Selvi, the debut feature by Tamil writer-director Sailesh Rathnakumar, starring and produced by Anjali Patil (Newton, Kaala) – recipient of the National Film Award of India – will hold its World Premiere in the Vision – Asia section of the 31st Busan International Film Festival (6 – 15 October 2026).
Set within the largely unseen world of home-care workers, Selvi explores care, migration, friendship, guilt, exhaustion and the determination to keep moving forward.
Written by Sailesh with cinematographer Bargav Sridhar, the story was inspired from the writer’s observation of the home-care nurses who attended to Bargav’s ailing mother by migrant women from smaller towns in Tamil Nadu.
Sailesh embarked on his journey from Coimbatore to Chennai and understood the caregiver’s plight while adjusting in a new city that could never become a home.
So Selvi is about a woman moving through an ordinary day. The director wanted the film to move with her, to stay close to her life without explaining anything.