North American Premiere
Set in a remote Himalayan town in India during the Kargil War, Secrets of a Mountain Serpent is a haunting tale where absence and silence set the rhythm of daily life. When a mysterious outsider arrives in the village, his presence stirs buried feelings among its women — including Barkha, a school teacher whose husband is stationed at the border. Director Nidhi Saxena’s film weaves together personal desire with ancient folklore in the form of a serpent that lives in the forbidden river, still waiting after a thousand years for a love left unfulfilled.
A meditation on desire, duty, memory, and freedom, Saxena’s film blurs myth and reality. Each frame is composed with lyrical restraint, and sound design is used to deepen the film’s mythical elements. Pointing her camera away from the frontlines of war, Saxena focuses on those who were left behind, and in doing so asks a pertinent question: Can you belong to someone and still belong to yourself?
Presented by
Supported by
Media Partner
Community Partner
Adil Hussain, Trimala Adhikari, Pushpendra Singh
India/Italy/Sri Lanka
2025
In Hindi with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Credits & Director
Executive Producer
Rahul Saxena
Producer
Vimukthi Jayasundara
Screenwriter
Nidhi Saxena
Cinematography
Vikas Urs
Editor
Saman Alvitigala
Production Design
Avni Goyal
Nidhi Saxena
Nidhi Saxena is an Indian filmmaker whose works delve into human vulnerability and existential themes. She is the first Indian woman director to receive both the Asian Cinema Fund (Post-Production) and a grant from Biennale College Cinema. She has led several acclaimed independent projects and social storytelling initiatives, including a program for the UN Population Fund training tribal adolescent girls in Rajasthan to express their lived realities through filmmaking. Her newest feature, Secret of a Mountain Serpent, was developed at the Venice Biennale College Cinema Script Lab and premiered at the 2025 Venice Film Festival.
Filmography: Sad Letters of an Imaginary Woman (2024)
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Amrum
Twelve-year-old Nanning (Jasper Billerbeck) sets himself a mission to secure bread and honey for his mother to snap her out of her depression. It is 1945. The war is all but lost, and such luxuries are not easy to find on the remote island of Amrum...
Silent Friend
In this entrancing reverie from On Body and Soul director Ildikó Enyedi, we are invited to contemplate several human specimens from the vantage point of a mighty Ginkgo biloba tree on the grounds of a German university.
Fiume o Morte!
The Croatian city of Rijeka rediscovers its own past in this delightfully unconventional hybrid documentary about Italian poet and proto-fascist Gabriele D’Annunzio, who seized the city known in Italian as Fiume in 1919.
Chasing My Why: The Mammoth 200
Jeff Pelletier sets out to run the inaugural Mammoth 200, a 215-mile ultramarathon through California's Sierra Nevada. But beyond the distance, the race becomes a search for something else: an answer to why he keeps returning to events like this.