Governor of Telengana to inaugurate the third Niri9 International Film Festival at Hyderabad
The Niri9 International Film Festival 2025 will be held on January 10 and 11, 2025, in Hyderabad, bringing together socially relevant and internationally celebrated cinema. Hon’ble Governor of Telengana his Excellency Shri
Jishnu Dev Varma will inagurate the event. The event will also have celebrities like bollywood actor Seema Biswas, singer Lou Majaw, international singet Carlyta Mouhini and former Chief Justice Guwahati High Court, Shri Ajit Borthakur.
The festival has announced that the critically acclaimed supernatural thriller Dahini will be the opening film of this year’s edition. The festival will also host special screenings of the hard-hitting Indian film Kooki and the internationally lauded The Voice of Hind Rajab, directed by the Oscar-nominated filmmaker of Four Daughters.
Directed by Rajesh Touchriver, Dahini – The Witch (2022) stars Tannishtha Chatterjee, J.D. Chakravarthy, and Sruthy Jayan, and has received widespread international recognition. The film won Best Feature Film at the Titan International Film Festival and Best International Feature Film at the Pacific Beach International Festival, and was also nominated at the Swedish International Film Festival. Its selection as the opening film reflects Niri9’s focus on powerful narratives that blend genre storytelling with global appeal.
Kooki, directed by Pranab J Deka, is a deeply unsettling and socially urgent film that examines sexual violence and the failures of the justice system through the experience of a teenage survivor. The film confronts the normalisation of sexual crimes and compels audiences to listen to voices that are often silenced, making it one of the most impactful contemporary Indian films on the subject.
The Voice of Hind Rajab, from the Oscar-nominated director of Four Daughters, Kaouther Ben Hania, is based on real emergency call recordings surrounding the final moments of six-year-old Hind Rajab in Gaza.
Premiered at leading international festivals including Venice and Toronto, the film stands as a haunting testament to cinema’s power to preserve memory, truth, and humanity.
