Philosophy professor-turned-filmmaker Adam J. Graves never imagined his feature directorial debut would land on Netflix and garner an Oscar nomination. But a Dairy Queen run during the pandemic changed everything.
“We were coming home from Dairy Queen – it was the only place open – and I turned to my wife and said, ‘You know what, I’m going to make a movie,’” Graves tells Variety. “I thought she would just say forget it because it’s kind of crazy hairbrained. We’ve got kids and financial responsibilities. But instead she was like, ‘Let’s do it.’”
The result is “Anuja,” a 22-minute short about two sisters working in a back-alley garment factory. The narrative follows the young protagonist as she faces a decision that will impact both her future and her family. The film has attracted heavyweight supporters including Mindy Kaling and Priyanka Chopra Jonas. The project emerged from Graves’ academic background teaching film in his philosophy courses, coupled with his wife Suchitra Mattai’s family history of indentured labor.
“During the pandemic, there was a lot of discussion about supply chain issues,” Graves explains. “But because of our interest in labor, we were thinking about what’s happening on the production side.” When they discovered that one in 10 children globally is engaged in child labor, it sparked an idea: “Why aren’t there more coming-of-age stories about kids from this background?”
The film was entirely self-funded through family loans and credit cards. “As soon as Netflix puts its stamp on your film, people assume it’s this professional, big budget thing,” Graves says. “Truth is, this is just a really scrappy project that my wife and I took on ourselves, not really knowing what we were doing.”
For Oscar-winning producer Guneet Monga Kapoor (“The Elephant Whisperers”), who later boarded the project, the film’s raw authenticity struck an immediate chord. “It was love at first sight,” she says. “I’m a huge fan of intelligent protagonists.”
The film features Sajda Pathan, discovered through Mira Nair’s Salaam Baalak Trust, which rehabilitates street children through drama. “That little girl – it almost feels like Sajda is in the hands of two men and their fate is being decided, but it kind of turns around where she controls the power on what she will choose,” notes Kapoor. “Sajda is definitely a very talented young girl and the impact of Salaam Balak Trust is huge on her life. I hope more people can look up Salaam Balak Trust and support it. It will be an absolute victory for that to happen.”
“There’s a bit of magic in first-time filmmaking,” Kapoor reflects. “You don’t know the challenges. You have this deep-rooted passion of ‘let’s just make it.’ You find your tribe, you make it, but you’re honest through your craft, and the world watches it. That honesty travels through because then the emotions travel through.”
For Graves, who shot the film in just five days while simultaneously teaching philosophy classes remotely from India, authenticity was paramount. “My goal was to welcome as much collaboration as possible on set, to have a very open environment where the actresses would be allowed to play and improvise, and let their distinctive personalities seep into the texture of the story.”
As Oscar voting begins, Kapoor brings valuable campaign experience from her previous Academy Award wins. “From not knowing enough to knowing what to do – that’s been my journey around Academy campaigns,” she says. “To booking screenings in advance, knowing what newsletters to sign up for, building relationships. What you do from shortlist to hopeful nomination, then you start doubling down on all those relationships after nomination.”
For Kapoor, who has consistently championed independent voices, “Anuja” represents everything she believes in: “Somewhere in all the noise, in all the big guns and big things, there’s independent filmmaking that will always find its way, because they’re honest. The more honest you are to your craft, it breaks through. People see the eyes of the protagonist, they see the dreams, they see the magic.”
Looking ahead, Graves is developing two features – an international humanist thriller and a father-daughter story set in Paris. But he remains humble about his sudden success: “I’m so new to this industry that I’m now just hoping that the friends I’m making along the way of this Oscar journey will guide me.”
