Vimukt (In Search of the Sky) Wins NETPAC Award at TIFF 2025

Jitank Singh Gurjar’s debut feature Vimukt (In Search of the Sky) has won the prestigious NETPAC Award at the 50th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). The award, presented by the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema, honours. outstanding films from Asia and the Pacific regions.

Vimukt is a Braj-language independent drama that was the only Indian film in the Centrepiece section at TIFF. The film follows a poverty-stricken couple in rural Central India who travel to the Maha Kumbh with their 26-year-old son with intellectual disabilities. The cast features theatre actors Nikhil Yadav, Meghan Agrawal and Raghavendra Bhadoriya.

Gurjar said the award recognized the “unheard voices that inspired this film.” “Winning the NETPAC Award at TIFF is not just a personal milestone, but a recognition of the countless unheard voices that inspired this film. I am humbled and grateful to the jury for believing in our story and to my writer and producer Pooja for believing in me. Also, my cinematographer Shelly Sharma who contributed significantly in bringing this film to life,” the filmmaker said.

Debutante producer Pooja Vishal Sharma said the team is overjoyed with receiving the honour. “This award reaffirms my belief of backing stories that are raw, real, and transformative. ‘Vimukt’ was a labour of love, and it is incredibly rewarding to see it connect with the world at such a prestigious platform,” she said.

In its review of Vimukt (In Search of The Sky), The Hollywood Reporter India observed, “Gurjar has an assured, humane directing style, and there is some striking image-making in the sequences of Naraan (Nikhil Yadav) in freefall, adrift in a swirl of light and night,” adding, “That said, this is often a staid, consciously ‘indie’ film, and [we] hope that, in future works, Gurjar manages to shake the formalness that seems to stiffen his style.”