The Native

PORTRAIT FILM | 16 MINS | 2025

Who's a Punjabi? Who's a Malayali?

The Native is a portrait film that follows Surinder Singh (Bittu), a man whose very life carries the question of identity. Soon after his parents moved to Kerala in 1965, Bittu was born here—between languages, cultures, and inheritances.

Today, Bittu speaks Malayalam as fluently as any Malayali, yet his blood remembers Punjab. In Punjab, he feels like a visitor. These invisible trajectories—between homeland and adopted land, between history and present, between roots and soil—is what gives his story its resonance.

The Native is not just about Bittu, but about the larger question of who we are when history places us at crossroads.