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Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Tony-winning activist-playwright V, formerly known as Eve Ensler, have signed on as executive producers of Pranav Bhasin’s Oscar-qualified Indian short “We Were Here.” They join Andrew Scott
as the film gears up for awards season.
The New Yorker has acquired the short and will premiere it on the magazine’s YouTube channels.
“We Were Here” has screened at more than 80 festivals and collected over 20 awards. It launched at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, taking the Canal+ Prize. At SXSW, it won the audience award for best narrative short along with the Redbreast Unhidden Award. Palm Springs International ShortFest named it best live-action short under 15 minutes and best comedy short, and that win made the film eligible for Academy Award consideration.
Bhasin wrote and directed the mockumentary, set in a small Indian town. Three retirees, certain that machines are stealing human jobs, mount a protest by posing as household appliances. Their campaign is thrown off course when one of their children goes to work for an artificial intelligence company.
Satish Kashyap, Devendra Dodke and Arindol Bagchi star as Mr. Bagchi, Mr. Pimple and Mr. Ganguli. The cast also includes Shubham Kujur, Kalpana Gagdekar and Yash Gonsai. Gonsai produced through Sunshine Pictures alongside Dheer Momaya and Dar Gai. Aarti Lohia and SPLF Media present the film.
“This film offers a refreshing, witty take on a subject that feels very timely. I jumped at the opportunity to come on board as an executive producer to amplify this creative team and ensure their brilliant, original vision gets the spotlight it deserves,” said Chopra Jonas.
The executive producer roster also includes Peter S. Kim and Nalini Sharma of Basement Video, Neha Kaul, Megha Kadakia, Priya Giri Desai and Shruti Ganguly of Prism Entertainment, Shivani Pandya Malhotra, Film Companion Studios, Anjula Acharia and Pan Nalin. Devaiah Bopanna, Earlyman Film, Rahul Bharti, Supavitra Babul and Vaibhav Bundhoo are co-producers.
Bhasin, who hails from Mumbai, was directing films by the age of 13 and had made his first series, for TVF, by 17. At the Mumbai film festival, his short “Wolf of Chawl Street” took the Silver Dimensions prize in 2017, and “New Year’s Eve” was named best short a year later. His other work includes “Taylor’s Version” and “Screaming on the Fly.” His films have premiered at SXSW and on Mubi, Short of the Week and Vimeo Staff Picks. He is an alumnus of Vanishing Angle’s Short-to-Feature Lab (2020) and the Zurich Film Festival Academy (2022).
“‘We Were Here’ started as a small, silly idea about three uncles trying to stop the spread of AI, and somewhere along the way, I fell in love with them, their friendships, and their stubborn resilience. In India, reality is often stranger than anything you could write, and the mockumentary format let me keep the film rooted in real people and real places, while exploring just how absurd things can get,” said Bhasin. “Now that the film is Oscar-qualified, I’m still figuring out how to process it. I made it the way I make everything. I followed an idea that felt wild to me, all the way to the end. I was never sure it would make sense to anyone outside my head. As a young filmmaker, I find it pretty surreal to have a tribe of highly accomplished and committed EPs, including Andrew Scott, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, and V. We’re all really excited to find creative ways to get this film to wider audiences.”
Gonsai was an executive producer on Nalin’s “Last Film Show,” which made the international feature shortlist at the 95th Academy Awards. He more recently teamed with Dharma Productions on Neeraj Ghaywan’s Cannes-debuting “Homebound,” which was shortlisted at the 98th Academy Awards.
