Papilio Buddha 2013

The film unfolds in a fictional space within Meppara, a Dalit settlement in the Western Ghats of India, where a displaced community grapples with a long-running land struggle and the rise of identity politics rooted in Ambedkarism.

Told largely through Shankaran, a young Dalit and a Jawaharlal Nehru University dropout, the story traces his insecurity as he watches his father, Kandal Kariyan, a committed communist, hold fast to his faith in equal rights despite persistent setbacks.

Shankaran befriends Jack, a white gay American lepidopterist, and helps him catch butterflies, including the rare and beautiful Papilio Buddha, and the two men share a romantic connection that challenges local norms.

Shankaran’s elderly father, a figure of steadfast political conviction, struggles with the personal and social implications of his son’s closeness to a foreigner and a different way of life, while the household’s dynamics reveal a family torn between tradition and change.

Meanwhile, Manjusree, a strong-willed woman who works as a rickshaw driver, fights to overcome prejudice in a male-dominated profession and carve out space for herself in a community that often doubts her capabilities.

When Manjusree confronts a lecherous union leader and Shankaran is arrested for illegally catching butterflies, two acts of violence spark a process that politicizes and radicalizes parts of the community, including individuals who identify as queer, pushing them away from Gandhi’s peaceful methods and toward a more defiant stance.

The film highlights a sweeping arc of epic land struggles across the region and the ongoing oppression of indigenous people by powerful political and social establishments. It also maps environmental degradation and the exploitation of pristine mountain habitats by outside forces, painting a portrait of a landscape under pressure and of a society at a crossroads between tradition, resilience, and radical change.