In the Belly of a Tiger

A tiger is wreaking havoc in an Indian village. Deaths are becoming more frequent, but tigers are protected. As the farmers are not allowed to hunt them, they demand compensation from the government and receive it. The tiger’s life is now worth more than theirs. An elderly couple, Bhagole and Prabhata, newly returned to the village with their son and two granddaughters, now only own their house and the bull, after having sold their land to try their luck in the city. All they now have to offer is their labour, which makes them prone to blackmail, like everyone else in the village. The film clearly highlights the vicious cycle of exploitation at the local brick factory, but also devotes time to the relationships between the family members, allowing them to develop their ideas of value and reciprocity until these come to a head one desperate night when they have to decide: Can the family escape their fate if one of them “invests” their life? Caught between real events and the magical lotus blossoms from the belly of Lord Vishnu, Jatla Siddartha’s In the Belly of a Tiger is a poignant critique of capitalism. (Christiane Büchner)

Siddartha Jatla, cinematography graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India, and son of director Jatla Venkataswami Naidu. His debut film, Love and Shukla, inspired by the invisible struggle for privacy amongst India’s urban lower middle class, premiered at Busan International Film Festival, and was shown in over 40 other festivals around the world.

Production Sarada Uma, Fang Li, Bhavana Goparaju. Production companies Bhairavi Films (Denver, USA), Wonder Pictures (Beijing, People’s Republic of China), Jeevi Films (Hyderabad, India). Director Siddartha Jatla. Screenplay Amanda Mooney, Siddartha Jatla. Cinematography Siddartha Jatla. Editing Akhmad Fesdi Anggorro. Music Shigeru Umebayashi. Sound design Resool Pookutty. Sound Resool Pookutty. Co-producer Nishtha Satyam, Heliang Ma, Axel Hadiningrat, Giovaanni Rahmadeva, Ye Sun, Patrick Mao Huang. Co-production Qun Films, Flash Forward Entertainment, Myth Image. With Lawrence Francis, Poonam Tiwari, Sorabh Jaiswar, Jyoti, Sonali, Pooja Pallavi, Umesh Shukla.

World Sales Flash Forward Entertainment

Films: 2017: Love and Shukla. 2024: In the Belly of a Tiger.

Bonus Material