Kinolime South Asia Shorts Competition 2026: Winner Announcement

Drum roll, please.

And the winner is...

And the winner is...

And the winner is...

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Hey everybody, and welcome to the first annual 2026

KenoLimes South Asia Shorts Competition Announcement.

I'm here with KenoLimes EO OligSayatsky.

Hello everybody.

And yeah, we're just really excited to jump into these three great stories.

Here for more writers and future filmmakers and get a winner announced.

I think we'll start off with you, Bria.

Just tell us who you are, where you are, and what story you wrote.

So my name is Bria Sohnvi.

I'm having me here today.

After a decade working in the clean energy tech industry,

I was really tired of pushing my storytelling into the margins of my life.

So I recently, in the last year or two, made the full-time switch to writing,

filmmaking, and acting.

It's been an amazing and wild journey so far.

My two focus areas are actually novel writing and TV writing.

So this short's competition has been an amazing chance to really expand

into this style of storytelling.

And yeah, I love to work on indie sets both in New York and New Delhi.

I have people I work with and close collaborators in both places.

So I love to be on the full spectrum of the process from writing,

even into editing.

So yeah, happy to be here today and to meet all of you.

Thanks for having me.

Awesome.

Yeah. And Keshav, how about you?

Where are you right now?

Thanks for having me.

My name is Keshav.

I'm based in Windsor, which is just a western.

It's just a west of London in England.

And so I am a writer, director, actor, and I also work as a doctor.

So I think quite similar to Brea.

I have had a career before stepping into filmmaking.

Just decided that at a certain point I wanted to do the thing that was my true calling

in terms of being in film, writing, directing, and acting.

And I've been doing that, let's say, for the last three or four years.

And really excited to be part of this competition.

And excited to meet you guys today and also be here with Brea and Peroma as well.

Awesome.

Peroma, how about you?

Hi, I'm Peroma.

And I have, I'm in India right now.

I'm from India.

I've never been anywhere else.

I'm in the city of Jamshaipur in a state called Chalkan.

And I have worked in Mumbai in the entertainment industry for most of my adult life.

And at a point I realized that that's not really the kind of storytelling.

I'm not able to do the kind of storytelling I want to in that space, which is when I decided that, okay,

I'm going to pursue this separately.

So in that sense, this competition has been a great platform for me.

And yeah, I'm really looking forward to everything.

And it's been wonderful reading the other stories also.

Yeah, I mean, all three rented out talking to God domestic, but they're all amazing.

And we're so excited that the competition essentially drew out stories like this.

So starting with you, Brea, what inspired talking to God for you?

It's a great question because it's just 10 pages where it takes place over three decades of a person's life.

It's certainly inspired by my experience.

And you know, the story is about a queer woman's relationship with fate and the universe.

But I wrote it because what I feel about our world today is that we are really maybe disconnected from being connected with the energy of the universe, right?

Not in a wu wu way, not in a religious way, but just truly feeling like we're not making demands of the universe.

We're in partnership with it.

We're part of a whole.

This film is really speaking towards that connection and the more we are connected with being part of something bigger than ourselves, I feel will spark more kindness and more love that we give to other people as well as to ourselves.

So that was like the bigger message and feeling behind writing the story.

I also wanted to write it about my personal experience because I had a really big, I guess epiphany through a lot of grief and healing in my life where I was looking at the universe like a wish ATM, right?

Like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to be a good person and I want my results delivered.

But that's really not how things work out.

And I've found so much more peace in my life when I just accept things as they come and roll with it and go with it.

So that's my story talking to God.

Yeah, I mean, there's a so much story packed into those 10 pages.

I saw a film yesterday called Walker and it's like 80 minutes and it felt like a three hour epic.

I think in a more condensed way, I felt the same way about your story as well.

Kishav, how about you? What inspired rent a dad?

I've been in the middle of writing a TV script, which is a lot longer.

It's got six episodes and like each one is around 25 to 30 minutes.

And when I heard about the competition, I was thinking about making a short.

And I was in between night shifts in emergency.

It's just getting really frustrated with it.

I was like, oh, when is one of my going to be able to make the jump of, you know, having to do the film part.

That's full time.

And I think more recently, the stories that I've written have been I found the ones that really resonate with people are the ones that are really repersonal.

And I thought, you know, what is the one thing that I feel like I'm kind of, I've got it in my psyche, and I'm kind of suffering with it a little bit.

And it basically came from this space where there's a conversation that I feel like I've not really had with my, with my dad.

And I don't think I will ever have this conversation with my dad about accepting things that, you know, he doesn't necessarily want to accept or even kind of face or talk about.

And it is this transition off, off, you know, going from this stable immigrant job to doing the job that I really want to do for myself.

So I just wanted to write something which really reflected how I feel.

And I wanted to tell a story where I would be able to do that without really having my actual dad there.

So it came about from this space of what I was really feeling at the time.

And I feel like that they're untold parts of your psyche that you really want to talk about.

Part of you saw that you really want to kind of express.

But the outlet is never really there and accepting that you may may never have that outlet.

And then using film to kind of talk about it. And I feel like film can be quite therapeutic or for me writing can be quite therapeutic, cathartic and all those different things in between.

And I really like to do it in a comedic way, which I think is the most accessible way for other people to access that feeling as well.

So yeah.

Yeah, certainly.

Paroma, how about you initially I've written a different short film altogether, which I'll probably make at some point.

But that was set in Mumbai in one apartment one day and it was the same.

It's a similar kind of story where it's about a man and a woman and they're accepted beliefs.

But then I realized that there's something missing I need to go deeper.

And that's when I was reminded of the river that's right in front of my house, like if I walk a few yards from here, you'll find the river there.

And my father and his photographs reminded me that there used to be an economy on this river.

There used to be these boats traditional boats with motors fixed on them and they used to be black tubes that people would ride and get their vegetables and fish from across.

And then that economy disappeared overnight as a bridge was built over the river.

And while that's helped the people, I thought about the culture that has been lost in the process.

And I realized in that moment that the story that I've written about two people who are like me who look like me who speak English, who come from a certain background could also be told.

And I had that river set on the banks of that river floating along that river and the people who actually belong to the state, the state of Charkhand is a tribal state and Adiwasi state, which means the indigenous people of they, it's like the Native Americans, right.

So the line belongs to them. So Baha is that indigenous woman and these are the women have grown up seeing.

And often this struggle is always shown on screen. I see a lot of violence shown, you know, when they are being portrayed, the kind of violence they go through and that's all important.

But I wanted to show the beauty of the Adiwasi culture that I have seen my whole life.

So yeah, a lot of these things inspired my story and yeah.

I mean, the kind of bridge of that right words, kind of like the beauty of the Native people and engaging with kind of the industrialization of the land.

It reminded me a lot of this Australian film I love called Walk About remind me of it so much.

I also realized Kachava, I forgot to say what I loved about rent a dad, which is like, I feel like you just have such an incredible blend of like almost this Mike Lee-esque British dark humor.

I absolutely loved it and I love to alter your guys' stories.

I think maybe without further ado, should we maybe get into the winner of the grant?

Yeah, absolutely. So first one behalf of the entire keen lime team, I would like to think I've actually Danny for spearheading this project for us.

This is our first truly international competition that we have done.

So far, every single competition that we have done have been more or less domestically.

But you know, those domestic ones have expanded gradually and we saw a huge event coming from a South Asian market.

So we decided why don't we make those voices actually come out and let us be able to hear and see their true stories.

And this subset of competition was unbelievable. We were thinking we did not expect that much in terms of submission, but you know at the end of the day we got 939 scripts that was submitted to us, which is you know, it speaks huge value for the amount of talent that we see from there.

But to is how our message is connecting to sort of the universe of writers all over the world.

So with that said, I would like to thank each one of you for giving us an opportunity in the shot to experience your wonderful skill set, your unbelievable story lines.

I got to tell each one of your stories to me, they resonated with me very dearly.

On the personal level, I think granted that really wrecked my mind because after losing my father, I had these moments like if I have a chance to speak to him again, like what would that conversation be?

What would that, you know, going like if I would have 10 minutes, what do you say? So each one of them is very, very special, but not take away from anyone else.

Let's do this.

Drone please.

And the winner is the domestic bliss.

Thank you.

Wow.

I was a little stunned for him.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, thank you all so much.

Kashaav, Brian, congratulations, Promo.

Congratulations for having me.

Yeah, thank you so much.

Thank you so much for being a part of this.

And this is just our first one and we'll be continuing to do this.

I think it's very special to us to make sure these voices continue to resonate and we will support this art form in the best way we can.

And you know, that's the whole point of our company because this is how we make you voices come true, come to life.

Before we let you go, I just want to ask you real quick, how did you like the experience of keen the life?

It's been an amazing experience to come out of my shell and share my work with my friends and family.

That has been a huge growth as an artist myself.

And then reading everybody scripts truly since the top 26 were announced, but each round.

It just makes me so excited to see the work that's coming from the South Asian subcontinent and for Omar Congrats again.

It's a truly beautiful story.

I'm super happy for you.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

And the same goes for you.

I'm seriously really stunned right now.

So it's quite wonderful to find out through the feedback that you get from others where you really stand.

And I felt that way initially I thought that you know I'm asking so many people to read my script, but I don't think this person will like it or that person will like it.

But I found that everyone related to it, everyone had an opinion about everyone disgusted and said, you know, I think you could have added this or taken this away.

And I was so pleasantly surprised by that and that really happened through this competition where I found out so much more about my own writing and through your writing and Keshav's writing and everyone I said,

it's really been a learning experience and I love it.

Amazing. We're so happy for you and we can't wait to see you make this movie. It's going to be remarkable.

Again, thank you and please continue to be part of this family because what makes us all better is each one of you.

Right. Each one of you has a voice. Each one of you has their own story that you're willing to share and you're willing to work with us and without the writers.

So again, thank you so much for this and thank you for giving us the opportunity to be able to share your gift with the rest of the world.

Yeah, and I think potentially just before we go, Proma, I guess what would you like audiences truly to take away from domestic bliss once you make it? What's the feeling?

What's the kind of sentiment that you hope, you know, once credits roll, someone gets from your film?

I want them to take away the fact that there's still so much beauty in rural India and Adiwasekulshur that it's not all about, you know,

it's not all sadness and darkness and poverty. There is so much life there. There is so much life in nature and I want them to feel a little bad for Vikash.

I know everyone really hated that character, but that's of course that's completely natural. But to feel a little bad for this guy who has forgotten his culture and he's aspiring towards something that's been fed to him, but that's it's it's staring him away from things that really matter.

So those are the things I kind of want people to take away from the fits.

Amazing. Well, again, thank you so much. Thank all three of you guys. It's been an incredible experience getting to read and share your guys's work.

All like do you have any parting thoughts for filmmakers?

Again, I mean continue to share your art form. We are in the process. I mean, we have a bunch of features that are in as Danny has mentioned.

We've been trying to make sure that we have all the application systems and we have a lot of projects coming up.

This is our second short competition that was pushing the agencies almost on the thing that's going to premiere when beginning next month.

And we're looking forward towards yours. And the goal is we're going to have another short competition. We're going to have another big competition, which we're going to be announcing a little bit later on.

So stay tuned for that. And let's go. We have a lot of movies to be made and we have a lot of stories to be heard and to be read and to be listened to.

So thank you again so much for being a part of our community.

Thank you for giving us the platform. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, thank you so much.

Thank you so much. Spend a May an amazing experience. Thank you so much.

And congrats, Pro again.

And yeah, again, cannot wait to see Promas film. Thank you all for joining.

And yeah, until the next competition can't wait to keep making movies. Absolutely.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thanks guys. Thank you guys. Bye everybody.

Bye.