Red Light Shadows
Type
Short Film (Drama)
Year
2026
Duration
17 min
Role
Writer-Director & Head of Production Design
Synopsis
A child discovers that his mother works in a brothel: a story about childhood trauma, identity, and family dynamics, told through an unusual and unflinching premise.
Contribution
Wrote the screenplay from concept through 20+ drafts, refining tone, structure, dialogue, character, and pacing through ongoing feedback and on-set rewrites. Directed the film and led every art department, recreating Mumbai's streets inside Dubai, building a slum house and brothel set from raw materials for texture and realism. Worked with a crew of 20+.
The Chaos
Shot on location in Bur Dubai and Deira. Filming permission was public, but the moment a camera came out, crowds gathered, so crew and equipment on each location had to be tightly controlled. Directing a child actor meant restructuring the shoot around 4–6 hour days instead of the standard 8–12. One key location was a working shop, so every take had to be built around the real shopkeeper's actual customers: rehearse, take, wait for a real sale, next shot. Half the camera team shot B-roll on location in Mumbai itself so the two cities could be intercut seamlessly. Casting women willing to play sex worker roles proved difficult, so the script was adjusted on the day of the shoot to work around it.
Recognition
Not yet submitted to festivals.