Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
Sabar Bonda: Whispers of Grief
Sometimes grief is loud. Sometimes it speaks in whispers. In Cactus Pears (Sabar Bonda, Marathi), writer-director Rohan Parashuram Kanawade gives us the latter — a quiet elegy to loss, love, and the hidden lives we carry within. The film begins in mourning, but it unfolds into something more profound: a patient exploration of what it means to return home — and to oneself.
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The film was screened at the recently concluded 3rd i’s 23rd Annual San Francisco International South Asian Film Festival. Cactus Pears had its world premiere at the World Cinema Competition of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival in January, winning the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic. A co-production between India, the UK and Canada, Sabar Bonda was the only Indian title at the festival this year and the first Marathi film to win at Sundance.
With support from filmmakers Mira Nair and Payal Kapadia (All We Imagine As Light), Sabar Bonda is scheduled to release in the U.S. on November 21.
A man with secrets
The story opens with Anand (Bhushaan Manoj) and his mother Suman (Jayshri Jagtap) receiving the news of a death. Their father and husband has passed away, and the pair leave Mumbai for the countryside, where ancestral rituals await. Kanawade leans deeply into the rituals: the 10-day funeral rites, the omens, the unspoken expectations placed upon a man whose life has diverged from the family script.
As the village moves through the rhythms of mourning — collective prayers, muted glances, communal duty — Anand’s inner tension grows. He is not merely a son returning. He is a man with secrets. His relationship with his childhood friend Balya (Suraaj Suman) becomes the film’s quiet heartbeat: a connection reawakened, one that asks for tenderness even when the world demands conformity.
There is no grand betrayal or melodramatic revelation in Cactus Pears. The tension is internal, societal. It is born of silence — the silence of traditions that smother difference, of love that must hide to survive. In those spaces, Kanawade finds poetry. He offers lingering shots of dust in sunlight, of fields at dawn, of hands that almost touch. Every gesture carries both restraint and longing.
Solid, restrained performances
Bhushaan Manoj delivers a delicate, deeply felt performance. Anand’s grief, guilt, and yearning coexist, sometimes colliding, sometimes murmuring to each other. Jayshri Jagtap’s portrayal of Suman is a marvel of quiet strength — a mother who sees what she cannot name. Suraaj Suman’s Balya, with his mix of warmth and world-weariness, gives the film its moral core. Their chemistry evokes an intimacy that feels ancient and forbidden all at once.
The beauty of Cactus Pears lies in what it leaves unsaid. Kanawade does not dramatize conflict; he allows it to breathe. Scenes between Anand and Balya, lit by the waning glow of dusk, pulse with unspoken tenderness. The film trusts silence more than dialogue — and in doing so, it achieves something rare: an honesty that feels sacred.
Visually, the film is spare and haunting. Cinematographer Vikas Urs captures rural India with a painter’s eye: dry earth, open skies, crumbling walls. The color palette mirrors the emotional tone — muted browns, greys, and the deep crimson of the cactus pear fruit that lends the film its title. That fruit, prickly yet sweet, becomes a symbol of vulnerability, of love that dares to grow in arid soil.
By the time Anand returns to Mumbai, we sense that nothing has changed, and yet everything has. His transformation is quiet, internal. The rituals are complete, but the ache remains. Cactus Pears refuses closure; instead, it offers acceptance.
Tender, meditative, and achingly human, Cactus Pears is a film that lingers like the aftertaste of its namesake fruit — bittersweet, haunting, and full of life.