BIDEHA – dir. Biyot Projna Tripathy

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: BIDEHA

Director’s Name: Biyot Projna Tripathy

Writer’s Name: Biyot Projna Tripathy

Producer: Biyot Projna Tripathy

Country of Origin: India

Country of Filming : India

Language: Odia

Runtime: 2 hours 11 minutes 30 seconds

Film Description:

On the day of her daughter’s wedding, Iti, a poised yet emotionally restrained middle-aged woman, finds herself confronting a quiet void. With the most of the guests gone, the house finally silent, she steps into her daughter’s empty room to open the wedding gifts her daughter had refused to take. There, she is joined by an unexpected guest—her husband’s elder brother’s schoolmate, a man of undeniable charm and social stature, though whispered about for his past affairs.

What begins as a courteous exchange soon shifts into something charged and unsettling. He confesses that he wants to have a child—with her. Calm, deliberate, and startlingly sincere, his proposal strikes at the very core of Iti’s emotional world. Initially horrified and confused, she is thrust back into memories of a long-buried affair—a moment in her past when she had tasted love, or what she thought was love, outside the bounds of her arranged marriage. That relationship had once seemed like a lifeline, but now she is forced to reevaluate: was it truly emotional, or simply physical? Had she ever really been seen?

The man’s request becomes a catalyst for a deeper confrontation—with her past, with her present, and with the woman she might have been. Though she tries to push him away, the night draws them closer—not through seduction, but through a strange, shared vulnerability. They are not lovers in the romantic sense, but two emotionally displaced souls seeking to be known, if only for a moment.

Do they make love out of passion or from a mutual hunger to reclaim something lost?

By morning, he is gone.

In the days that follow, Iti resumes her daily life—spent among her three closest friends, in conversations and routines. But something is shifting. She suspects she may be pregnant. The possibility frightens her, yet it sparks an unspoken thrill. Could she truly carry within her something of her own—untainted by duty or expectation? She confides in her friend Sulekha.

She finally shares heri suspicion with her daughter and her husband. To her surprise, they respond with warmth and acceptance. Her daughter smiles at the idea of a sibling; her husband, perhaps unaware of the truth, quietly welcomes the possibility. For the first time in years, Iti begins to consider a future shaped by her own choices.

The child she dreams of,a boy, is named Bideha—a name given to her by the man that night. Bideha is more than a baby. Bideha becomes a symbol of Iti’s deepest yearning: for love,for a son, for identity, for the chance to create something born from her own will. She becomes both a memory and a future.

Bideha is a haunting and lyrical exploration of womanhood, aging, and emotional reawakening. It unravels the fragile threads between guilt and desire, memory and illusion, betrayal and rebirth. Through one night of raw vulnerability, a woman discovers the cost—and the necessity—of choosing herself.

A single night that unravels a lifetime… and plants the seed of another.