Filmmaker and editor Mainak Dhar's short film Nani follows a dysfunctional South Asian family in Los Angeles over a single day. The film earned critical appreciation during its festival run, including at the 20th Tasveer Film Festival, Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, Anchorage International Film Festival, and Dallas International Film Festival. Mainak draws from his experiences living in LA as a filmmaker to tell a story with themes of family bonds, cultural identity, generational differences, and migration.
Besides directing Nani from his own screenplay, Mainak Dhar has also edited the film, which recently had a screening at Yellowstone International Film Festival in Mumbai. The filmmaker has experience editing trailers and films, and he is a winner of the Daytime Emmy award for his work on the show Nick News. In an exclusive conversation with CE, Mainak Dhar speaks about Nani, his feature film 417 Miles, the perception of short films in India versus the US, how working on trailers helps feature filmmaking and more.
You shot 417 Miles on the roads around Bengaluru. There is a journey to a destination in Nani as well. Do you make such films drawing from your personal experiences, or did these two films happen to have a road angle to them?
417 Miles is the distance between San Francisco and Los Angeles if you take the picturesque Pacific Coast Highway (PCH). Hence, the name of the film, since the characters take that route to go to LA. It's an iconic route, and I have taken it many times. And America has a tradition of road trips because this country is so vast. Road Trip is a genre in itself. I do draw from my personal experiences for my stories. 417 Miles had a lot drawn from my personal life. Nani’s story is not so personal, but the characters in the family are inspired by people in my life.
Many filmmakers use short filmmaking as a stepping stone into feature films. You went back to Nani after making 417 Miles...
I have a career as an Editor here in Los Angeles. And during the making of 417 Miles, I had moved up from being an an Assistant Editor to an Editor. So I prioritised that for a few years. During the (Hollywood) strike, I decided to ease back into directing, by my making a short film again. Short films have a better chance of getting into film festivals. And I wanted to go to festivals and connect with some narrative filmmakers. Being a documentary Editor for the last few years, I was a bit disconnected from the narrative world. Nani is my way to get into that space again.
How does short filmmaking inform your approach to feature filmmaking?
I’m trying to transition from Mumblecore Filmmaking to a more mainstream style of storytelling. Which means no more meandering from the main path. Short films force you to be economical—with time, with scenes, and with emotional beats. You approach each scene with the same question: "What is the essential core of this moment, and how do I convey it with the most impact and the least fat?" When you only have 10 minutes, every frame has to carry narrative weight, and that discipline becomes extremely useful in feature filmmaking. My first draft was 17 pages. You meet Nani only on Page 9. During a writer’s lab, I removed all the extras from the script that I normally like to get to the meat of the story. That was a good exercise and learning to take with me to my next feature.
Many self-taught filmmakers work on trailers of other filmmakers. How has your experience in cutting trailers influenced your approach to narrative pacing and editing in your own feature films?
Cutting trailers trains you to find clarity and impact immediately. It's about creating maximum impact in a condensed timeframe. This taught me to identify the spine of a story. In a trailer, you have to find the three to five key moments that define the entire emotional and narrative arc. In two minutes, you have to build a rhythm, introduce the world, establish stakes, and leave the viewer with a lingering emotion. This has made my narrative pacing during editing or even writing much tighter and more purposeful. Cutting trailers is also a lot of fun.
Since a trailer requires you to instantly identify the most engaging moments and structure the film’s core appeal, does working on them give you an edge in pre-visualising how your own movie will be received, or even how you should shoot key scenes?
Absolutely. It’s an interesting question because I’m currently writing the feature inspired by Nani. Before I even began the script, I mapped out five major story “pit stops” — the key emotional and visual moments that would define the film. They all had to be cinematically strong because in today’s world, where people consume so much content, what stays with them are moments. Once I had those core moments and felt they were powerful enough to build a larger narrative around, I knew the feature was worth pursuing. It’s a sort of reverse-engineering: knowing the essence you’ll eventually highlight helps you build the film with stronger intention from the start.
You won a Daytime Emmy for the show Nick News. What is the single most important lesson you took from your time at Nick News that you still apply to your current work as a self-dependent filmmaker?
The single most important lesson from my time at Nick News was the power of clarity. We were telling complex, often difficult stories for a young audience, which meant we had to strip away all jargon and pretense to find the simple, human core of the issue. Nick News also showed me what's important to the next generation and how they interact with the world. It's always good to be aware of what the youth are thinking in this business.
Many short filmmakers in India say that people here do not value their work. Do you find the lack of ‘value’ in the US market similar, or does the American industry (like its film festival circuit) provide critical validation, even if the popular audience remains elusive?
It’s the same everywhere. I’m a big fan of short films. At film Festivals, I prioritise short films over features. I have met filmmakers who don’t care to ever make a feature film. They find the three-act structure boring. Short films never make money. So there is no commercial pressure. Everyone is making their best creative film they can. The best film festival in the world is free and online - Vimeo Staff Picks.
Regarding short filmmaking in India, I thought it was thriving. There are some YouTube channels where I have seen stars like Jackie Shroff, Naseeruddin Shah and Manoj Bajpai in short films. I guess that was a phase. I have to say that the American film festival circuit does provide a critical and industry-specific form of validation that can be a powerful catalyst. A premiere at Sundance, SXSW, or Tribeca isn't just a screening; it's a career-launching event that attracts agents, producers, and financiers. This year, my friend Hoku’s short film WHITCH won the jury award at SXSW. Now, he has an agent who is setting up meetings in Hollywood for him.
Is the challenge of gaining respect and securing financial value for independent cinema primarily a distribution problem, or is the fundamental perception of ‘short films’ different altogether?
The biggest challenge right now is to get the attention of the audience who are often on their smartphone. This is not 1990. There is enough distribution on multiple streamers that God knows who is watching. Hollywood is dying in front of our eyes right now. Maybe short films will replace feature films in the future. That would not be such a bad future.
How do you find the way filmmakers cut trailers for their films in India? While there are experts at this, there is a tendency to show too much in the trailer...
I think India has some incredible trailer editors. Have you seen the trailer of Natesh Hegde’s Tiger's Pond? It's mesmerising to me. As far as the tendency to show more is concerned, that’s an issue here also. I rarely watch trailers now unless recommended by friends. The trailers these days tells you the entire plot. Sometimes in the same order as the movie. Which can be a good thing in these days of short attention spans. Just watch these trailers and save yourself 90 minutes. I’ve done it.
What are your future works?
Right now, my main focus is developing the Nani feature film, expanding the world and characters from the short into a more ambitious story. Guess what, this one is a road trip too.