Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
Indian cinema favorite Kalki Koechlin makes her French-English debut in the comedy-drama HER SONG, executive produced by Oscar winner James Ivory.
The film will have its World Premiere as the opening night film at the Cinequest Film Festival on March 10, 2026, in San Jose.
Set in a quiet village in the French Pyrenees, HER SONG follows Olivia, an American writer who returns to her family’s ancestral home. Her grandmother fled there from Paris during the Nazi invasion in World War II. Olivia hopes the trip will help her finish a novel she has struggled with for years.
In the village, she meets Madeline, a talented and spirited woman who reminds her of her grandmother. Olivia begins to borrow details from Madeline’s life and weave them into the fictional story of her grandmother. As Olivia becomes more involved in village life, three storylines begin to overlap: her grandmother’s past, the novel she is writing, and her own present-day experience. Each story helps reveal the mysteries of the others.
As life starts to mirror art, Olivia works on her novel and reflects on a question inspired by Madeline: whether there is a song inside every one of us, even if we cannot hear it ourselves.
Alongside Koechlin, who plays the lead role of “Olivia,” the international cast also features Eléa Clair as “Madeline,” Zach Grenier as “Dave,” Julien Jacob as “Julien,” Marie-Christine Adam as “Suzanne,” Thais Sobreira as “Fabiola,” Aldo D’Ibaños as “Wilhelm,” and Christophe Grundmann as “Claude.”
HER SONG is Koechlin’s first film outside Indian cinema, where she has won a National Film Award and Best Actress awards at both the Indian Screen Awards and the Times of India Film Awards for her performance in Margarita with a Straw. Her other work includes the hit film Gully Boy and the acclaimed series Sacred Games.
James Ivory (Call Me by Your Name, The Remains of the Day, A Room with a View, Howard’s End, A Room with a View) serves as Executive Producer along with Eric Gruendemann (“Xena: Warrior Princess”). Producers are Marine Assaiante (“Mom to Be”), Eléa Clair, and John M. Keller. Cinematography is by Wilhelm Kuhn (“The Nephew”) and Thomas Walser (“Zenithal”) witrh music by Dhruv Goel (“La La Land”). The film is edited by Maud Babinot (“Merci pour les cles”).
“Opening Night at Cinequest is about more than launching a festival. It’s an invitation,” said Michael Rabehl, Cinequest Director of Programming & Associate Director. He explained that HER SONG immediately captured the attention of the organisers because it felt “alive to curiosity, memory, and the quiet magic of human connection. It’s a film that listens as much as it speaks, weaving past and present into something playful, intimate, and unexpectedly profound”
He added that the film reflects Cinequest’s belief that innovation isn’t always loud, “but it can be found in attentiveness, in empathy, in the courage to follow a story where it wants to go. HER SONG is the kind of film that invites you to lean forward, open your heart, and trust the journey. It’s a perfect beginning for this year’s line-up, because it doesn’t just begin the festival…it sets its heartbeat.”
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