Yashasvi Juyal’s debut feature, The Ink-Stained Hand and The Missing Thumb, situates itself between a yearning-infused wait and lingering tentativeness preceding a transition. Premiering at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival 2026 in Proxima Competition, Juyal’s film wields unearthly bewilderment with a grounded touch. Something bizarre happens early in the film, which Juyal handles credibly, playfully and also despairingly. It’s this tonal oscillation in response to an incredible event that makes this film metaphysically slippery and a tragicomic jewel.

Santosh (Dheeraj Kumar) and Rajji (Bhumike Dube) are co-workers and lovers. They manage toll booths on a North Indian highway. There’s ample time to kill as their night shifts drag on; in between, one nudges the other for a glance or mild chatter. Their booths are on the same stretch. There have been differences between the couple regarding bracing for the near future. Conversation is suddenly halted one night when a truck crashes into Santosh’s booth. The explosion isn’t depicted but Dube’s face registers the jolt, the devastation surging in. Bereaved, Rajji isolates herself in her room. Grief is a peculiar thing, warping memory and imagination into projections.

A surreal twist ensues. Resurrected, Santosh washes up on a river bank. But he’s dressed unlike himself. Is it him? Something in him has dislodged. Santosh’s uncanny return is startling until it enmeshes into the natural. There’s puzzled shock, disbelief, amusement, an impulse to vest him with divine proof. Questions swing into probing him about the day’s gap between his death and re-emergence. Where was he? Can he share what afterlife, though brief, was like? Those initially stunned gradually accept his return matter-of-factly. Life intervenes with its demands before people can continue wallowing in hesitance. Juyal seizes onto the absurdity with delicious abandon. Several emotional notes are struck in the return’s wake: mischief, resentment, grudging and everything rushing forth just as fine without Santosh. For some, his death also leads to opportunities.

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Indian independent cinema’s impressive global streak continues with Yashasvi Juyal’s The Ink-Stained Hand & The Missing Thumb, a formally rigorous and intricate love-loss-longing mesh.

Juyal’s debut feature will be premiered at the ongoing Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the competition section. Juyal’s previous short films include The Last Rhododendron and Rains Don’t Make Us Happy Anymore.

The Ink-Stained Hand & The Missing Thumb takes place in a town called Nagina. It’s 2003, a time in which time itself moves slowly and to a different beat.

The lovers Santosh (Dheeraj Kumar) and Rajji (Bhumika Dube) work at a highway toll booth, avidly consume a television science programme anchored by Professor Pluto (Sudarshan Juyal) and contemplate their future. Rajji has barely recovered from Santosh’s sudden death when he turns up at her doorstep.

Is the revenant a ghost with unfinished business, a grief-stricken Rajji’s waking dream, or a symbol of the creeping urbanisation that is altering their surroundings?

The experiences of Santosh, Rajji and others in the town unfold within boxy, intimate compositions created by the 4:3 shooting ratio. The cinematography, editing, colour palette and production design all evoke a world that is real in its texture but magical in its possibilities.

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