Indian cinema triumphs at the 23rd Transylvania International Film Festival, which took place June 14-24 in the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

First-time director Shuchi Talati won the Transylvania Trophy, the top prize of the International competition, along with its $11,7000 (10,000 euro) bursary for her feature Girls Will Be Girls, a mother-daughter drama that premiered at Sundance earlier this year. The drama follows a young, academically gifted teenager at a strict boarding school in the Himalayas who gets caught up in an emotional love triangle with her mother, as they both compete for the affection of the same boy.

“The story of this film is very rooted in India, but I always hoped that people outside this very specific space and time where the story takes place would resonate with it,” said Talati in a video presented at the Gala ceremony at the Cluj-Napoca’s historic National Theater on Saturday evening. “I...