Sanju Surendran’s Khidki Gaav follows live-in partners Sarah and Abhi as the South Delhi home that first shelters them becomes a source of pressure. Set in the Khidki Gaav neighbourhood, the predominantly Malayalam-language film uses ordinary domestic incidents to examine how city life, outside demands and shifting intimacy reshape a relationship.
What is Khidki Gaav about?
Sarah, played by Bhanu Priyamvada, is distant from a conservative, controlling family. Abhi, played by Roshan Abdul Rahoof, is trying to establish himself as an artist. Their apartment gives the couple a refuge from an alienating city and the pressures beyond its walls—but that privacy does not remain uncomplicated.
A suspicious, intrusive landlady and the couple’s friends Simon and Gopika, played by Jitheesh Raichel Samuel and Arathy KB, unsettle the household’s boundaries. Sarah’s domestic difficulties also follow her home. As incidents accumulate, the closeness that once offered protection begins to feel confining.
Director Sanju Surendran described the premise as an exploration of “contemporary relations in urban spaces.” The film’s episodic form reflects that approach: a chain of everyday events gradually adds strain, rather than relying on a single dramatic rupture.
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Why is the film set in Khidki Gaav?
Khidki Gaav is a South Delhi locality, and its actual character matters to the film’s sense of place. Surendran told Scroll that the neighbourhood’s name, narrow streets, fort, art galleries, library and reputation for relatively affordable housing for artists and students helped draw him to it.
He wanted to show people moving through an inhabited city rather than use Delhi as a picturesque backdrop. “I didn’t want a picture-postcard Delhi but a lived-in experience of the city,” he said. The film’s attention to ordinary destinations and crowded movement supports that aim. Surendran had not lived in Khidki Gaav, though he had spent time in neighbouring Gurgaon.
What inspired the story—and is it adapted from a book?
Surendran said the story draws partly on real-life incidents and partly on Musafir, the 1957 debut film of Hrishikesh Mukherjee. A friend, Rahul Pratap Singh, directed him to Musafir, whose story follows three groups of tenants who rent the same house. Surendran took from it the possibility of exploring relationships within a contained domestic space.
The English title, If On A Winter’s Night, refers to Italo Calvino’s novel If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler. Winter also parallels the cooling relationship. That title connection does not make Khidki Gaav a film adaptation of Calvino’s novel; the account of the film identifies the novel as the source of its English title.
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How do the performances and filmmaking shape the film?
Rekha Raj wrote the script, which Surendran described as detailed and nuanced. He said the actors met during the shoot and developed rapport as filming progressed. Rehearsed scenes also left room for improvisation, a process suited to a story built from lived-in exchanges and small changes in domestic routine.
Cinematographer Manesh Madhavan’s fluid camerawork captures the emotional claustrophobia of the apartment, while editor Praveen MK shaped the rhythm of an edit Surendran described as difficult. The result, as Surendran put it of the cinematography, is “tactile, very fluid, very beautiful”.
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How was the independent film made, and where did it premiere?
Surendran said it was difficult to mount the film as an independent art project, including finding a producer and settling on locations. Payal Kapadia, director of All We Imagine as Light, is identified as an executive producer. Surendran said he sent her a screener; after liking the film, she chose to support it. “Nobody thought that this film would get made – it’s a miracle,” he said.
The film premiered in the Vision – Asia section of the Busan International Film Festival, held September 17–26, 2025. That premiere information does not establish where the film is currently available to watch.
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