In rural India, families with mentally challenged children face impossible choices between love and survival. Debut filmmaker Jitank Singh Gurjar’s “In Search of the Sky” (“Vimukt”) confronts this harsh reality through the journey of a couple who bring their mentally unstable son to the Maha Kumbh — a massive Hindu pilgrimage held every 12 years that draws over 100 million devotees — desperately seeking healing. The Braj-language drama has landed in Toronto’s Centrepiece program for the festival’s 50th anniversary.

The film follows a couple facing old age and the risk of losing their land while caring for their adult son Naraan, who has intellectual disabilities. Desperate for a solution and clinging to faith as their last hope, they embark on a pilgrimage to the Maha Kumbh, where they must confront an impossible decision about their son’s future.

Producer and co-writer Pooja Vishal Sharma says the story emerged from her encounters at an NGO for children with intellectual disabilities and stories she’d heard about people getting lost or abandoned at the Kumbh Mela.

“My time there really made me question the tough balance between love and the heartbreaking circumstances faced by many families that have a child with special needs,” Pooja Vishal Sharma explains. “Through this story I tried to weave both of these experiences into a film, which highlights how society can be so ruthless, and how an ounce of hope can play such an important role in one’s journey.”