Name: Jugnuma
Genre: Drama, Family, Fantasy, Mystery
Released: 2025-09-12
Rating: 7
Cast: Manoj Bajpayee, Deepak Dobriyal, Tillotama Shome, Priyanka Bose

Neemuch

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A magical-realist journey into family secrets and identity, ignited by mystery in the Himalayas.

Jugnuma

Times of India

The Indian Express

Rediff

This surreal ritual is surprisingly normalized in the household. His wife (Priyanka Bose), and children— a teenage daughter (Hiral Sidhu), and a younger son (Awan Pookot) —accept his flying routine without much fuss. They even discuss the wings with curiosity, as if they were just another part of life in the mountains.
While Dev soars above the orchards during his frequent flights, he entrusts the day-to-day operations of the lush estate to his trusted manager (Deepak Dobriyal), who oversees the workers and assigns tasks. With no phones, television, or internet, the family of four embraces a slower, more intimate rhythm of life. Their evenings are spent hosting friends for intimate dinners, singing classical songs, lying under the open sky to stargaze, chasing fireflies, and listening to the whispers of the wind and mountains around them. As you get lost in the bewitching charm of this idyllic life, the orchard mysteriously catches fire. Dev suspects a foul play and holds his staff accountable. Villager also doubt the nomads-monks with horses who are seen in the region. Who wants Dev out?
At its heart, Raam Reddy’s fantasy-fuelled mystery is a tender love letter to the mountains and the unhurried life — the one we traded for ambition long ago. Unlike many indie films, Reddy’s storytelling doesn’t succumb to self indulgence or obscurity. Though open to interpretation, the narrative never glorifies the abstract or slips into aimless nothingness. It’s a slow burn, yes, but never stagnant — you remain hooked as Dev navigates the complexities of an orchard in crisis, and the meaning of ownership.
The film is technically sound. Sunil Borkar’s cinematography is pure magic, capturing the beauty and mystery of the hills. The sound design and VFX are equally accomplished — and remarkably, the flying never feels absurd or out of place, which is a rare feat. The story does not digress either. Performances are equally competent with Manoj Bajpayee bringing in a certain warmth even to his hostility and doubt. Deepak Dobriyal, Priyanka Bose, Hiral Sidhu and Tillotama Shome light up the screen with their presence, too.
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Don’t let its fantasy or experimental nature deceive you. Fascinating mystery with a touch of magic realism give this whodunit an edge. Watch it for its mesmerising storytelling and scenic beauty. Reminiscent of a soothing and suspenseful bedtime story, you are bound to remember this film for a long time.

Some films come up to you, and slowly draw you in, until you are firmly within their spell. This is what happened to me when I watched ‘Jugnuma: The Fable’ : the quality of life being lived in the slow lane — the film is set in 1989, in the upper reaches of the Uttarakhand hills — where nothing much seems to happen, one day passing uneventfully into another, is ruptured by the growing feeling of something more, something elemental, something beyond our grasp.

What writer and director Raam Reddy, with the help of cinematographer Sunil Borkar, and a cast which is one with the plan, has managed to pull off is quite remarkable. The two-hour film weaves in the prosaic, the quotidian, with quiet strokes of magical realism, leaving us wondering about our world, and the tantalising possibility of other worlds.

Dev (Manoj Bajpayee), owner of one of the biggest apple orchards in the area, is grappling with the mysterious burning of a tree on one of his patches, leaving his long-time estate manager Mohan (Deepak Dobriyal) equally puzzled. Could it be just a one-off, or is it a pattern? Are the villagers who have worked in the orchards for generations, upset about pesticides being used on the trees? Is the skeletal tree a message, to keep the ecology of the place as is? Will Dev, whose outhouse stores a pair of massive wings which he has engineered himself, escape his troubles, as a feathered streak?
Reddy’s observational approach, which we saw in his debut feature ‘Tithi’, is at play here too, but that was a burlesque; here, he ambitiously takes in more, and gives us more. In a few places the specific and the abstract do clash, and sit uneasily on screen: a village woman (Tillotama Shome) is used as a conduit for recounting a folk tale about other-worldly creatures who forget their origins and become earthlings, and while there is power to the tale, the telling of it draws attention to itself.

The film also comments on casteism, classism and capitalism in the way Dev comes across to his workers: there is an acknowledgement of their connection built through generations – the land, and its abundant gifts, has been passed on to Dev through his father and grandfather — but there’s also a brusqueness bordering on arrogance. The power struggle in the hills, with a greedy patwari and a group of armed guards showing up to ‘help’ Dev while everything is crumbling, is evident: who do the hills really belong to? The question is deeply political and always relevant, and is something to think about.

It’s when the film stays gentle, it is most piercing. Priyanka Bose is lovely as a woman who has found her rhythm in taking care of home and hearth and the occasional beautifully-rendered song. The young actors are very good, too. This is easily one of my top favourite Manoj Bajpayee performances (after ‘Shool’ and ‘Gangs Of Wasseypur’), and it is a pleasure to see him slide into his character’s skin and make it his own: Deepak Dobriyal’s pitch-perfect act as the raconteur who is both let down and raised high, is a cherry on top.
‘Jugnuma’ (riffing off the jugnus/fireflies — jugnu-numa — on screen?) lives up to its name: how much you lean into its fablesque qualities will depend entirely on what you think about the power of imagination. I do believe us earthly creatures can soar, reaching places beyond our horizons.

It's the kind of serene mountain landscape that gives the harried urban dweller a sense of peace.

But what churns in the lives of the locals?

Jugnuma, directed by Raam Reddy, tells an unsettling, yet whimsical, tale of the clash between locals, outsiders, nomads, and in the end, nature.

 
Dev (Manoj Bajpayee) has inherited a large fruit orchard in Uttarakhand from his grandfather, who got it from the British when they left India.

The land must have been grabbed by the original owners, whose descendents are now employed in the orchards.
Dev's wife Nandini (Priyanka Bose), teenage daughter Vanya (Hiral Sidhu) and younger son Juhu (Awan Pookot) live in a large bungalow on the estate, which is managed by Manoj (Deepak Dobriyal).

It all seems tranquil on the surface.

Dev has a hobby of strapping on a winged contraption that he engineers himself, and flying off hilltops.

Later, this is built into a folk tale that the villagers tell about the family that lived amongst them.

Suddenly one day, Dev finds a tree that has been burnt in the orchard.

As he and Mohan try to understand what happened, fires break out in other parts of the orchard, and there is no clue as to who or what causes them.

There is the mystery of the burning trees, underlining the growing chasm between Dev and the workers, and their disgruntlement at the use of pesticides that they believe harm them, and their employer's mistrust.

Vanya is drawn to the forest as she rides into the hills and has a silent communication with a nomad that hints at her loneliness (she does talk to a friend on the phone), and sexual awakening.
Set in 1989, and shot on 16 mm, Jugnuma does not have the enhanced gloss of today's films. Still, the magical light and stunning visuals of the mountainside go well with the layered storytelling.

A disturbed Dev shuts down work on the orchard, sacks the workers and calls the cops and a military man to hunt down the miscreants. But the story slowly builds up to an unexpected denouement.

Nothing is underlined, but the effects of the destructiveness of modern life creeping into the old ways of the villagers, climate change, apathy towards the rights of the people, suspicion of those who stay outside the village boundaries, are all sprinkled into the narrative, leaving the viewer to interpret and understand.

The performances are restrained and effective.

Manoj Bajpayee returns to the kind of film and style of acting that he works best with, in which he is the protagonist, but not a larger than life 'hero'.

Deepak Dobriyal, who is the narrator of the story, in a raspy voice, is equally understated.

In a small role, Tillotama Shome shines.

Most of the actors are locals and bring authenticity to the bucolic milieu.

Jugnuma comes out at a time when attention spans have diminished, when films and streaming content feel the need to speed things up.

This film is not afraid of silence or stillness.

There is no disturbing background music and Jugnuma has the unhurried pace of a stroll at dusk through the hills and the quiet delight in coming across jugnus (fireflies) twinkling in the trees.

For a while, they light up the darkness.


JUGNUMA Official Trailer | Manoj Bajpayee | Raam Reddy | Presented by Guneet Monga & Anurag Kashyap

Hailing from a small village in Bihar, Manoj Bajpayee aspired to become an actor since childhood. After being rejected from the National School of Drama four times, Manoj went on to win the prestigious National Film Award twice! Best known for his path-breaking performances in movies like Satya (1998), Pinjar (2003), Gangs Of Wasseypur (2013) & Aligarh (2015), Manoj is considered as the flag-bearer of method acting.

Jugnuma

Jugnuma(2025)

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