आग्रा

Guru, a young call-centre employee in Agra, lives with his mother in a 300-square-foot house while his father occupies the floor above with his second wife. Cramped, surveilled and denied all private space, Guru is consumed by repressed desire and the humiliation of proximity without intimacy. His tentative connection with Priti, who runs a neighbourhood internet café, is slowly throttled by the impossibility of his domestic situation. Kanu Behl's erotic psychological drama, co-written with Atika Chohan, premiered at the Cannes Directors' Fortnight in 2023 to a five-minute standing ovation and won prizes at MAMI, NYIFF, and IFFM before its Indian theatrical release on 14 November 2025.

Atmospheric background score only by Karan Gour. No standalone songs were released. The musical texture is described as minimalist and deliberately unsettling — serving the film's psychological and erotic thriller register.

A landmark of contemporary Indian independent cinema: premiered at Cannes Directors' Fortnight 2023 to a five-minute standing ovation — among the most prestigious receptions a Hindi film has received at Cannes in over a decade. Kanu Behl's psychological portrait of repressed desire and spatial deprivation in a cramped domestic setting is among the most formally ambitious Hindi films of its generation. Karan Gour's score-only approach, eschewing commercial songs entirely, supports a unified cinematic atmosphere of claustrophobia and unease.

Won prizes at MAMI, New York Indian Film Festival, and Indian Film Festival of Melbourne before its November 2025 Indian release. For Hindi independent cinema's international credibility, Agra ranks among the decade's most significant achievements. Kanu Behl established himself as one of independent Hindi cinema's most fearless directors, building on Titli (2015). The Indian theatrical release — long overdue — received critical appreciation if not mass audience reach, giving the film its deserved domestic reception.