Mumbai-based writer-director Rohan Parashuram Kanawade’s introspective feature debut, Cactus Pears (साबरबोंडं, romanised as Sabar Bonda), became the first-ever Marathi-language film to premiere at Sundance Film Festival. As a quiet story of the burgeoning connection between two men in the Maharashtra countryside, the eponymous bright reddish-pink fruit with a prickly outside is an evident symbol for the tender, delicious prize that awaits those who have the patience to find and peel it. The film enjoyed its world premiere in the festival’s World Cinema Dramatic Competition, further swooping its coveted Grand Jury Prize and setting it on track for many more premieres to come. Now, its fruits have again become ripe: the film just secured the Best Feature Film prize at the inaugural SXSW London 2025 and also screened as the Centrepiece Gala at the 35th Annual Inside Out, the Toronto 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival.
After the death of his father, Mumbai worker Anand (Bhushaan Manoj) accompanies his mother to lay his father to rest in his ancestral village, undertaking 10 days of mourning rituals. There, he unexpectedly meets farmer Balya (Suraaj Suman), whom he knows—but not that well—from childhood. As they spend some time together, they learn about each other’s lives in the city and country, respectively, and begin to experience an attraction to the other.
Upon arriving in the village, Anand is immediately confronted with a barrage of questions from the community: why isn’t he married, and when, exactly, will he be? In a lesser-seen story choice inspired by the filmmaker’s own experiences with his parents, Anand’s mother Suman (Jayshri Jagtap) and his late father are both aware and accepting of their son’s lack of interest in women—or at least tolerant enough such that Suman actively fends off intrusive questioning from others. Instead, Anand says that those important to him know why he is not interested in getting married, and nobody else has the privilege of knowing.
Although the film takes place almost exclusively in the ancestral village of Anand’s family, the film is also about moving between the city and countryside and the freedoms that each affords. A more open relationship between the two men is surely impossible in the rural farmland, but the countryside also provides a certain vastness of greenery that is innately soft, warm, and inviting, unlike the crowded, competitive metropolis. Over nearly two hours, the relationship between the two men progresses quite far, although a sticking point is that we don’t see them interacting closely in nearly enough situations for us to fully believe in the moments at the film’s close. However, part of the film’s charm is the subtlety embedded in the story, where dominant performances of masculinity are nowhere to be seen and we are to draw more from the implicit connection as shown between Anand and Balya.
The fruit of the cactus pear is notably difficult to find during dry seasons, as is mentioned in the film, and consumers must pry through its rough exterior to reach its juicy flesh. Although the blossoming relationship between the two men might not necessarily be classified as having a “prickly” exterior, the food’s rarity is certainly a fitting metaphor. Furthermore, Balya finds some as a special gift to Anand before they ever have any sort of more personal encounter, a generous and intimate gesture in a film brought to life by the depictions of flora that run parallel to the growing closeness between the two men.
With cinematography by Vikas Urs and a color palette bathed in earthy tones, the camera often finds the men in conversation beneath lush green trees or among tall grasses that wave swooningly in the wind. Even the first time we see them in the afterglow of a sexual encounter, they lay nude beneath a tree, bodies curved gently in the grasses, as if the ground were as inviting as a bed. Cactus Pears is painted through sensorial displays, particularly of touch, also as they relate to greenery. When Balya runs his hands through Anand’s thick curls, they seem to emulate the texture of those very countryside plants that surround them: well-nourished and abundant.
