fiscal sponsorship
The Other Side
TYPE: Narrative Short
GENRE: Drama
STATUS: Post-Production
LOGLINE
When an eight-year-old boy struggles with his identity, his estranged birth mother Tara finally decides to meet him and his adoptive family for the first time in many years but is unprepared for the tensions arising around her own sexual identity.
SYNOPSIS
Tara, a South Asian birth mother, travels to a small town to meet her son Ray and his Caucasian adoptive parents. Tensions arise when they learn about Tara’s sexuality and how it might affect Ray, who is already being picked on at school for being 'different' than his parents. The Other Side is a timely story that explores themes of parenting, race, and sexuality from a very intimate perspective.
ARTISTIC STATEMENT
Coming from India with a journalism background, my work focuses on exploring stories about women and underrepresented communities.
My goal with the film is to explore adoption in the context of sexuality and race, specifically from a South Asian birth mother’s perspective. Birth mothers are a voice that is often left out of the conversation of adoption in the mainstream media, and they are a pivotal part of the adoption triad.
The Other Side tells a story of longing for love and acceptance on both sides. This story also represents a world that brings together suburban America and a big city America for a common goal - a child's wellbeing. Despite our diverging views, I wish to remind myself and those who will watch the film that we are all interconnected and for the film to reflect various forms of empathy and love that bind us together.
KEY CREW
Snigdha Kapoor - Writer-Director
Snigdha is an India-born, New York-based filmmaker with a background in journalism and advertising. Growing up in a small city, she found herself navigating gender norms every day, also reflected in films accessible to her at the time. She saw an extremely skewed representation of herself in mainstream media, primarily from a male perspective.
Her work focuses on exploring unheard stories that break stereotypes and gender norms. It spans from narrative films, music videos to commercial content and has screened at festivals such as Asian American International Film Festival, HollyShorts, New York Shorts International Film Festival, Delhi Art Gallery (New York), and has featured in Oyster Magazine, Seema Magazine, Brown Girl Magazine, and Chilean Film Catalog.
Pulkit Datta - Producer
Raised in 6 countries across 4 continents, Pulkit’s filmmaking interests are inherently cross-cultural. He started his career assisting award-winning director Mira Nair and has since worked on a wide range of international projects. He has worked on the creative development and production of narrative films, Sundance-backed documentaries, commercials, short films, and multimedia campaigns. His films have screened at festivals such as, Toronto, Tribeca, and NewFilmmakers New York. He’s written and directed short films JASON and WISHFUL WHISKERS, and produced the feature documentary THE FORGETTING GAME (IndiePix). He is a producer on INVISIBLE, a feature documentary about fibromyalgia and most recently produced the award-winning short documentary DO WE BELONG?, which was licensed by The Atlantic and NBC Digital. He has also produced several fiction shorts, including the dark comedy BRUNCH WARS, sex comedy THE BRAZILIAN DILEMMA, and the upcoming sci-fi short DOPPELBANGER. Pulkit is active in the filmmaking community, primarily as co-founder of Kalakars, an organization that nurtures South Asian talent for careers in American film and television, and as guest curator of workshops and special programming at film festivals. Pulkit is currently a Producing Fellow at Center for Asian American Media, and previously a Producing Fellow at Impact Partners.
.jpg)
Caroline Mariko Stucky - Director of Photography
Caroline Mariko Stucky is an award winning Swiss-Japanese filmmaker with a fierce passion for American culture. In 2018, Stucky shot seven music videos for Dave Keuning, guitarist of The Killers, for his debut solo album Prismism. Starfish (2017), her first feature film as a cinematographer, was selected in five film festivals and won the Audience Choice Award at the Mystic Film Festival 2018. Her second feature film Solomon, written & directed by J.B. Armstrong, was selected to the 2018 Sundance Detroit Private Master Class. Her work includes fiction, documentary, commercial, live performance videos, and music videos. Stucky has been a member of the International Collective of Female Cinematographers since 2018.
Lauren Sowa - Producer
Lauren Sowa is an independent producer and classically-trained actor. Her films have played on HBO, Amazon Prime, Cinémax, and at festivals all over the world including Slamdance, Miami Film Festival, Oxford Film Festival, St. Louis Int’l Film Festival, and Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival. Producing credits include: Marisol, directed by Zoé Salicrup Junco, Shield, written and directed by Danielle Eliska Lyle, Stray, directed by Nora Unkel, and Show & Tell, directed by Sakshi Gurnani, among others. Directing credits include: In Development, LinkedOut, and To Be in America. As an actor, Lauren has been featured in the films 42 Seconds of Happiness, The Rainbow Experiment, The Devil’s Well, and the upcoming Paris is in Harlem. She received her BFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Proud member of SAG-AFTRA.
Connect With The Filmmakers:
ACCOLADES
Help promote my fundraising campaign
Put our donation widget on your website
The Gotham Film & Media Institute is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to finding, developing and celebrating the people and projects that shape the future of story.