Our Insides Live in Darkness

An atmospheric, unsettling coming of age: a girl stars in a budget horror film in the forests of Southern India

For as long as she can remember, eleven-year-old Ratri has heard voices. Trees, birds and insects speak to her in a language she alone understands - whispers that feel more real than her ordinary life, and something deep within her answers back.

When she is cast in a low-budget horror film as a child possessed by a demon, her father seizes the opportunity to make some money. The production takes them to the forests of the Nilgiris, where Ratri becomes increasingly unsettled by the demands of the role and the strange behaviour of the adults around her. As the whispers grow louder, Ratri is forced to confront a disturbing question: whether the true source of danger lies in the supernatural or much closer to home.

Our Insides Live In Darkness is a psychologically acute exploration of trauma, self-transformation, the enchantment of the natural world and the porous boundary between imagination and reality through the unforgettable eyes of a young girl.

'So alive, so compelling in its portrait of an awakening consciousness, a child at the mercy of her family' Erica Wagner