Anurag Kashyap goes hunting for cinema’s next language at MIFFest

Anurag Kashyap has arrived at the Malaysia International Film Festival with two jobs and one big question: what does the next wave of filmmaking sound, look and feel like?

The Indian director, producer and actor is serving as jury president at this year’s MIFFest, Variety reported. He is also leading a festival masterclass called “Unfiltered Realism,” while his newest directorial feature, “Bandar,” marks his return behind the camera.

Kashyap told Variety that his role on the jury is less about arriving with fixed rules than watching for fresh instincts. He said he is looking for “a new cinematic language” and wants to see how emerging directors tell stories in ways older filmmakers did not.

That search comes at a moment Kashyap sees as sharply different from the one in which he built his career. According to Variety, he pointed to AI tools, social media and a flood of available information as forces changing both how films are made and how viewers take them in.

A realist who says realism is not optional

Kashyap is widely associated with grounded, hard-edged filmmaking, but he pushed back on the idea that staying close to reality is a stylistic choice. He told Variety that, whether he is directing, producing or acting, a filmmaker has to stay real in order to fully work with reality and connect with an audience.

He also acknowledged that the conditions around his earlier films shaped that approach. Variety reported that smaller budgets and the technology available at the time steered his work toward more grounded storytelling.

Even so, Kashyap argued that authenticity is not a matter of visual style alone. His view, as reported by Variety, is that local stories travel internationally because they remain tied to the cultures that produce them, rather than because they are packaged as a global product.

Asia’s film industries face the same squeeze

Kashyap also sees common pressure points across major Asian film markets. He told Variety that South Korea, Japan, China and India all have established film industries, while audiences now have shorter attention spans and streaming services have created a world of near-endless viewing options.

Those remarks line up with concerns Kashyap has raised earlier this year about the state of contemporary cinema, Variety reported, especially the challenge facing independent films in a viewing world split across many platforms and habits.

At MIFFest, Kashyap is not positioning the masterclass as a lecture with tidy answers. Variety reported that he hopes it becomes a conversation, with the filmmaker as interested in listening as in sharing his own career lessons.

He told Variety he has many questions of his own and hopes the festival will bring useful conversations, possible answers and perhaps another hint about where cinema is headed next.

The festival appearance places Kashyap at a crossroads between his own new work and a broader debate about film’s future. With “Bandar” bringing him back to directing and MIFFest giving him a seat over the competition, he is watching for the next generation’s moves from the front row.

This story draws on original reporting from Variety.