Padam Singh and Heera Devi, both first-time actors, came to Chandigarh on Wednesday, November 11, for a promotional event, joined by the film’s director, Vinod Kapri. Speaking to The Tribune, they described a story that has little to do with glamour and much to do with parents waiting for a phone to ring.Shot in the mountains of Uttarakhand, Pyre opened on October 30 in a handful of theatres, and its makers have sent it to the Oscars as an independent entry. “We began with very few shows and have watched the film slowly find its audience,” Kapri said. Exhibitors added shows by roughly 60 to 70 per cent in major cities, but screens later came down, and he hopes they return. “Every film that finds an audience deserves a fair chance,” he said. “I am hopeful that from Friday we will get more theatres and screens.”That hope has now been answered. In a post on X, Kapri announced that over 200 shows are being added from Friday, November 13, and thanked viewers for “standing by this little independent film.”Much of that support comes from people moved by the cast, none more than Heera Devi, a woman from the mountains, for whom the attention is still sinking in. “I never imagined I would come this far,” she said. “Now people meet me with so much love and respect.”Viewers have been leaving theatres in tears, and the closing scene nearly defeated her too. “I asked the director to cut it, because I had raised my own children through such struggle,” she said. “They reminded me it was only a role. I felt it would be wrong to let anyone down, so I finished what I had started.”Her co-star’s route to the screen was just as unlikely. Singh, the director’s uncle, served the Army for 24 years before returning to farming. At a birthday gathering for Kapri’s father, his own brother, he asked whether there was a part for him. Kapri set an audition on the spot.Nailing the act was only the beginning. “I had never faced a camera or acted in my life,” Singh said. “I kept reading the script and talking to a tree. This character carries the pain of the mountain.”That pain, Singh says, is loneliness. “This is the story of every ageing parent, in the hills or abroad,” he said. “Children go away to study and then settle down there, and parents are left wondering when they will call or visit.”It is exactly this honesty that Kapri says he wanted, which is why he chose non-stars deliberately. “Audiences are tired of stars. They know everything on screen is unreal,” he said.Getting the film released was harder. Kapri says he ran out of money, and that streaming platforms and studios turned the film down. “At one point, the film was dead for me. I thought it would release only when I lay on my own pyre,” he said. “Now, I feel their rejection was a blessing in disguise.”His pitch to Chandigarh is simple. “If you love your wife, your parents, your grandparents or your children, you should watch Pyre,” he said. “If you are a husband or a wife, you will see your partner differently. If you are a son or a granddaughter, you will look at your elders with new eyes.”