Cactus Pears review: An assured debut feature that subverts queer tropes

Cactus Pears (Sabar Bonda), Rohan Parashuram Kanawade’s semi-autobiographical debut feature about a queer romance experienced amid mourning is the only movie from India competing at the Sundance Film Festival. The story of love and grief in a rural setting came to Kanawade while coping with his own father’s death, as he wondered how different processing the loss might have felt if he had a companion with whom to escape. Regardless of the competition’s outcome in the World Cinem