Director: Nisha Pahuja
A father in rural India refuses to accept silence as an answer, and that refusal becomes the spine of "To Kill a Tiger."
What is To Kill A Tiger about?
When his thirteen-year-old daughter survives a brutal assault, a farmer named Ranjit is expected, by tradition and by pressure from his own village, to let the matter quietly disappear. Instead he pushes for a criminal case, a decision that isolates his family from neighbors and invites open hostility in a community unaccustomed to a parent choosing his child's dignity over social conformity. Director Nisha Pahuja films the fallout with patient, observational access, following courtroom delays, community meetings, and quiet moments at home where Ranjit and his wife weigh what the fight is costing them against what silence would have cost their daughter. The documentary resists turning its subjects into symbols; Ranjit is shown as an ordinary man making an extraordinary choice under sustained social pressure, not a crusader. As the case drags through India's legal system, the film widens its lens to the broader culture of victim-blaming that makes his stance so unusual, without ever losing sight of the specific family at its center.
Cast & crew
The film follows Ranjit and his family as its real subjects rather than a scripted cast, with director Nisha Pahuja embedding her crew in their village over an extended period to capture the case as it actually unfolded.
Context & significance
"To Kill a Tiger" premiered in 2023 and went on to earn an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature, drawing international attention to how rural communities in India handle, and often suppress, cases of sexual violence. Pahuja spent years following the case, and the finished film became a reference point in conversations about legal reform and victim support in the region.
Where & how to watch
"To Kill a Tiger" is available on K-Time with Farsi dubbing and Persian subtitles. The page itself is free to read; watching the full documentary requires logging into a K-Time account, part of a platform built around a Farsi-first viewing experience for Persian-speaking audiences everywhere.