Jungle Cry, a 2022 drama from India and the United Kingdom, tells the true story of twelve underprivileged and orphaned children from the Kalinga Institute in Odisha. Director Sagar Ballary builds the film around real events rather than a fictional composite, and the cast list crosses two countries to match the story's scope.
What is Jungle Cry about?
The film follows twelve children from Kalinga Institute, all of them orphaned or growing up without stable family support, as they're brought together as a team and pushed toward a level of competition far beyond what their circumstances would normally allow. Abhay Deol and Atul Kumar anchor the Indian side of the cast, while Emily Shah, Stewart Wright, Julian Lewis Jones, Rhys ap William, Sherry Baines, and Richard Elfyn fill out a British contingent that reflects the film's cross-border production. Jungle Cry treats its subjects as individuals first, spending time on the daily discipline and setbacks of training before the team's bigger test arrives.
About the cast
Abhay Deol leads the film's coaching side, with Atul Kumar supporting him from within the Indian cast. On the UK side, Emily Shah, Stewart Wright, Julian Lewis Jones, Rhys ap William, Sherry Baines, and Richard Elfyn round out a group of characters who intersect with the children's story. Together the cast spans two countries, matching a production that filmed and cast across both.
Context & significance
Jungle Cry sits in the sports-drama tradition of underdog team stories, but its grounding in a real institute and real children gives it a different weight than most fictional entries in the genre. At 117 minutes, the film has room to build out its characters individually rather than treating the team as a single unit, and the India-UK co-production behind it is reflected directly in the mixed cast. Director Sagar Ballary keeps the focus on the children's discipline and growth rather than spectacle.
Watching Jungle Cry on Ktime
Jungle Cry is available on K-Time with both a Persian dub and Persian subtitles, so viewers can choose either option. Watching requires a free K-Time account login, though the film's page can be read without one. K-Time's Farsi-first design is built for exactly this kind of viewer choice, letting Persian-speaking audiences pick dub or subtitles per title.