Issued: 06/Jun/2026, Holly Wood Reporter India. Online. New Delhi, India.
Writer-director Yashasvi Juyal’s debut feature The Ink Stained Hand & The Missing Thumb is set to world premiere in the Proxima Competition at the 60th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, with Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Shaunak Sen joining the project as an executive producer.
Sen, whose documentary All That Breathes made history with major wins at the Cannes and Sundance film destivals before earning Oscar and BAFTA nominations, said The Ink Stained Hand & The Missing Thumb has a “temporal rhythm unlike any recent film.”
The film unfolds within a remote toll booth station in north India, where a community of migrant workers navigate the quiet rhythms of labour, migration and waiting. Following the death of her lover in a tragic accident, Rajji finds herself haunted by traces of his return, blurring the boundaries between grief and reality.
“Its austere spareness, while also being whimsical, playful and funny, felt like its own unique language. I am thrilled to be associated with what feels like an original voice, and an uncompromising film,” Sen said.
Drawing from the folklore, landscapes and migration histories of Uttarakhand, the film combines elements of romance, magical realism and social observation to chronicle a disappearing world and the people left behind by it.
The Ink Stained Hand & The Missing Thumb is presented by Ammi Media and produced by Silvercord Films and Khan & Kumar Media in association with 39/6 and Kite Rabbit Films.
Speaking about the film’s World Premiere, Juyal stated that the feature is a “dreamlike reflection on a Himalayan town transformed by a highway and a toll booth.”
