Burnt

When an upper-caste mob sets fire to a Dalit settlement in Lathore village, Odisha, forty families become homeless overnight-refugees in their own land. Seen through the unflinchingly honest eyes of Makaru, a Dalit migrant settled in Raipur, returning to his ancestral village after years of exile, Burnt is a powerful meditation on memory, trauma and survival. As he journeys by train to the place he had fled as a boy, Makaru also journeys deep into his childhood, tracing the roots of caste violence and resilience that have shaped his community, and confronting memories he wants to forget. The train-linking past and present-is a symbol of mobility and change, and a vital catalyst of Dalit self-awareness and emancipation.