams have caused rivers to dry up, precipitating the erosion of both land and knowledge. A midwife teams up with an 85-year-old grandmother and her teenage granddaughter, to recall a traditional song in an endangered language, mentioning an endangered Indigenous herb, that can help save a pregnant mother's life. Tenfa is a thriller structured like a folk song, and is an ode to how oral storytelling can save lives.

This film is also screening under the Indian Indigenous Cinema section.

Cast: Gangari Chho Negi, Himanshu Negi, Leela Negi, Savita Negi, Shreya Negi

Director: Nihaarika Negi

Nihaarika Negi is a part-Indigenous, award-winning, interdisciplinary artist working across film, theatre, and XR. Her work draws on folklore and magical realism to explore fragile landscapes and the body as a site of memory, rupture, and healing. Negi directed her debut feature Labours Of (An)Other Solipsist in 2019. Her film writing credits include The Threshold (2014) and The Housemaids (2019). A Berlinale Talents alumnus, she holds an MA in Theatre Practice from the University of Exeter and an MFA from USC's School of Cinematic Arts. Her XR project A City of Foxes (2021) was supported by Venice Film Festival's Gap-Financing Market and IFF Rotterdam's CineMart. Negi is currently developing Feral, a post-colonial psychological horror-thriller set in 1950s India.

Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles 2026