CANNES 2026 REVIEW: ELEPHANTS IN THE FOG

The Elephant in the Room – and Beyond: Saibal Chatterjee reviews Elephants in the Fog, Abinash Bikram Shah’s Cannes-selected Nepali debut exploring the Kinnar community, social prejudice, survival, love, and identity against the looming metaphor of displaced wild elephants and human apathy. 

In his directorial debut Elephants in the Fog, acclaimed Nepali screenwriter Abinash Bikram Shah zeroes in on the Kinnar community in a village on the edge of southern Nepal forest. Like the woods and the farmland around it, which are under threat from rampaging wild elephants whose habitat has been indiscriminately whittled away, the transwomen have to reckon with a precarious existence.

Shah, who won a Special Jury Mention for his 2022 short film Lori in Cannes Film Festival, crafts an incisive tale that maps the contradictions of the Kinnar community’s dichotomous relationship with the society on the fringes of which they exist and fulfil a range of ritualistic responsibilities.

The compelling drama, the first-ever Nepali feature to make it to the Cannes Film Festival’s official selection (it is up for an award in Un Certain Regard), converts a familiar tale of a disappearance into a sharp probe into the prejudices and ruptures that the transsexual community encounters both within and outside of their close-knit sorority. 

Nepal’s Emerging Presence on the Global Festival Circuit 

Shah is no stranger to international film festivals. Min Bahadur Bham’s Sambhala (2024) competed for the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, the first Nepali film ever to earn the honour at any of the Big Three European festivals, Cannes and Venice being the other two.

The transwomen whose quandaries Elephants in the Fog explores have significantly deep roots in the socio-religious practices of both Hindus and Muslims. Members of the Kinnar community are summoned by people to bless newly-weds and newborns as well as perform rites aimed at warding off evil spirits. But when misfortune befalls this group that is believed to be in possession of divine powers, they find themselves bereft of a support system.

Pirati’s Fight for Dignity

That is indeed the plight of Pirati (Pushpa Thing Lama, a longtime kinnar rights activist in her first film role), a matriarch to a bunch of younger women she treats as her own daughters. Her home is their safe space. When trouble erupts and passions are inflamed, they have nowhere to turn for refuge.

Among Pirati’s ‘daughters’ is Apsara (Aziz Ghimire), who has an unreciprocated affair with an autorickshaw driver, MJ (Dura Sanjay Gupta). Pirati herself is in love with the drummer (Aashant Sharma) who accompanies the kinnar women to perform ritual performances in and around the village.

She puts her exalted status in the community at risk by flouting her vow of chastity and planning to escape to Delhi with her lover and start a new life. Her desire for a break from her past runs into a hurdle. Apsara goes missing and Pirati resolves to find her ‘daughter’ before she leaves the community and passes the baton to a new matriarch identified by the Guru Mata (Umesha Pandey).

A Script Rooted in Empathy and Realism

Shah’s script is impressively solid. Every little flank of the exploited yet ostracized group is woven into the disturbing and empathic portrait the director creates. Lama’s central performance as the feisty, strong-willed Kinnar matriarch lends the film authenticity and heft in ways that alternate between drama and restraint. Not a line she utters nor an expression she makes is off-key.

The predicament that Pirati is in isn’t unlike the difficulties that hound the wild pachyderms driven to desperate measures by the steady shrinkage of the forest cover. The villagers organize night patrols to keep the people and their homes safe.

Pirati and her community participate in the vigil but when the matriarch vows to search for Apsara and goes from pillar to post in order to get to the bottom of the mystery of Apsara’s disappearance, she finds herself and her sorority not only isolated but also deliberately stonewalled.

In an absolutely believable and affecting portrait of a group of people pushed to the wall when neither the villagers that they serve nor the police personnel charged with investigating the disappearance are of any help.

Human Cruelty Beyond the Wild

The wild elephants are an obvious yet not in-your-face metaphor for the dangers that lurk around Pirati and her ilk, women who are exploited but rarely accorded the dignity that they deserve for the role that they perform.

Like it is in the case of the mighty creatures of the forest who endanger lives and livelihoods when they go on the run through the woods, the only option that Pirati can fall back on is to fight against the apathy and contempt that are heaped upon them. It is an unequal battle but she is far too tenacious to let the villagers trample over her even when her defences are breached.

The danger that they face from the elephants is eventually nothing compared to the threats that the human population around them poses. Shah builds up Pirati’s despair to a dramatic crescendo and then stages a phenomenally rousing sequence – a cinematic heave-ho that elevates Elephants in the Fog to a level of its own.

The culmination is befitting of a film that knows exactly where it is coming from and where it is going. Elephants in the Fog is a debut that we will not forget in a hurry.  

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