Sundance-winning producer Neeraj Churi and U.S. filmmaker Daniel Talbott have joined forces to provide “Starvation,” a Mumbai-set function written and directed by Movie and Tv Institute of India graduates Saurav Mahind and Tejas Shende.
The undertaking marks the primary collaboration between Churi’s Lotus Visible Prods. and Talbott’s Orphan Andy Movies.
The movie facilities on a pickpocket who survives by exploiting the wishes of closeted males, till his indifferent worldview is upended when one in every of his marks returns in search of closeness moderately than settling scores. Described by its producers as psychologically grounded, the undertaking engages with themes of want, class and emotional survival. It has been chosen for the Writers’ Ink Screenwriting Lab 2026.
Mahind, an FTII-trained writer-director whose work focuses on loneliness and unstated emotional realities, acquired early recognition when his pupil brief “Upon Starvation” claimed finest brief movie within the worldwide competitors on the Sunny Bunny Worldwide Queer Movie Pageant. The movie continues to display at festivals. Mahind was additionally chosen for the Indian authorities’s Artistic Minds of Tomorrow program on the Worldwide Movie Pageant of India.
Shende, likewise FTII-trained, was named one in every of six South Asian fellows for the QueerFrames Screenwriting Lab (2024–25), the place he developed a separate function below the mentorship of filmmaker Saim Sadiq. He has participated in Berlinale’s European Movie Market and contributed to award-winning documentary initiatives.
Churi produced “Cactus Pears” (Sabar Bonda), which received the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize on the Sundance Movie Pageant. Talbott’s producing credit embrace “Midday Black Midnight Blue” and the drama sequence “Born Again.”
“I couldn’t be more excited to be teaming up with Neeraj Churi to help produce this bold, exquisite feature… The language of cinema is infinite, radical, and borderless, and this story feels emotionally urgent and deeply human,” Talbott stated.
“What struck me immediately was how unfiltered and emotionally precise the writing is. Saurav and Tejas are telling a story that feels deeply rooted in lived experience, while also being cinematically ambitious. It’s exactly the kind of voice we want to support as we build our international slate,” Churi added.
“With ‘Starvation,’ we wanted to explore desire and vulnerability without moral framing or polish. Having Neeraj and Daniel on board allows us to push the film both creatively and globally,” Mahind and Shende stated.
“Starvation” is presently in improvement; casting and financing will probably be introduced at a later date.
