Lovers in the Blue Night was the solo Indian feature which premiered at the Venice Film Festival this year. It had its world premiere in the Orizzonti slate, marking director Anuparna Roy’s second consecutive year at the festival after 2025’s Songs of Forgotten Trees, for which she won Best Director. Now, Lovers in the Blue Night has won the NETPAC award for Best Asian Film at Venice.
(Also read: Interview | Anuparna Roy: ‘I am working on a prequel to Songs of Forgotten Trees’)
‘A little surreal’
Anuparna shared the winning news on her Instagram account, with the caption, “A little surreal, a lot of gratitude. ✨
From an independent set to Venice , carrying a story, a dream, and the quiet belief that it was always worth creating. 7 minutes of a standing ovation. A lifetime of gratitude. My Team 🥹🫂❤️. A moment I’ll carry with me for a very long time. Thank you, Venice, for reminding me why we create to dream, to tell stories, and to be seen.”
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About the jury statement
The NETPAC jury recognised the film for the sensitive portrayal of marginalised lives in Mumbai, describing it as a “delicately sensitive vision of the intersecting lives of migrant workers” and praising Roy’s “confident voice” and the film’s “cohesively nuanced” exploration of displacement, urban survival, hidden desire, gender, poverty and class.
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The film is set in Mumbai and is backed by Vikas Kumar, Sharib Khan, Bibhanshu Rai and Romil Modi.
It competed with 14 other titles that included names such as La Ragazza con la Leica, The Burning Giants, What Belongs to Others, Falling House, The Difficult Bride and Until the Day Ends among others.
Roy said she is grateful for the recognition. “Winning the NETPAC Award means a lot to me because this film comes from a very personal place. These are characters and lives that are often pushed to the margins,” she said in a statement.
“I wanted to approach them with tenderness, dignity and honesty. To receive this recognition at Venice, a year after my debut was awarded here, is deeply moving. I’m grateful the film has found a space with the audience and jury,” she added.
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Vikas Kumar, producer, Khan and Kumar Media, said Roy made the film with “remarkable emotional and cinematic confidence”. “An award like this is deeply meaningful because it recognises not just a film, but the sensitivity, courage, and conviction. ‘Lovers in the Blue Night’ asks us to look closely at lives that are often pushed to the margins, and to recognise the humanity, desire, and dignity within them,” he said. Neeraj Churi, Beesham A Seecharan, and Navin Shetty serve as co-producers in the film.
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