2026 Student Academy Award Series Part 5: Kamathipura Express

Kamathipura Express, dir. Leon Korzyński 

“Do you ever think of going back home?”

When Leon Korzyński first arrived in Mumbai, he was only ten years old. The city made such a lasting impression on him that, even then, he could imagine himself returning one day to make a film there. Years later, while studying Directing at the Warsaw Film School, he turned that childhood idea into reality. Working with an international crew, he created Kamathipura Express, an unusually accomplished second-year student film that went on to win a Student Academy Award in the Live Action category.

The film follows Osa (Oskar Karos), a young Polish man who has been living in the slums of Mumbai, deliberately avoiding the responsibilities of adulthood and alone in a huge city where everybody knows everybody. His life changes when he falls in love with Sapna (Mia Paul), whose family is trapped in poverty and debt. When Sapna’s father attempts to sell her to a brothel, the two are forced to flee across India in a desperate attempt to escape Kamathipura, Mumbai’s notorious red-light district. Kamathipura is one of Mumbai’s most historically significant neighbourhoods and is widely known as one of the oldest and largest red-light districts in Asia. First settled in the late eighteenth century by construction and industrial workers, the area gradually became associated with the commercial sex trade, organized crime, and the underworld. At the same time, it has remained home to a diverse working-class population, with families, tea stalls, and small businesses forming an important part of its social fabric.

The story of Kamathipura Express was further informed by Korzyński’s research into human trafficking, particularly cases in which exploitation originates within a victim’s own family. These questions remained with him after he visited Kamathipura during an earlier project. His experience of the neighbourhood, one of Mumbai’s most historically and socially charged areas, eventually became an important foundation for the film. Though half of Osa’s story lies with his family in Poland, Korzyński makes the wise choice to keep the story confined to India, the voices of Osa’s Polish parents remaining in off-screen phonecalls, their overlapping voices complementing Fanciszek Skorupka’s evocative score.

Kamathipura Express has a somewhat familiar race against the clock narrative but it is the fresh cross-cultural voice that keeps the story moving forward in a thrilling new way. Korzyński was also acutely aware that he was a young Polish filmmaker entering a reality that was fundamentally different from his own and rather than attempting to conceal that distance, however, he chose to acknowledge it, which is why Osa’s perspective remains closely connected to his own experiences and background.

Shooting in Mumbai on a student budget created an additional set of difficulties. The team ultimately decided against filming in Kamathipura itself, recognizing that working there with limited resources could pose significant risks. Instead, they searched for alternative locations that could convincingly capture the atmosphere and character of the neighbourhood. The film’s visual identity developed largely from these chosen locations. The brilliant Director of Photography Witold Prokopczyk found that over time, blue and red became the dominant colours, emphasizing the contrast between the overwhelming energy and density of Mumbai and the more intimate world created by its two central characters. The cool cerulean roofs of their neighbourhood homes and calming turquoise rooms that the lovers share contrast sharply with the burning red lights of Kamathipura and the bloody crimson sari of the Madam trying to buy Sapna.

Korzyński’s kinetic filming style matches the characters restless spirit, the camera is always walking, driving, riding a train just as Osa and Sapna are running away from family, running away from Kamathipura. The film’s journey reflects the philosophy at the heart of the project: that film education should be about more than mastering technical skills, it should also provide an opportunity to take creative risks. As a second-year student production, Kamathipura Express carried its young crew thousands of kilometres from Warsaw and challenged them to combine careful preparation with the unpredictability of circumstances they could never completely control.

Can love withstand the forces of circumstance, geography, and social stigma? That question lies at the center of Kamathipura Express. The film combines romance with social commentary, offering a distinctive cross-cultural perspective on one of Mumbai’s most complex and storied neighbourhoods. Although love forms the emotional core of the story, the film also confronts the darker realities of trafficking and exploitation. If Kamathipura Express succeeds in what it sets out to do, its central question may remain with audiences long after the train has reached its final destination.

Review by: Joshua Hunt