Rij.

Title: Grief

Due to life events, I was not able to go to Seattle to pitch our short film at . My producer, best friend and the one person I trust more than myself, went instead to represent our story.

She did a beautiful job telling our story to the world. I’m incredibly proud of the reaction we received from the audience and judges.

The journey continues as we strive to bring “A Tale of Roses” to screens. This film is about compassion, empathy and the beauty of human kindness. We believe it’s important to tell this story to bring a little hope. And we won’t stop until we can share this film with you all.

The legend goes that there once was a girl called Bano, who lived in a small village surrounded by the jungles of Punjab, India. Bano had a curious soul and yearned to explore the world around her. One day, deep inside the jungle, Bano came across an ancient banyan tree. She saw something flicker within the hole of the massive trunk. Bano inched in closer and closer to take a look ...... until she was completely sucked into the black hole.
Bano zoomed across time and space, until she finally came out the other side. What she saw was unlike anything she had experienced before. She stood in the middle of mountains that were tall but thin, and stretched as far as her eyes could see. She was surrounded by bamboo trees and flowers which were unfamiliar to her.
Just as she was starting to gain her bearings, she saw a group of men in the distance. They stopped on their tracks as they noticed Bano, and then in a quick turn of events, they started chasing her.
Bano knew in her heart that she was in danger, and so she ran in an unknown land towards an unknown destination. To her relief, she finally came across a large cave where she decided to hide.
Bano walked inside the cave and as she marvelled at it’s majesty, she saw smoke coming from the darkness. A long, red scaled dragon emerged from the depths of the cave and came face to face with Bano.
Bano had a pure soul and so was not afraid of the magnificent beast. Instead, Bano pleaded with the dragon and told the story of her ordeal. She explained, that she had been abducted from her home and appeared in this foreign land. She said that she was in danger, hiding from men who were trying to hurt her. The dragon knew about these dangerous men as they had hunted the beast for centuries in this part of China. The dragon decided to take pity on poor Bano and help her.
In a moment that can only be described as pure magic, the dragon merged herself with Bano to form a hybrid creature, the first of it’s kind. Together, they promised to survey the land and protect any women that was in danger of these men.
And so goes the story of the alliance of Bano and the dragon, the protector of women.

Thank you for inviting me to moderate the panel about “how to get started in the film industry”.

We had a terrific conversation about challenges, expectations and everything in between. Shout out to the amazing panelists who shared their experiences and insights with us. We were slotted for an hour long discussion and ended up talking for 2 hours! That’s what happens when don’t stop me from talking. The panelists made the conversation so easy.

Thank you for the beautiful photos.
steinhoff

When I’m in the zone