In a tranquil room in Cannes, Abinash Bikram Shah stood on stage with his entire cast and spoke about making the invisible visible. Behind him lay a feature debut that had just made history: Elephants in the Fog, the first film ever from Nepal to win at the Cannes Film Festival, claiming the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at the 79th edition of the world's most prestigious gathering of cinema.
The recognition marks a watershed moment for Nepali cinema on the global stage. For decades, the country's filmmakers have worked on the margins of international recognition, and Shah's film does something more: it centers the actual margins—the lives of transgender women in the Kinnar community living on the edges of their society. Set in Thori, a forested village in Nepal's southern Terai plains, the narrative follows Pirati, the matriarch of this community, as she grapples with a profound tension between her own longing for freedom and her duty to those who depend on her. When one of her daughters vanishes, Pirati must choose between pursuing her dream of escaping to be with the man she loves and investigating her daughter's disappearance, anchoring her to her community and its needs.
What makes this story particularly striking is how Shah positions it not as an outsider's examination but as an intimate portrait. The ensemble cast—Pushpa Thing, Deepika Yadav, Jasmine Bishwakarma, Shanti Giri, Gauri Malla, Maotse Gurung, Sanjay Gupta Dura, Mahima Nawabag and Akanksha Karki—brings authentic presence to these characters. In accepting the award, Shah did not speak of artistic achievement in abstract terms. Instead, he spoke directly about erasure and visibility. "For so long, the lives of Pirati and her daughters, the communities and all the persons, who are in the East, have been kept invisible. By bringing our story here and by recognising it with this award, we have pulled those margins into the light."
Shah's journey to this moment has been deliberate and layered. In 2019, his short film Lori earned a Special Mention at Cannes' 75th edition, becoming the first Nepali short to receive that honor. His screenwriting credits span Kalo Pothi, Highway, and Tatini, all of which found their way onto international festival circuits. But Elephants in the Fog represents something different—it is his first feature, and it arrives with a weight of purpose that extends beyond individual recognition.
The production itself reflects a collaborative spirit that crosses continents. While Underground Talkies Nepal and Jayanthi Creations led production from Nepal, the film emerged as a co-production involving partners from France, Germany, Brazil and Norway, suggesting how stories rooted in specific places can become genuinely international endeavors. The Un Certain Regard section, which runs parallel to the main Palme d'Or competition, exists precisely to champion emerging voices and distinctive storytelling that might otherwise remain confined to regional circuits.
For Nepal's film industry, already home to rich traditions of storytelling, this victory opens a door. It signals that global audiences and festival gatekeepers are ready to see Nepali cinema not as a curiosity but as a vital and necessary voice. And for the Kinnar community whose stories Shah has told, visibility at Cannes becomes visibility everywhere—a testament to the power of cinema to pull margins into light.