Kothanodi was completed with post-production support from the Busan International Film Festival’s Asia Cinema Fund as well as a crowd-funding drive. Kothandi is an Assamese-language film based on a series of folk tales originating in Assam, India. With a “dark and moody narrative,” the film centers on the theme of motherhood, which can be beautifully expressed via a mother’s undying love, or cruelly conveyed via the darkest recesses of human nature. Four separate tales unfold within the film: a wealthy woman named Dhoneshwari tries to marry off her daughter to a python; Senehi, a schizophrenic woman who hates her step-daughter, plans to kill her while her father is away; Keteki gives birth to "elephant apple" that follows her around everywhere; and Malati struggles to save her newborn baby from her husband, who has sacrificed all three of her previous children. In the process, she unlocks a shocking truth. These four mothers are all imaginary yet paradoxically realistic, as they show not only the bright side of motherly love but also its most sinister side. (KIM Ji-seok)