Yashasvi Juyal’s debut feature The Ink Stained Hand & The Missing Thumb will world premiere in the Proxima Competition at the 60th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, with Oscar-nominated All That Breathes director Shaunak Sen joining as executive producer. The film blends grief, migration and magical realism in a disappearing Himalayan world.
Writer-director Yashasvi Juyal’s debut feature The Ink Stained Hand & The Missing Thumb is set to world premiere in the Proxima Competition at the 60th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, with Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Shaunak Sen joining the project as an executive producer.
Sen, whose documentary All That Breathes made history with major wins at the Cannes and Sundance film destivals before earning Oscar and BAFTA nominations, said The Ink Stained Hand & The Missing Thumb has a "temporal rhythm unlike any recent film."
The film unfolds within a remote toll booth station in north India, where a community of migrant workers navigate the quiet rhythms of labour, migration and waiting. Following the death of her lover in a tragic accident, Rajji finds herself haunted by traces of his return, blurring the boundaries between grief and reality.
"Its austere spareness, while also being whimsical, playful and funny, felt like its own unique language. I am thrilled to be associated with what feels like an original voice, and an uncompromising film," Sen said.
Drawing from the folklore, landscapes and migration histories of Uttarakhand, the film combines elements of romance, magical realism and social observation to chronicle a disappearing world and the people left behind by it.
The Ink Stained Hand & The Missing Thumb is presented by Ammi Media and produced by Silvercord Films and Khan & Kumar Media in association with 39/6 and Kite Rabbit Films.
Speaking about the film's World Premiere, Juyal stated that the feature is a "dreamlike reflection on a Himalayan town transformed by a highway and a toll booth."
"Blending local folklore with memory and longing, it explores how migration reshapes our relationship with home, and how certain places and people can feel suspended between past and present. Having Shaunak support the film has been deeply meaningful. Beyond his remarkable achievements as a filmmaker, I have always admired the creative ecosystem he helped build in Delhi, which felt closely aligned with what we were trying to nurture in Dehradun," the filmmaker added.
Juyal said he has long admired Karlovy Vary International Film Festival for its commitment to discovering new cinematic voices and for providing a platform to auteurs and master filmmakers at pivotal moments in their journeys, from Joachim Trier, Lars von Trier to Asghar Farhadi and many others.
Produced by Viraj Sikand, Sharib Khan and Vikas Kumar (Songs of Forgotten Trees), Bhavna Kankaria and Neha Kaul (Sabar Bonda, Shadowbox, Stolen), The Ink Stained Hand & The Missing Thumb is an India-USA-Saudi Arabia co-production. The film is co-produced by the Red Sea Fund and supported by Visions Sud Est, Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum and Netflix's Take Ten initiative.