Hindi
‘Zubaan’ to open Busan International Film Festival
NEW DELHI: Indian film Zubaan by Mizez Singh will be the inaugural film at this year’s 20th Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), which will have a major Indian presence.
Director Anurag Kashyap, known for bold films over the last decade, is a member of the New Currents Asian film competition jury at the Festival.
BIFF’s annual Korean cinema Award will be given to Berlinale Panorama curator Wieland Speck, for his contribution to introducing Korean cinema worldwide.
The New Currents competition section will highlight eight titles from 10 countries. The jury is headed by multi-talented Taiwanese actress, director and screenwriter, Sylvia Chang.
Chinese film Mountain Cry by Larry Yang will be the closing film at the Festival, which is being held from 1 – 10 October.
The festival will have 304 films from 75 countries, including 94 world premieres and 27 international premieres.
Addressing a press meet earlier this week, Festival co-director Lee Yong-kwan said, “Zubaan is a film that is able to highlight the past twenty years of BIFF as a festival that has discovered a number of new Asian directors and helped lift them to world class. Zubaan also demonstrates the current transition and the future of Indian cinema that the world has recently begun paying attention to.”
This is the second time an Indian film will be opening the festival as Buddhadeb Dasgupta’s Bengali film Uttara aka The Wrestlers had been the opening film in 2000.
Zubaan, which has been produced by Guneet Monga, tells the story of a young folk musician named Dilsher who moves from Punjab to find success in the big city, before proceeding to deal with its fallouts. It stars Vicky Kaushal with Sarah-Jane Dias, and Raaghav Chanana.
Hansal Mehta’s Aligarh starring Manoj Bajpayee and Rajkummar will also have its world premiere at the festival as part of ‘A Window On Asian Cinema’ section. The film is based on the life of Dr Shrinivas Ramchandra Siras, a professor at Aligarh Muslim University who was fired from his position on the basis of his sexual orientation.
This section has several other films from India. They include Meghna Gulzar’s Talvar (under its international title Guilty), a crime drama based on the infamous Aarushi Talwar and Hemraj double murder case that took place in Noida seven years ago. The film stars Irrfan Khan, Neeraj Kabi and Konkona Sen Sharma.
Films like Masaan (which won two awards at Cannes in May this year) and Mani Rathnam’s O Kadhal Kanmani also feature in this section.
Meanwhile, the Salman Khan starrer Bajrangi Bhaijaan will be screened in the festival’s ‘Open Cinema’ section.
Other Indian films in the ‘A Window on Asian Cinema’ are: Kothanodi directed by Bhaskar Hazarika (Assamese); Orange Candy directed by Biju Viswanath (Tamil) and Peace Havendirected by Suman Ghosh (Bengali).
The New Currents section will screen Radio Set directed by Hari Viswanath (Tamil).
The Wide Angle section will have two films: Jai Ho directed by Umesh Aggarwal (English/Hindi) on the life and work of living music maestro A R Rahman and Fireflies in the Abyss directed by Chandrasekhar Reddy (Indo-British) (Hindi, Khasi, Garo).
The jury will award $30,000 prizes to two winners of the New Currents competition at the festival’s closing ceremony on 10 October.
New Currents is open to Asian films by first-or second-time directors. Former winners include China’s Jia Zhangke (Pick Pocket, 1998), Korea’s Park Chan-wook (Jealousy is My Middle Name, 2002), and Thailand’s Aditya Assarat (Wonderful Town, 2007).
In a music industry that often rewards speed, spectacle, and instant recall, Navjot Ahuja’s journey feels refreshingly different. His story is not built on noise. It is built on patience, discipline, emotional honesty, and a quiet commitment to becoming better with every passing year. After 14 years of struggle, learning, performing, and writing, Navjot stands today as an artist whose success has not changed his centre. If anything, it has only made his purpose clearer.
For Navjot, music has never been about chasing fame alone. It has always been about expression. It is about writing more truthfully, singing more skillfully, understanding himself more deeply, and becoming a kinder human being in the process. That rare clarity is what gives his journey its beauty.
Where It All Began: A Writer Before a Singer
Indian singer and songwriter Navjot Ahuja’s musical journey began in the most familiar of places: school assemblies. But even then, what was growing inside him was not only the desire to sing. It was the need to write.
Long before he saw himself as a performer, he had already discovered the emotional release that writing offered him. For Navjot, words became the first true channel for feeling. Songwriting came before singing because writing was the only way he could let emotions flow through him fully. That inner pull shaped his artistic identity early on.
Like many young musicians, he sharpened his craft by creating renditions of popular songs.
Those experiments became his training ground. But the turning point came in 2012, when he wrote his first original song. That moment did not just mark the beginning of songwriting. It marked the beginning of self-definition.
A Calling He Did Not Chase, But Accepted
What makes the latest Indian singer-songwriter Navjot’s story especially compelling is the way he describes his relationship with music. He does not frame it as a career he aggressively pursued. In his own understanding, music was not something he chose. It was something that chose him.
There was a time when he imagined a very different future for himself. He wanted to become a successful engineer, like many young people shaped by ambition and conventional expectations. But life had a different script waiting for him. During his college years, around 2021, music entered his life professionally and began taking a firmer shape.
That shift was not driven by image-building or industry ambition. It came from acceptance. Navjot embraced the fact that music had claimed him in a way no other path could. That sense of surrender continues to define the artist he is today.
An Artist Guided by Instinct, Not Influence
Unlike many singers who speak openly about idols, icons, and musical role models, Navjot’s creative world is built differently. He does not believe his music comes from imitation or inherited influence. He listens inward.
He has never considered himself shaped by ideals in the traditional sense. In fact, he admits that he does not particularly enjoy listening to songs, especially his own. His decisions as a songwriter and singer come from instinct. He writes what feels right. He trusts what his inner voice tells him. He positions his music according to what he honestly believes in, not what trends demand.
That creative independence gives his work a distinct emotional sincerity. His songs do not feel calculated. They feel alive.
The Long Years of Invisible Struggle
Every artist carries a chapter of struggle, and Navjot’s was long, demanding, and deeply formative. One of the biggest challenges he faced was building continuity as the best new indian singer songwriter in an era where musical collaboration is increasingly fluid.
For emerging singers, especially those trying to build with a band, consistency can be difficult. Instrumentalists today have more opportunities than ever to freelance and perform with multiple artists. While that growth is positive and well deserved, it can make things harder for singers who are still trying to establish a steady team and sound around their work.
For Navjot, one of the most difficult phases came during 2021 and 2022, when he was doing club shows almost every day. It was a period of relentless performance, but not always personal fulfillment. He was largely singing covers because clubs were not open to original songs that audiences did not yet know.
For a new Indian singer and songwriter, that can be a painful compromise. To perform constantly and still not have the freedom to share your own voice requires not just resilience, but restraint.
“Khat” and the Grace of Staying Unchanged
After 14 years of effort, Navjot’s new love song Khat became a defining milestone. Professionally, he acknowledges that the song changed how society viewed him as a musician. It strengthened his place in the public eye and altered his standing in meaningful ways.
Yet personally, he remains unchanged.
That is perhaps the most striking part of his story. Navjot says his routine is still the same. His calm is still the same. His writing process is still the same. He does not want success or failure to interfere with the purity of his art. For him, emotional detachment from public outcomes is essential because the moment an artist becomes too attached to validation, the writing begins to shift.
His joy comes not from numbers, but from the attempt. If he has tried to improve his skill today, if he has written his heart out more honestly than before, then he is at peace.
Growth, Not Glory, Remains the Real Goal
Even now, Navjot is not consumed by labels such as singles artist, performer, or digital success story. His focus remains deeply personal. He wants to sing better. He wants to play instruments better. He wants to understand himself more. And he wants to become a kinder person.
That is what makes Navjot Ahuja’s journey so moving. It is not simply the story of a musician finding recognition. It is the story of an artist who continues to grow inward, even as the world begins to look outward at him. In an age obsessed with applause, Navjot reminds us that the most meaningful success often begins in silence, honesty, and the courage to remain true to oneself.
