Kol director’s feature debut on influencers to compete at Red Sea film festival
Times of India | 28 November 2025
Kolkata: Kolkata director Priyankar Patra's first feature film, which takes a socio-economic look at the struggling days of influencers and the personal cost they have to pay, will be screened at the 5th Red Sea International Film Festival, in the New Visions competitive segment. This is perhaps the first film by a Kolkata director exploring social media influencing as a profession that is competing at an international festival.
Starring newcomers Manasi Kaushik and Sarthak Sharma, with editor-producer Anupam Sinha Roy, sound designer Sukrit Sen, and production designer Sayanika Mukherjee as part of the crew, Hindi-langua ‘Early Days (ED)' is set in contemporary Mumbai and captures "the fragile balance between love, ambition and self-invention in a hyper-connected world."
Earlier, TOI reported about SRFTI's Anamika Pal's ‘Nipaniya' ("Dropless") being selected for the festival's International Shorts competition section.
Produced by For Films (India) in association with Hazelnut Media (Singapore), ‘ED' follows Preeti and Samrat, a young couple in their mid-20s as they move to Mumbai, their love story on social media, and their lives as influencers. In the film's media release, ‘ED' executive producer Aditya Vikram Sengupta said, "Priyankar's voice is distinct and urgent. This film captures our times with empathy and sharp observation." Co-producers Isabella Sreyashii Sen and Olivier Dock added, "We were drawn to how ‘ED' interrogates the human cost of online aspiration."
On the motivation for making the film, Patra told TOI that one of his younger cousins had moved to Mumbai and shortly after, he became a content creator. The director admitted that he was initially a little judgmental towards those of the younger generation who were taking up ‘influencing' as a profession. Soon, however, he found himself surrounded by acquaintances involved in "influencing". "That really helped me delve deep into the economics of it — how much do they earn, where do they get brands from, what was their first break...," Patra said. His film, he said, had a "more sympathetic and lived-in look," rather than an external viewpoint.