Mumbai: Filmmaker Anuparna Roy’s Lovers in the Blue Night has won the NETPAC Award for Best Asian Film at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival, adding another major international honour to her growing filmography.
The Mumbai-set film competed in the Orizzonti Competition, Venice’s second-most important section, alongside 14 other films, including La Ragazza con la Leica, The Burning Giants, What Belongs to Others, Falling House, The Difficult Bride and Until the Day Ends.
The film follows Karim, his wife Ameena, small-time criminal Sukka and Ameena’s co-worker Omran as they navigate love, marriage, desire and belonging in Mumbai.
Roy said the award was deeply meaningful because the film comes from a personal place and focuses on lives often pushed to the margins. She said she wanted to portray its characters with “tenderness, dignity and honesty”.
The NETPAC jury praised the film’s sensitive portrayal of migrant workers and marginalised communities, highlighting Roy’s “confident voice” and its exploration of displacement, urban survival, hidden desire, gender, poverty and class.
The honour comes a year after Roy won the Orizzonti Best Director award for her debut Songs of Forgotten Trees in 2025. The film, produced by Vikas Kumar, Sharib Khan, Bibhanshu Rai and Romil Modi, will also screen at the Busan International Film Festival.
