Refuge

Farooque, a disabled Muslim hawker in Mumbai, struggles to survive in the aftermath of the lockdown as his family faces financial ruin. When a fraudulent agent disappears with his wife’s savings, Farooque sets out with his teenage son to Kolkata to reclaim a small inheritance left by his late mother. As the journey unfolds, memories of a troubled past resurface, revealing a deeper, long-buried wound.
Shot entirely on a mobile phone over four years, this intimate observational film offers a stark and moving portrait of life on the margins—quietly chronicling the fragile existence of a Muslim family in contemporary India.

Director: Partha Das

Partha Das is a self-taught audio-visual artist whose practice spans film, performance, and installation art. His works have been exhibited at prominent galleries and institutions including the Lalit Kala Akademi (India), Alliance Française du Bengale (India), the Museum of Modern Art (Michigan), and the Cultural Institute of Portugal. For the past five years, he has been developing his debut feature-length documentary, The Invisible Wayfarers—a deeply immersive project that has taken him on the road for over a hundred days alongside Sufi pilgrims, in search of stories, songs, and forgotten characters. Refuge (Ashiyana) is Partha’s maiden short film.