The Morning After the Oscars

Last night, a South Asian filmmaker won an Oscar for Best Live Action Short. For the first time. Ever.

That’s the sentence I’ve been waiting to write for a long time.

My world is literally covered in dust right now -- floors stripped, tiles stacked against the walls, the family TV off-limits behind a renovation in progress. The Oscars happened from the kitchen. And yet. Biggest smile I’ve had in years.

Because last night was much more than an awards show— it was a checklist. And every single item on it had REVOLUTION’S WIFE written all over it.

Alexandre Singh, a Franco-Indian Brit, won Best Live Action Short for TWO PEOPLE EXCHANGING SALIVA. Presented by Kumail Nanjiani -- the Pakistani-American actor, comedian, and Oscar-nominated screenwriter who has spent his career proving that South Asian stories belong everywhere, in every format.

SINNERS took home four Oscars, including Best Screenplay and Best Actor for Michael B. Jordan -- and had the entire Bay Area on its feet. Ryan Coogler is Oakland. Autumn Durald Arkapaw, who made history as the first woman to win Best Cinematography, grew up in San Leandro. This is our backyard. Our people.

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER won Best Picture. A political thriller about revolutionaries. Activists. People who refuse to step aside.

And HAMNET. Let me underscore this one. Jessie Buckley won Best Actress playing Agnes Shakespeare -- a woman erased by history for 430 years, buried under someone else’s legacy. Finally restored by Chloé Zhao, a Chinese-American woman director.

Can you hear me smiling?

Maybe I am reading into things. But it’s Monday morning, the sun is out, and reading into things feels like exactly the right response to a night like last night.

Now. REVOLUTION’S WIFE.

A short film made by a South Asian filmmaker and her Western co-producer, Candace Egan -- not unlike Alexandre Singh and Natalie Musteata. A Bay Area story, like SINNERS. Set inside the Gadar movement of 1917 San Francisco -- real revolutionaries, real activists, South Asians fighting for Indian independence from American soil, like ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER. And its protagonist, Padmavati Chandra -- one of the first South Asian women in America, caught up in a conspiracy she never consented to be part of, her story erased by history just as completely as Agnes Shakespeare’s. Agnes had Chloé Zhao bring her story back to life. Padmavati gets Yours Truly. Better late than never!

In the last few weeks, my life has shifted. From novelist-turned-screenwriter to full-on filmmaker. Suffice it to say, I got fed up of waiting for my screenplays to be picked up the traditional route.

We shot REVOLUTION’S WIFE on International Women’s Day. Our cast and crew took pay cuts to make it happen. CBS7 covered it (watch the video above.) We are now trying to get post-production underway.

Here is where I stop being a filmmaker for a moment and just talk.

This has been hard. Genuinely, unromantically hard. Asking people for money makes me cringe -- so here I am, full frontal cringe, baring it all. Our GoFundMe is live: https://www.gofundme.com/f/revolutions-wife-short-film

For those of you who have already contributed -- the gratitude is not performative. Your vote of confidence is HUGE. It’s everything. And you know me well enough to know that is not something I take lightly or forget. Ever.

What we need now goes beyond funds. We need champions. Friends who will share this. Executive Producers who want to be genuinely involved -- as co-owners of the film, shaping where it goes and who sees it, alongside Candace and me.

This is a community project. It has always been. Padma survived a conspiracy in 1917 because people around her refused to look away. A century later, we ask the same thing -- to not look away from her story. To bring it into the light where it belongs.

If reading any of this is making you smile too -- reach out. A Zoom call costs nothing. And some stories are simply worth fighting for.