Zindagi Dobara (Life Again)
Director Amritpal Kaur
Country USA
Year 2022
Languages Punjabi, English
Genre Drama
Running Time 14 min
After her parents die in a car accident, a South Asian teen is forced to live with an aunt she's never met before. She discovers why her aunt was shunned secretly from their family. The two must decide whether to embark on a lifelong journey to coexist and grieve the family lost.
TW: The film addresses themes of grief and loss.
This film is part of Shorts: Family Tales program.
Director’s Statement
This film is my gift to my grandmother. The story itself is inspired by my own grandmother’s passing from ovarian cancer in March 2018. I never saw my grandmother in the flesh after I had left India as a 3-year-old and we became quite distant in the 19 years that followed before her departure. I could never come out to her as a queer femme and I kept thinking about all the stories and history that were left unspoken and scattered into the Earth alongside her ashes. Hopefully, this story transcends its physical nature and into the heavens for her.
Director’s Bio
Amritpal Kaur (she/they)
Amritpal Kaur (Amrit) is an immigrant, queer, Punjabi Sikh storyteller residing in the San Fernando Valley, California. Their creative work challenges traditional narratives of API folks, LGBTQ+, and BIPOC individuals, while exploring community healing, mental health, and joy as transformative tools to uplift and create a better world for BIPOC. Amrit co-founded Brown Girl Joy Productions (BGJ), a production and consulting agency, to create innovative and transformative media centering underserved communities. In 2021, Amrit won the Tasveer Film Fund for Best LGBTQ Screenplay, funded by Netflix, for a 10-page script dedicated to their deceased Nani. BGJ Productions hired an entirely LA-based BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and undocumented/formerly undocumented team of folks to masterfully create an LGBTQ+ narrative short film, ZINDAGI DOBARA. Along with working on BGJ Productions, Amrit is set to graduate with an MFA in Social Documentation at University of California Santa Cruz.