Where are you really from?

This story is inspired by my lived experience as a first generation immigrant moving from India at the age of 12. I have had to mould myself several times to adapt. This has meant abandoning bits of my Indian identity and taking on British values and appearances. More recently, I find myself lost at how out of touch I have become with my roots - especially not thinking in my mother tongue so much anymore. Immigration is at an all-time high, especially for people seeking refuge from prosecution. This brings inevitable change in identity for the people involved. This film explores accents as identity and hopes to give some resolve to the audience experiencing it. Through films like these, it is important that we promote a world of tolerance and acceptance of our differences. I am inspired by realistic comedy. This is something common to both Indian and British cinema, showing the struggle of the small man. I hope to keep this cross-cultural interaction with awkward comedy and using silent pauses effectively. I was inspired by Ruben Ostlund for the cinematography style with mostly wide angles and single takes. I wanted the film to ooze a feeling of realism where we are watching things unfold, and the audience is free to make their own judgement of whether they think the film is funny or serious. Keshav Shree's last film, "Happy Retirement Mr Pickering" is a dark comedy about an older gentleman coming out in retirement to his wife. It had a successful festival run including at Oscar-qualifying HollyShorts, LA and is now on Amazon Prime to watch.

Our team is made up of members from all over the world. Being immigrants themselves, they identify very much with the themes of the film, and stories of adjusting in a foreign land. We have teammembers from China to Iceland, from Mexico to Romania & France. Please watch a mini-documentary with our team members talking about their immigrant experience here: https://vimeo.com/919648187. This is our team's third film together. Like a well oiled machine, we have been getting better and better with each film. Our team is compromised of graduates of the UK's top film school National Film and Television School (NFTS) and University of Greenwich. Cinematographer, Estefania Carpio is a NFTS graduate with many BAFTA and Oscar-qualifying films under her belt (Nominated for BSC Best Cinematograpy award; “Brutal” (Raindance Festival 2022)). Editor, Jón Atli Guðjónsson, (again NFTS), is a BAFTA and Oscar-qualifying editor with recent works on Amazon and Apple, including "From a Village to the World: The Journey of Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson" a documentary on the President of Iceland. Production Designer Yujia Huang, (NFTS) won best short "This is ours" at Reykjavik International Film Festival, and best feature "Summer Blur", at Berlin International Film Festival. Graphic designer, Emma Beinish (NFTS) is an Emmy winner for her work for the CNN (2023). Sound Designer, Dan Hibbert (NFTS) won the Verna Fields Award at the 70th MPSE Golden Reel Awards. Our amazing music composer, Jose-Luis Esquivel is a Latin Grammys nominee and has a myriad of compositions for film, TV and national symphonies including Nashville Symphony and Orquesta Mexiquense. Our producer, Jean Ciuntu is a Uni of Greenwich graduate with multiple short films under his belt, as well as being a TEDx producer. He won best producer with film, "Balance" for the University of Greenwich graduation awards.