For this film, Anuparna Roy was the winner of the Best Director award in the Horrizonti section, Venice Film Festival 2025.

Thooya (Naaz Shaikh), a migrant and aspiring actress, spends her days moonlighting as a sex worker in her apartment, attending virtual therapy, and shedding her inhibitions in acting class. New to Mumbai, Thooya rents out her spare room to the quiet Shweta (Sumi Baghel), who works in a call centre and is also new to Mumbai.

Taking a little time to warm up, they soon start to build a connection, one in which they rely on each other, building their own cocoon far away from the noise and challenges of the oppressive city. But as the realities of how the two women live their lives begin to clash, the fragile bond is tested.

The Garden Cinema View:

There’s a singular trace of DNA that links Anuparna Roy’s film to the clear-eyed depictions of sex work in Lizzie Borden’s Working Girls, as well as the rhythms of the unusual apartment shares in Tsai Ming-liang’s slow cinema classics Vive L’amour or The Hole. Songs of Forgotten Trees is a quiet film, clear sighted about life and survival in thrumming Mumbai, and (mainly) unmelodramatic.

What arises out of moments of dead time and work is a deep sense of female friendship; a bond that helps two different migrants find support and understanding, despite difficult circumstances. An intriguing and poetic debut feature that marks Roy as a filmmaker to watch.

Cast:
Naaz Shaikh, Sumi Baghel