Gothic folktale Anda screens at the New Jersey Film Festival on Sunday, January 25!

ANDA is the directorial debut of Jayendra Ganta. Despite it being his first film, he showed no fear in taking on something extremely conceptual and outlandish. There are really only about five set locations, yet the movie feels drastically bigger due to the surrealist ideas and some of the visuals. It, in short, follows an older woman, Norma, who has reconnected with her mother for the first time since her teenage years. This is hard to discern at first due to her mom appearing much younger than she should, even younger than Norma herself. It is revealed throughout the film how this is achieved with a special serum that involves a strange form of sacrifice, tied to Norse culture. Seemingly, a weird alien mummy is the key to procuring this elixir, and after a while of caring for it, one can sap it of the goo. This looks to be grown from a bird that is fed a certain diet to allow this, birds are a common image in the film. A story is told by Norma’s mother about a master who wanted control and got a bird, this did not work quite as expected so he ended up clipping the wings off of it, which made it more subservient to him. This is likely as it knew that even if it were let out of the cage, it still would never truly be free.

Norma begins taking the serum, which is when the film takes a turn to the dreamier side and we see things such as the mummy creature, disoriented time, among other things. Although, the whole film start to finish has some surreal elements, or at least things tied to these more magical parts, such as a stone circle in the middle of a forest. The stones are labeled with Nordic symbols, and some of the characters like Norma, her mom, and the children disciples of this cult lie down in it, which seems to potentially be part of the transformation process. There is a side plot involving Norma, the younger version of herself, Viola, and a local young man named Matt. Norma and Matt have some sort of platonic relationship ordinarily, but now with this younger version it seems that a mutual attraction has begun.

There is a lot to like about ANDA, with the main thing being its dreamy original idea. The idea of eternal life and sacrifice as a means to getting to it has been seen in stories before, but not really in this manner. Original stories are rare to come by these days, and this one is well conceived while being not too predictable. It is very much a mystery at first with only some clues at first as to how this process is happening, but as it unravels it becomes more and more clear, as much as a surrealistic film is willing to give away at least. Ganta is able to get some great shots in this, and the use of color at times was very appealing. Scenes involving the lake really showcase this, but the entire movie looks very nice. The score accompanies this wonderfully, especially moments of suspense or shock that are only made more impactful thanks to the music. Pacing is there and even with drastic cuts from place to place it still works. All of this makes ANDA a great debut, showing lots of skill in the medium, along with a great amount of potential for Jayendra Ganta in the future.

Anda will be screening on Sunday, January 25, 2026 – Online for 24 Hours! Get more info and buy tickets here. 

The 44th Bi-Annual New Jersey Film Festival will be taking place on select Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays between January 23-February 22, 2026. The Festival will be a hybrid one as we will be presenting it online as well as doing in-person screenings at Rutgers University. Most of the films will be available virtually via Video on Demand for 24 hours on their show date. VOD start times are at 12 Midnight Eastern USA. Each General Admission Ticket or Festival Pass purchased is good for both the virtual and the in-person when both are offered. The in-person screenings will be held in Voorhees Hall #105/Rutgers University, 71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, NJ beginning at 5PM or 7PM on their show date. General Admission Ticket=$15 Per Program; Festival All Access Pass=$120; In-Person Only Student Ticket=$10 Per Program. For more info on the Film festival go here: https://newjerseyfilmfestivalspring2026.eventive.org/welcome