Kino Lorber has acquired the US distribution rights to director Ajitpal Singh’s debut feature film, Fire in the Mountains.
The deal was announced at the European Film Market, at the ongoing Berlin Film Festival. Kino Lorber will open Fire in the Mountains at Film Forum in New York. This will be followed by a wider theatrical rollout in US and Canada, as well as OTT and home video releases.
The film is yet to get a release in India. A source, who wished to remain anonymous, told Silverscreen India that Fire in the Mountains was supposed to have its Indian premiere at the Mumbai Film Festival (MAMI) in October 2021. However, with the festival pushed to March 2022, and only tentative dates being allotted for it so far, given the COVID-19 situation, the fate of the film’s Indian premiere is unclear.
Fire in the Mountains had premiered at the 2021 edition of the Sundance Film Festival, in the World Dramatic Competition.
It features actors Vinamrata Rai, Chandan Bisht, Harshita Tiwari, and Mayank Singh Jaira, and is about a wife who struggles to save money so that she can take her wheelchair-bound son for physiotherapy, even as her husband believes that a shamanic ritual (Jaagar) is the remedy.
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In an earlier conversation with Silverscreen India, the director shared that the film was drawn from personal experience. “In 2018, my cousin Amarjeet Kaur died because her husband did not take her to the hospital when she was ill as he believed she was possessed by a ghost. She was actually suffering from typhoid. She was the first graduate in my father’s side of the family and she inspired many of us to pursue studies. I was attached to her and her sudden passing left me angry and baffled. How could something like this happen in 21st century India? I knew that she would not have made the same choice her husband did,” Singh said.
“I started to wonder why women, even though they contribute equally in the household, are not allowed to have an equal voice when it comes to making big decisions. One question led to another and eventually resulted in Fire in the Mountains,” he added.
Speaking to Variety about Kino Lorber’s acquisition of his film, Singh, who has also directed the SonyLIV series Tabbar, said, “The film has travelled to more than 30 festivals and won 13 awards since its Sundance premiere, yet I have never seen it on a big screen with an audience. I hope to finally do so with the theatrical release of the film.”