PUNE — The most decorated Indian film of the festival season has no stars, no songs and no marketing budget. “The Salt Line,” a Marathi-language drama shot in nineteen days along the Konkan coast, collected its fourth international festival award this week — and has become the acquisition target of the season.
The film follows an ageing salt-pan worker negotiating the sale of his family’s leased pans to a resort developer. It was made for a sum its director describes as “less than the catering budget of a mid-size commercial film,” financed partly by a cooperative of the crew itself.
Its sweep — top honours at two European festivals, a critics’ prize in East Asia and now the audience award at a major North American showcase — has drawn the streaming platforms to Pune. Three have made offers; the filmmakers say they are holding out for a theatrical-first window.
The film’s success lands in the middle of an industry argument about the theatrical model. Multiplex chains, starved of reliable footfall for mid-budget Hindi releases, have begun programming subtitled regional indies in prime slots — and discovering that audiences stay.
“We did not set out to prove anything,” the director said this week, between festival flights. “We just wanted to finish the film before the money ran out.” The money held. The film finished. The industry is taking notes.
