Burnt - Beyond Return

When an upper-caste mob sets fire to a Dalit settlement in Lathore village, Odisha, forty families become homeless overnight—refugees in their own land. Seen through the unflinchingly honest eyes of Makaru, a Dalit migrant settled in Raipur, returning to his ancestral village after years of exile, Burnt is a powerful meditation on memory, trauma and survival. As he journeys by train to the place he had fled as a boy, Makaru also journeys deep into his childhood, tracing the roots of caste violence and resilience that have shaped his community, and confronting memories he wants to forget. The train—linking past and present—is a symbol of mobility and change, and a vital catalyst of Dalit self-awareness and emancipation.