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www.postmagazine.com 18 POST MAR/APR 2025 Sundance Premieres A first look at a handful of films that made their debut in Park City, UT BY MARC LOFTUS The Sundance Film Festival took place in Park City, UT, earlier this year and featured a slate of 86 features and six episodic stories that screened over the course of 11 days. Here, and on the Post website, we look at a number of films that made their debut at the annual festival, with insight from the production and post talent that helped the respective filmmakers realize their vision. Cactus Pears Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears) is the filmmaking de- but from Rohan Parashuram Kanawade, who was raised in a Mumbai slum. The film centers around Anand, a 30-something who spends 10-days mourning his father in the rugged countryside of western India, where he connects with a local farm- er. The film takes a look at queer life in India among its different castes, and is a semi-autobiographical. Vikas Urs served as cinematographer on the project, which was edited by Anadi Athaley. "I was approached by Rohan, the writer and director of Sabar Bonda, after he had completed the script," recalls Athaley. "His unique perspective on queer life in rural India instantly resonated with me. I was particularly drawn to the film's emotional core and how it explored themes of identity, loss and connection in such a raw, honest way. Having lost my own father a few years prior, I felt a deep connection to Anand's story." Athaley worked closely with Kanawade through- out the process, exchanging ideas, trying different ways of interpreting the narrative and refining the film's rhythm and tone. "Our collaboration was seamless," he reveals. "We trusted our instincts while guarding the origi- nal vision of the film." Athaley cut the project using Adobe Premiere Pro, noting that its integration with other Adobe tools made it a good match for the feature. "I particularly leaned on its masking tools to refine scenes that required compositing," he notes. "Photoshop and After Effects were also instrumen- tal for creating placeholder graphics, while Frame. io became invaluable during the latter stages, help- ing us collaborate remotely with producers and feedback contributors across the globe." Athaley says one of the most challenging as- pects in cutting the feature was balancing the long takes with the film's emotional pacing. "Many scenes were intricately choreographed, often featuring multiple characters in-frame, and the unpredictable rural setting — especially the harsh weather — added complexity to the pro- cess," he explains. "In such cases, we relied on Premiere Pro's powerful masking tools to combine elements from different takes into a single shot. For instance, in one scene, we masked a cat from another take into the final shot because the perfor- mance was perfect, but the chosen take lacked the cat. In another, we used masking to extend the stay on one character while the other observed them intently. These tools provided remarkable flexibility to refine the visuals and achieve the desired emo- tional impact."