By Arun Pratap Singh
Nainital, 16 May: Diwa Shah, a film director hailing from Nainital, has been honoured at the 78th Cannes Film Festival 2025. Her project Kyab (Refuge) received the top writing grant during the pitching session of the prestigious La Résidence du Festival de Cannes, held at the CNC Pavilion. This recognition is a significant milestone in her career, highlighting her as a rising voice in global independent cinema.
Diwa, a writer and director who bases her filmmaking work out of Nainital, had previously garnered international recognition by winning the Best Debut Script Writer’s award. It may be pertinent to note here that both her parents have been associated with film making and have excelled in their respective fields.
Diwa Shah pursued her higher education in Creative Writing at the Durham University in the United Kingdom. Her debut feature film, ‘Bahadur The Brave,’ premiered globally at the 71st San Sebastián International Film Festival in 2023, where it won the Kutxabank New Directors Award. Notably, Diwa became the first Indian debut director to receive this distinguished award. The film also achieved further acclaim by winning the Silver Gateway Award at the Jio Mami Mumbai Film Festival.
Currently, Diwa is working on her second film project, titled ‘Kyab – Refuge,’ for which she has received the grant. The film delves into the lives of third-generation Tibetan refugees residing in India. The grant she received at Cannes is part of the La Résidence du Festival de Cannes programme. As a recipient, she has spent four and a half months in Paris, dedicated to developing the screenplay for her feature film project. During this period, she has engaged in meetings with industry professionals and collaborated with Festival de Cannes to explore co-production opportunities for her project.
The La Résidence du Festival de Cannes, since its inception in 2000, annually provides accommodation and support to twelve promising young directors to aid them in preparing their first or second feature films. These filmmakers are selected based on the merit of their short films or even their debut feature films, and the strength of their feature film projects. The programme facilitates their scriptwriting process, connects them with industry experts, and assists them in navigating the path towards co-production.
Diwa Shah is the daughter of Rajesh Shah, a well-known film cinematographer based in Nainital, and Shalini Shah, a National Award-winning documentary filmmaker.
Rajesh Shah is himself a graduate in Cinematography from the leading Film Institute of the country, Film & Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune and had graduated from FTII in 1992. He has worked in Bollywood for 30 years and has been part of many well known films. Speaking to Garhwal Post, he shared that presently he is a coordinator for short term filmmaker courses conducted by FTII under S KIFT. Besides this has also conducted short term courses in various Universities and is also the director of Kautik film festival which is now running 9th edition.
She received her early education at All Saints’ School in Nainital.
At the same time, Diwa’s mother Shalini Shah is an awarded documentary filmmaker and has recently also made a full length feature film. Her documentary From the Land of Buddhism to the Land of Buddha had received a National Award and was selected for the Message to Man Film Festival in St Petersburg, Russia. Shalini has also served as a jury member for the National Awards (2002) in the documentary films category and for the International Film Festival of India in both documentary films (2002) and feature films (2005) and 2024. In addition to her filmmaking expertise, she has been a faculty member for the Diploma in Filmmaking programme at Kumaon University (2016–2018).
Speaking to Garhwal Post today, both Rajesh and Shalini Shah expressed happiness over the recognition that their daughter Diwa Shah has received for her scriptwriting. They also shared that they did not encourage their daughter’s decision to be a filmmaker initially as this can involve lot of struggle but now are happy with her decision.
