As a job for DDC Productions at Wesleyan, I shot, directed, and edited a seven-minute short documentary capturing 2024 Wesleyan Center for the Arts artist in residence Sunny Jain’s experience developing a theatrical musical experience on campus. The job is handily one of the longest-running films I’ve shot, as we captured material from January to October 2024, and I finished the editing process in early 2025. There was so much to learn from the performance he gave and the things he talked about, including Indian-Pakistani politics, the death of his father, philosophy, musical influences, and more. Editing the performance footage and his interviews gave further insight, as working with the material became a process of determining what to leave in and leave out, creating meaning for an audience that could be equivalent to what I had learned in months working on this project.
I think something I tried to bring to a front in the video was Jain’s struggle in measuring when tradition and heritage are things to be proud of and carry forward against when they’re tools to maintain what could be dangerous status quo within a community or country.
