Written & Directed by SAI KARAN TALWAR
Produced by Adi Alfa
A heated argument occurs when Abdullah (Mikhail Sen - House of Dragon, A Suitable Boy) declares he is joining the British Military to the shock of his pacifist father Omar (Adil Akram - What's Love got to do with it?) and anger of his fundamentalist older brother Moh (James El-Sharawy - Tyrant, EastEnders). As their debate unfurls, past resentments and revelations rise to the surface, boiling to a point where they can no longer contain themselves. The war on terror, the 7/7 bombings, the loss of the son's mother and the allegiance to either Islam or Britain. What will unfold. Family, Duty or Honour?
ABOUT THE FILM
GHANIMAH was a Semi-Finalist at our Kino London Short Film Festival and screened at our Short Film Open Mic earlier this year. It’s the debut short film from Sai Karan Talwar, the writer/director of our upcoming Kino Original WHAT MEN DO FOR LOVE. Other noteable festival selections include Dances With Films, Flickers' Rhode Island International Film Festival, UK Asian Film Festival, and BIFA Qualifiers: Unrestricted View Film Festival, North East International Film Festival, Spirit of Independence Film Festival, & Brighton Rocks International Film Festival. James El Sharawy was nominated for Best Actor at the British Urban Film Festival, and the film won Best Short Film at the New Delhi Film Festival and Best Screenplay at the Rob Knox London Film Festival.
ABOUT THE FILMmakerS
SAI KARAN TALWAR is an award-winning writer and director. Sai is currently in a UK Writers program TBA in 2025 after its completion, and is a 2023 Alumni of the Respectability Entertainment Lab, with over forty accolades as a writer in some of the most esteemed screenwriting competitions. His Debut ‘GHANIMAH’ is a BAFTA & BIFA Qualified Short Film, that has been selected at 60 film festivals, with over a dozen wins and nominations, the film is about Islamic enrolment into the British Military. His upcoming short ‘What Men Do for Love’ is a 15-minute single take film about the masculine ego at breaking point, has begun its festival run and is currently BIFA qualified. Sai is working towards his debut feature film, and hopes that his short films showcase his talent to do so.
Film has always been a passion for Sai dating back to growing up in his late Grandfather’s video shop. Initially working with MADE from 2016, a charitable organization with a vision to reduce discrimination against BAME & LGBTQ+ Londoners. With MADE, he ran filmmaking workshops, screening events, held exhibitions at BFI Southbank and co-produced over 30 short films with 100,000+ online views. He worked in production companies such as Origin Pictures and 42 Management and Production within the development departments. He studied Economics and Finance at Durham University, leading to his undergraduate dissertation: ‘What are the key determinants of success for the box office within the UK motion picture industry?’ which received a first.
READ OUR INTERVIEW WITH SAI
Welcome to our Short of the Week series. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your filmmaking background?
Thank you for having me. I'm Sai, I am a writer and director based in London. currently in a UK Writers program TBA in 2025 after its completion and a Respectability Entertainment Lab Alumni. Film has always been a passion for me dating back to growing up in his late Grandfather’s video shop. I worked in production companies such as Origin Pictures and 42 Management and Production within the development departments during university, while studying Economics and Finance at Durham University. I started writing spec scripts fairly young, and after getting accolades for them, I needed to show that I could direct them. Which is what eventually led to 'GHANIMAH' being my first short film.
Tell us about the genesis of Ghanimah. What was the inspiration behind the film?
This is my debut short, after writing a few spec scripts that garnered a lot of finalist placements from competitions, I knew I wanted to direct them. But I hadn't directed before. Oddly, the idea of 'GHANIMAH' came to me in the shower. What if a British Muslim wanted to join the military, and the conflict that follows both externally and internally with his family. To fight in the military now is reduced to the 'war on terror'. I wanted to understand the subject as fully as I could so I researched the topic. I had read and studied the Quran, consulted Iman's, and British Muslims who were in law enforcement and the military. Recent statistics published by the Ministry of Defence indicate that there are 650 Muslims serving in the UK armed services and of these, 550 are in the British Army, constituting 0.5% of the total. Highlighting an interesting and controversial subject that hasn’t been covered widely in the media.
Our key motivation for this project was to shine a light on Islam, which tends to only be represented in terms of violence and hate. The Quran is much denser and more complicated than what is interpreted and presented in the modern media, and in some cases even when presented with sympathy, it is inherently vilified. In the world we live in today, it goes unsaid how relevant the topic is and the resonance it will have with an audience. Via our characters we are exploring why certain ideologies around Islam exist and the angst that surrounds these given interpretations.
We see so few quality projects about the non-white British experience, it feels like every story about Muslims centres on a young person being radicalised, these are perpetual two-dimensional stereotypes for ethnic minorities. Hence, giving us a strong motivation to put together this project. We have also seen many South Asian or Muslim actors offered terrorist roles, they are all frustrated that they do not get interesting characters, and that their faith tends to only be represented in terms of violence and hate. We are looking to expand the scope of what it means to be an immigrant in the UK through this narrative.
What were some of the main obstacles you experienced when making Ghanimah and how did you overcome them?
The whole journey was pretty rough, but rewarding in the end. I'm learning on the job trying to figure out how to get the funding, applying to as many funding bodies as I can find, then after a year realising that I'd have to pull out of my savings to do it. So I had to independently finance the project on a low budget and shoot in one day in order to get the film made. I had to do all the casting so there were hundreds of submissions and dozens of auditions to get through. My producer Adi however, was able to get together a really solid crew. We didn't have the time to do rehearsals, nor did we have the time to scout locations, we worked with what we had, you just get on with it in the end. The team was great, and I prepared as much as possible to mitigate any potential issues that could show up. There were the usual post-production issues as well when it came to ironing out the sound, settling on the right cuts and the score. So the whole process was a learning experience, but I think we got there in the end.
Tell us about the journey of getting your film to audiences and some of the festival circuit highlights.
I feel pretty grateful and lucky with the run we had to be honest. We had selections from the award accredited festivals and qualified for the Bafta and Bifa. Our UK premiere was at the BFI as a part of the UK Asian Film Festival which was a great start. We then had our US premiere at Dances With Film at the Legendary TCL Chinese Theatre, so we spent a week in the middle of Hollywood, it's a very strange place but I look back and enjoy the experience, getting to know other filmmakers across the pond, and watching some great films. But also quite nerve racking to have all those people watch your films, those theatres go up to 500 people. I tried to attend as many as possible when I came back to London, mostly travelling around the country to places I possibly wouldn't have thought of visiting before and had a great time. For example, It was BUFF's first year in Halifax, Spirit of Independence in Sheffield, NEIFF in Newcastle, even won a couple of awards while in attendance at the Wolverhampton Film Festival, and at the Rob Knox Film Festival, then we ended our run full circle back in London at the Unrestricted View Film Festival.
What do you think is the biggest challenge short filmmakers face in the early stages of their career when trying to break into the industry?
I'm still in the early stages. So not really sure how I can impart any advice, I'm still trying to break in. Everyone is fighting for the same pot of BFI money, so if you don't get the funding you would have hoped for, then you're back to square one trying to figure out how to get it made. Finding the right team that's on your wavelength, and that understands your vision is important, but they're also able to bring something interesting to your projects. You also want a team that wants to be there making the film with you, all short films are passion projects at the end of the day. Lastly, I feel that we need to control the urge to punch above our weight, at least in my case, this was my first film. I want to keep it small, and I'm not trying to throw in big fight scenes or explosions. I'm working with what I have and trying to be realistic with what we can achieve on our budget. so I do my best to write good characters and get some solid performances out of the actors.
What advice or hacks would you give to other short filmmakers?
I would say entering as many programs as possible, you would hope programs like the one I'm in currently or the Respectability lab would open doors, but I feel like you need to keep the momentum going, keep trying to make good films, and get them out there. Don't be discouraged by festivals, I would hope at the end of the day you're making films for yourself and finding an audience is a bonus, it is more competitive than ever, more films are being made, and more are being submitted. And you don't know which film is going to hit audiences the most, so the only way to mitigate that is to keep creating good work. Build a great team and a network of collaborators. Making sure that you're financially stable is probably the most important thing, and no one talks about it, I didn't stay in development because the pay would not have been good enough to sustain myself, I come from a working class background. So I studied economics and finance and continued to work in Investment Banking, so at least at the end of the day the bills and expenses are paid, and if I have to put money into the films, I can put some money aside to do it myself, which I've now done with 'GHANIMAH' and my most recent short, 'What Men Do For Love'.
Any film recommendations that we should add to our watchlist?
A short film that really stunned me recently was 'The Red Sea Makes Me Wanna Cry' . It is available on Mubi at the moment, it's very atmospheric and visceral, possibly the closest thing I've seen that reminded me of Antonioni. Just this year, there's a few feature films that came out that had made a strong impression on me, 'The Iron Claw', 'La Chimera' and 'Challengers' I think are all definitely worth seeing if anyone hasn't.
