Kartikeya Saxena | Czechia, India | 2026 | 27 mins. | Czech, English, Hindi | Asia Premiere | Filmmaker attending
Far away from home, an Indian filmmaker calls his zoologist mother from Prague Zoo, describing captive animals: a camera-shy gorilla, an insomniac anaconda, and penguins haunted by their own shadows. As their dialogue unfolds, the space between human and animal dissolves, prompting his mother to confront a long-held belief.
Kartikeya Saxena
Kartikeya Saxena is a Prague-based Indian cinematographer and director from Rajasthan. Working across fiction and non-fiction, his films form mosaics of sound and imagery exploring memory, ecology, architecture, and postcolonial landscapes.
Producer: Kartikeya Saxena and Tomáš Šimon
Writer: Kartikeya Saxena, Rashmi Saxena
Cinematographer: Ya Ching Yang
Editor: Shawrya Kumar
Sound: Devraj Bhaumilk
