AMMA, DO GIRAFFES CRY?

Kartikeya Saxena / 26 min. / 2026 / India, Czech Republic / Spanish Premiere
Short Documentary Films 2026

Synopsis

Far away from home, an Indian filmmaker calls his zoologist mother from the Prague Zoo. As he describes the mysterious lives of the captive animals he observes – a gorilla scared of cameras, an insomniac anaconda and penguins haunted by their own shadows – the zoo becomes a space for their memories to materialise. The distance between mother and son, human and animal evaporates, and the zoologist confronts a long held belief.

About the film

DIRECTION: Kartikeya Saxena
SCRIPT: Kartikeya Saxena
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Ya Ching Yang
PRODUCTION: Kartikeya Saxena, FAMU International
EDITING: Shawrya Kumar

Kartikeya Saxena

Author

Born in Rajasthan, Prague-based filmmaker and cinematographer Kartikeya draws on folklore and oral tradition to explore landscape as memory. Working between fiction and non-fiction, his films weave images and sound around themes of ecology, postcolonialism, and architecture. His debut short Amma, Do Giraffes Cry? premieres at Visions du Réel (2026) and is nominated for the Doc Alliance Award for Best Short Film.

Filmography

2026 Amma, Do Giraffes Cry? [corto]