Anjali Patil’s ‘Selvi’ heads to Busan with a story of migrant care workers

National Award-winning actor and producer Anjali Patil’s Selvi will be screened at the 31st Busan International Film Festival in October.

Set against the lives of home-care workers, the film examines care work through themes of migration, friendship, guilt, exhaustion and resilience. It follows women who leave their hometowns for work, caring for patients in unfamiliar homes while living in modest hostels away from their families.

The film was developed by writer Sailesh and cinematographer Bargav Sridhar, drawing from their experiences of watching home-care nurses look after Bargav’s mother during months of critical illness. Many of the caregivers were migrant women from smaller towns in Tamil Nadu.

Sailesh, who moved to Chennai from Coimbatore, also found the experiences of the women familiar to his own life as a migrant.

Patil said the project gave her an opportunity to pursue stories on her own terms and focus on people whose lives often remain outside the spotlight.

“Selvi became my way of reclaiming creative independence for stories that need patience to be told,” she said. “It’s a personal, intimate observation of the ordinary people in healthcare who spend their lives caring for others, even as their own lives quietly wither.”

Calling the Busan premiere a significant milestone, Patil said the team hoped to eventually bring the film back to the people whose experiences shaped it.

“Premiering at Busan is a milestone we’re incredibly proud of. We would be bringing Selvi back home, to the people to whom it truly belongs,” she said.

The film is co-produced by the Red Sea Fund, an initiative of the Red Sea International Film Festival, and has received support from Hong Kong Asia Film Financing.