Not Just a Queer Film: Rohan Kanawade on the Tenderness in Cactus Pears

When Rohan Kanawade returned to his family’s village to mourn his father, he carried more than grief. He carried a story. That story became Cactus Pears, the first Marathi-language film to premiere at Sundance and now making its Australian debut at the Melbourne International Film Festival. In this conversation, Rohan speaks to SBS Spice about finding tenderness between men without cliché, resisting the urge to define characters by their sexuality, and why rooting a film deeply in the soil it comes from can make it universal. Listen on SBS Spice.