Anurag Kashyap's Bandar, on India's flawed prison system, premieres at TIFF 2025

Director Anurag Kashyap's 'Bandar (Monkey In A Cage)' premiered at the 50th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) 2025. The film featuring actor Bobby Deol had its world premiere in the Special Presentations programme, celebrating the best of Canadian and global cinema.

While sharing his picture with the film's team from Toronto on his Instagram handle, Kashayp captioned, "Couldn’t be happier to present #Bandar @tiff_net with my fabulous team. Thank you @cameronpbailey @robyn_citizen and the TIFF team (sic)."

The director, in a recent interview with Variety, revealed how the film was inspired by a true story. He said, "The idea came from a true story, but we obviously had to navigate very thin lines. You don’t know who’s



right, who’s wrong. There was rampant misuse of new laws, with cases of one woman filing eight different cases in eight different police stations with the help of a lawyer and a policeman."

The project originated when producer Nikhil Dwivedi brought a newspaper story to Kashyap’s attention. The movie's unflinching focus on India’s prison system sets it apart from his previous work. During the research prior to the film's shooting, it was discovered that 77% of inmates are accused of crimes and held in prison, but their cases take years to come to trial or sometimes never do. "There was a case of a man who came out of prison after 32 years and was declared innocent, but his case never came up for 32 years. That’s an entire lifetime," the 52-year-old said.