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Marriages can be arranged, but so can divorces. Hina is a wife, mother and ‘twice migrant.’ For the past 38 years, she has dedicated herself to becoming the ‘perfect Indian wife.’ But after a lifetime of trying, she is now ready to find out who she really is. Exploring themes of migration, gender and arranged marriage, Sahan Shakti is a multi-award-winning ethnographic documentary following the life of Hina, a 60-year-old twice-migrant as she begins to rebuild her life post-divorce. The film offers a quiet contemplation on the South Asian diaspora in the UK, including the expectations and roles placed upon women. Working with her mother and grandmother, director Chandni Brown, delves into her own family experiences and intergenerational relationships to highlight the complex identities of transnational migrants, the need for belonging and the pressure to conform. By doing so, the film seeks not to document, but to discover the worlds of the women who came before, questioning what it is that drives us to make the choices we make.
AWARDS
BEST FIRST TIME DIRECTOR
International Istanbul Short Film & the Writer’s Journey Festival 2024
HONOURABLE MENTION
The Big Syn International Film Festival 2023
OFFICIAL SHORTLIST
Grierson 2024: The British Documentary Awards
HONOURABLE MENTION
Society for Visual Anthropology Film and Media Festival 2024
OFFICIAL SELECTION
Ethnofest – Athens Ethnographic Film Festival 2024
OFFICIAL SELECTION
Royal Anthropological Institute Film Festival (2025)
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After my father, Ian, suffered two brain hemorrhages in 2012, the world as he knew it became completely transformed. He faces long-term neurological problems related to speech, memory, comprehension and fatigue. In the film we explore how his relationships with people and everyday life has changed, how he actively continues to make sense of his new perceptual and imaginative world.
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2016
One more cup of coffee for ambe’
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Grandma’s Hands
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Haraka Baraka
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In Touch
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MA
2022
Breaking Tezcatlipoca
As a graphic ethnography of Mexican family stories, this comic book is an overview of a family mythos about (great-)grandparents and the multiple ways in which family members conceptualise memory and perceive reality through family storytelling. Working within the realms of auto-ethnography, comics theory and the recent so-called “graphic narrative turn” in Anthropology, this project attempts to bring together a partial view of multiple perspectives in order to render visible the ambivalent and uncertain realities of Mexican family myths.
Graphic
MA
2019
Ciao Brenda Ciao
A documentary centred on Brian King—known by his drag persona “Brenda”—and Gerry Potter, two pivotal figures in Liverpool’s LGBTQ+ theatre and performance scene. As Brian’s health declines due to HIV/AIDS, the film follows Gerry as he struggles to negotiate the fragile boundary between life and art, confronting the loss of a collaborator, performer and close friend.
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Sich Abhängen | Holding On
Using an old dollhouse as a visual metaphor for refurnishing the memories of her life, the film follows Lisbeth Svenson (my grandmother) and her son Anders Runesson (my father) as they begin to explore the impacts of grief as it reverberates through a family in the south of Sweden.
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2022