Future East Film Unveils 2026-27 Slate Headlined by Vishwendra Singh's Busan-Bound 'Khoriya'
Future East Film has unveiled its 2026-27 production slate, led by Vishwendra Singh's debut feature Khoriya, which will have its world premiere at the 31st Busan International Film Festival in October (Variety).
Khoriya lands in Busan's A Window on Asian Cinema section, a showcase strand devoted to new Asian cinema. Shot in Nepali and Hindi, the film is set on the outer edge of Delhi NCR, where two Nepali half-brothers run a poultry farm that collapses after a bird flu outbreak. Niharika Singh, Faraz Khan and Prayas Deepti produce, with Ashim Ahluwalia serving as executive producer (Variety).
The story has deep roots. In the summer of 2019, Singh shot a documentary following migrant workers from Nepal and India's northeast living and working on Delhi's margins. That fieldwork became the foundation for Khoriya's scripted narrative. The project passed through the NFDC Waves Film Bazaar's 2025 Work in Progress Lab — an industry programme that supports Indian films in post-production — and received a post-production grant there (Variety).
Singh's connection to Future East runs several years back. Between 2016 and 2019, he was on staff at the company, assisting Ahluwalia across multiple titles. Khoriya is his first feature as director.
The slate carries three additional titles. Ahluwalia's own Unidentified Actress, an India-U.K.-Germany co-production currently shooting, centres on a documentary filmmaker tracking down a movie star who vanished decades earlier amid the film world and scandals of 1950s Bombay. Rayit Hashmat Qazi's Sawdust, set in Kashmir, follows a young cricketer trying to break free of his circumstances, pulled back by a troubled relationship with his father. And Heroic Frenzies, an India-Italy co-production, dramatises the real-life exploits of a 16th-century monk who defied the church, dabbled in the occult and fled across the continent before being caught by the Inquisition and burned at the stake (Variety).
What makes the slate worth noting is the spread. A migrant-labour drama rooted in documentary fieldwork, a 1950s Bombay mystery, a Kashmir coming-of-age story, and a 16th-century Inquisition biopic — four projects spanning four centuries and four production setups, all under one company's roof. Singh's leap from assisting on Ahluwalia's films to premiering his own debut at Busan closes a circle that began in that Delhi margins documentary seven years ago.
Busan's 31st edition runs in October. Khoriya screens in the A Window on Asian Cinema strand.
