Strand Releasing acquires North American rights to Sundance winner ‘Sabar Bonda’-OxBig News Network

A still from ‘Sabar Bonda’.
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Strand Releasing has acquired all North American rights to Rohan Parashuram Kanawade’s Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears) in New York at its appearance at New Directors/New Films this week. The film, which had its world premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, is the first Marathi language film to premiere at the festival. It won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize for a Dramatic Film.

The film follows Anand, a young city dweller who returns to his family’s countryside home upon his father’s demise. Anand must confront his family about being unmarried. He finds solace with a farmer who shares his situation.

The deal was done between Jon Gerrans of Strand Releasing and one of the film producers, Neeraj Churi of Lotus Visual Productions. Sabar Bonda is also selected to screen at the upcoming San Francisco International Film Festival and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival, as well as others around the world.

“We’re beyond thrilled to have Sabar Bonda join the Strand Releasing family for North America. Their passion for heartfelt, boundary-pushing stories mirrors our own, and their distinguished history of distributing Oscar-nominated films and official submissions for the Best International Feature Film category underscores their commitment to exceptional cinema,” said the producers of the film in a joint statement.

“The feeling of knowing that a film so personal and special to us will be experienced by audiences worldwide is beyond words. When my producers and I set out to make this film, we had no idea what the future held for us, but we were hopeful.

ALSO READ:Rohan Kanawade on Sundance win: Recognition for ‘Sabar Bonda’ is a victory for Marathi cinema

Strand Releasing has long been a champion of art house and queer cinema, bringing the works of filmmakers I deeply admire—like Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Céline Sciamma—to audiences. Having them come on board to distribute Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears) in North America is one of the best things to happen after the Sundance win,” said Kanawade.

Strand plans for an active festival roll out for the film prior to a theatrical release this fall. Sabar Bonda is an India, UK, Canada co-production with Neeraj Churi, Mohamed Khaki, Kaushik Ray, Naren Chandavarkar and Sidharth Meer as producers. Jim Sarbh is the co-producer and Ilann Gigard is the executive producer.