Kannada director Natesh Hegde’s (2021) was shot in his own village and followed a farm labourer whose unwitting mistake exposed harsh truths about his milieu. Hegde describes his haunting second film Vagachipani as a “companion piece” to Pedro (2021) in terms of its setting, the caste hierarchy, the cruelty of the feudal order and prejudice towards outliers.

Not for Hegde the bucolic or quirky charms of the countryside. In his short films as well as his features, a verdant landscape serves as scaffolding for deterioration and debasement. The village is a viper pit, hissing with grievances old and new, hypocrisy and overweening ambition.

“There is no warmth at all, there is the feeling that deep down beneath the polish, we are operating in a different system,” Hegde told Scroll. “This is the way actually we treat each other.”

Vagachipani (Tiger’s Pond) has been selected for the Forum section at the prestigious Berlin Film Festival (February 13-23). Co-produced by Mumbai filmmakers Anurag Kashyap and Ranjan Singh, the rural vice drama solidifies 30-year-old Hegde’s reputation as a pitiless purveyor of human iniquity.

Hegde’s screenplay, based on a short story by Kannada writer Amaresh Nugadoni, unfolds as a slow-burning investigation of sorts into the rape of a mentally challenged adolescent. Pathi is...