Film Review: Batt Koch – Cinema of loss and longing

Sushant Dhar reviews Batt Koch, calling it a cinema of loss and longing, a powerful and sombre reminder of our shared history, a story of survivors. 

While leaving for the theatre, I recalled a day from last year when my friend Vinayak posted on Instagram that two young Kashmiri Pandits, Sidharth Koul and Ankit Wali, had approached him with a script on a film about their community—and now the shooting was complete. When I later saw the trailer, M.K. Raina cycling through memory and landscape, it felt prophetic.

Watch the trailer of Batt Koch

A civilization lies in tatters, and history weeps through the eyes of the elderly. Batt Koch shapes as a quiet, devastating journey through abandoned homes, unsent letters and lives lived in perpetual exile. At its heart, the film is about loss of home and the aching, unresolved longing to return—a sentiment that defines three generations of Kashmiri Pandits. One generation has withered away in camps, another is waiting on the threshold, and the other lies scattered. Battkoch becomes an act of catharsis for the entire community.