India, Oct. 31 -- Some films travel on budgets; others travel on conviction. Kamathipura Express, screened in the Best Shorts from Poland section of the 42nd Warsaw Film Festival, belongs to the second kind. At just over 28 minutes, this Warsaw Film School production carries the weight of a much longer story, and it was the festival's link to India, seen through a Polish lens.

The film follows Osa, a young Pole drifting through Mumbai's slums and dodging adult responsibility. He falls for Sapna, a teenage dancer whose family is buried in debt. When her father tries to sell her to a brothel, the couple flee across India, away from Kamathipura, the city's notorious red-light district. Beneath the chase sits a harder question: can love surv...