Srinagar, Sep 10: Kashmiri short film Tasrufdaar (Djinns of Kashmir), directed by filmmaker Kapil Mattoo, has won the Best Film Award in the Jammu and Kashmir Select category at the maiden International Film Festival of Jammu & Kashmir (IFFJK), marking a significant moment for homegrown cinema.
The film, which was among five productions selected for the competitive J&K Select section, stood out for its deeply rooted narrative exploring memory, displacement, loss and the lingering emotional scars of Kashmir’s troubled past. The section featured films centred on the region’s cultural heritage, social realities and lived experiences.
For Mattoo, the recognition comes at a festival that has placed Kashmiri filmmakers and their stories at the centre of an international cinematic platform.
Tasrufdaar follows a haunting encounter between two childhood friends, separated by the events of 1990, and uses folklore, memory and the supernatural to explore the pain carried across generations.
Mattoo has earlier described the film as a labour of love, saying that the hidden pain carried by people in Kashmir needed to be articulated. “We need closure,” he said in an interview about the film, underlining its attempt to confront memories that have remained unresolved for decades.
The filmmaker had also described the film’s journey to international platforms as an opportunity for Kashmiri voices to reach a wider audience. Ahead of its UK premiere, Mattoo said its selection felt like the story had “found its rightful home”.
Tasrufdaar was written, directed and produced by Mattoo and has already travelled to international festival platforms, including the UK Asian Film Festival. Its selection at IFFJK brought the film back to Kashmir, where it received recognition on its home ground.
The film’s award assumes added significance as the inaugural IFFJK sought to create a platform for stories from Jammu and Kashmir alongside films from across India and the world. The J&K Select section brought together five locally helmed films, reflecting themes ranging from childhood and family to displacement, identity, heritage and resilience.
The recognition for Tasrufdaar also underscores the growing confidence among filmmakers from the region to tell complex Kashmiri stories in their own voices, taking them beyond conventional portrayals of the Valley and placing them on wider cinematic platforms.
With its Best Film honour at the maiden IFFJK, Tasrufdaar has added another chapter to the evolving story of Kashmiri cinema—one where memory, identity and lived experience are finding their way from the Valley to audiences beyond it.
