Indian actor Sayani Gupta will step in front of the camera for the first time with Asmani, a short film that she wrote, directed and produced.
The project marks a milestone that the Film and Television Institute of India alumni have been working on for 17 years.
Gupta has built a film career defined by a consistent penchant for unconventional material. She is perhaps best known to international audiences for her role in Shonali Bose’s Margarita with a Straw, and has also gained significant acclaim on the streaming side through her Prime Video series Four More Shots Please!. She has also appeared in Anubhav Sinha’s ‘Article 15’ and the streaming thriller ‘Inside Edge’, and her credits include ‘Pagglait’ and ‘Axone’.
The film follows Smita, an elderly woman in her late 60s who shares an unbreakable bond with a vintage powder blue Fiat of the same name, who joins forces with her bright young granddaughter Tiya. Veteran actor Revathy leads the cast along with Dalia Bedi and Abhay Kaur.
‘Aasmani’ is produced by Sayani Gupta Movies, Sumitra Gupta Arts Foundation and One India Stories, and is executive produced by Gupta, Nikkhil Advani, Dia Mirza and Ananya Rane. Co-producers are Paramita Ghosh, Sidharth Meer, Vinit D’Souza, Smriti Kiran and Neeraj Gera.
The film is the first production by the Sumitra Gupta Arts Foundation, with Advani on board as a key patron. This is the second installment of One India Stories, a company founded by childhood friends turned collaborators Mirza and Rain. The company was founded around a commitment to emotionally resonant storytelling, with a focus on elevating voices from outside the mainstream.
The script has amassed considerable international success prior to the film’s world premiere. Screenplay recognition includes the New York Screenplay Competition, the Independent Short Award LA, the Los Angeles Film and Music Video Awards, the Cambridge Short Film Festival, and the FARO Mediterranean and Mundial Film Competitions.
In a statement, Mr. Gupta said the film was the realization of an ambition he had harbored since his school days. “Making a film has been a dream of mine for 17 years, ever since I stepped foot in film school,” she said. “Every time I’ve been on set as an actor over the years, that feeling has only grown stronger. In a world of chaos and brutality, film truly serves as a medium of speech, resistance, evocation, and perhaps even as a sedative.”
Gupta used her own memories of the formative women in her family to construct the film’s characters, exploring the essential emotional terrain she expressed through humor and levity. “Aasmani is a film about love, companionship and freedom, with themes of redundancy, values and loss,” she said. “This is a story about vibrant women (of all ages) who know their hearts and their worth. I hope this film will be a spot of sunshine, love and joy for everyone who watches it.”
For Mirza and Rane, this project embodies the purpose of One India Stories: to provide creative support and a broad platform for filmmakers who work outside established industry structures and stories with real emotional weight. They say the car at the center of the story takes on a meaning far beyond its role in the story, coming to represent its owner’s sense of self and her silent refusal to cede control within the family.
Advani and the Sumitra Gupta Arts Foundation pointed to Gupta’s track record as an actor, consistently marked by bold and unconventional choices, as a clear sign of the filmmaker she brings to this debut feature.
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