Kirti Kulhari’s first feature as a producer, Kinaare, premieres at the Dharamshala International Film Festival on Friday, October 30. Directed by Akbar and Azam Qadri, the film is produced under Kulhari’s banner Kintsukuroi Films with co-producers Abhishek Koka and Maansi Guptey. Kulhari plays the lead, Amina, while Rajeev Siddhartha, Alka Amin and Ravi Taneja fill out the principal cast.
The story follows Amina, a single woman who has spent her life caring for ageing parents and their home. Her routine is unsettled when a cousin brother visits after fifteen years. The title’s festival premiere is effectively the film’s first public test.
A small shoot with a clear discipline
Kinaare wrapped in January 2026 after a shoot that lasted 18 days and used a single camera. Kulhari told Bollywood Hungama that the conditions forced the team to be “extremely well-prepared.” With no room to find scenes on set, every shot had to be worked out in advance.
That constraint, she said, became a production principle rather than a compromise. A bigger budget can absorb mistakes; a single camera cannot. The lesson she draws is that preparation is a strength to hold onto even when resources change.
- Eighteen days, one camera: every scene had to be locked on paper before the crew reached the set.
- Camera and direction aligned: Kulhari credits this alignment for saving time and money.
- Preparation travels: she plans to keep the same discipline on larger budgets.
Producing and performing at once
Kulhari said she would ideally have preferred to stay behind the camera for her first production, but the script and the character arrived together, and she did not want to choose one over the other. Acting, she said, is comfortable enough that once she settled into Amina she could turn her attention to the performances around her.
The banner’s name is a statement of intent. Kintsukuroi is the Japanese term for mending broken pottery with gold; for Kulhari, cinema is the gold that can mend hearts and minds.
What the festival run signals
For an industry that often measures scale by shooting days and star price, Kinaare is a useful counter-note: a known actor using a lean production and a festival premiere to test a story before betting on a conventional theatrical slot. The 18-day single-camera shoot is not just production trivia; it is an economic model for actor-led independent Hindi cinema.
The festival route also gives the film time to find its identity. Kulhari was at Dharamshala last year with Full Plate; this year she returns with her own project, both as actor and producer.
The road after Dharamshala
There is no fixed distribution plan yet. Kinaare is currently being sold, and Kulhari says the independent route carries both freedom and uncertainty. Her preference is a digital release that can find the film’s audience, though nothing has been decided. For now, the premiere is the destination.
Source: bollywoodHungama.com
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