An Indian embassy screening is a small stage by Bollywood standards, but for Gaurav Thakur and Neel Kothari, it's the biggest one their film has stood on yet. The Bombay Blood, an Indo-German feature, plays at the Indian Embassy in Berlin on September 11, and the curator behind the event says every ticket went in a matter of days.

Thakur wears three hats on this one. He's written it, directed it and cut it. Kothari produces alongside him and Daniel E. Pajak, spreading the film across four banners: Era of Light Films, RangNeel Creations, Comutador Junkies Productions and Pajak Pictures Filmproduktion. That's a lot of names on one indie feature, which tells you something about how many hands went into getting a German-Indian co-production off the ground at all.

The pitch is a survival story built around an Indian protagonist dropped into a European setting, questions of identity following him the whole way. The cast mixes German and Indian performers, Dirk Böhling, Philipp Oliver Baumgarten, Katrin Ingendoh and Sabine Urban on one side of the ledger, Thakur himself, Kashyap Parulekar, Mithun Ramdharne and Kajal Raturi on the other.

A partnership, not just a film

Kothari, whose background is in Marathi theatre and film, calls this his first international producing credit and his first project with Thakur. He's framing it as the start of something longer. "Our association goes beyond one film, and we want to build a creative partnership that brings together talent, stories and cultures from both countries and puts Indian stories on a global platform," he said.

He's also not shy about what the embassy screening means to him personally. "The fact that my second film is now being screened at the German Embassy is a moment of immense pride and also a validation of the vision we have been pursuing," Kothari said, adding that his collaboration with Thakur rests on a shared belief that cinema can cross language and geography without losing itself.

Rohit Prabhu is curating the Berlin event, and it's his word that the house sold out fast, drawing both German audiences curious about the co-production and the Indian diaspora keen to see homegrown talent on a European stage.

What happens after Berlin is the more interesting question for Indian audiences. Thakur and members of the German cast are expected to cross over into Maharashtra and other Indian cities for what's being called the film's India chapter, a mix of promotional stops and public screenings. No dates have been announced for that leg yet, and there's no word on a commercial India release or a platform deal. For now, The Bombay Blood exists mostly as a festival and embassy circuit film, one that's trying to build word of mouth on both continents before it makes its real case to Indian theatres.