
At 23 minutes, Netflix’s new short film Anuja is a series of gut punches — each laced with the unvarnished reality of what it means to be a young, precocious girl living on the streets in India, each hitting so close to home that it takes a while to absorb it all in.
Written and directed by Adam J Graves, Anuja has been nominated at the upcoming 97th Academy Awards in the Best Live Action Short Film category. Among its many producers are Mindy Kaling and Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Indian diaspora giants in Hollywood who have been shining a spotlight on South-Asian stories.
Another key woman responsible for bringing this story to screen and championing it around the world is Oscar-winning producer extraordinaire Guneet Monga. From The Lunchbox (2013), Masaan (2015), Period. End of Sentence (2018) to The Elephant Whisperers (2022) and Kill (2024), she has put some of the most exciting films from India on the global map.
Set in 2022, Anuja revolves around an underprivileged teen, Palak (Ananya Shanbhag), and her ingenious nine-year-old younger sister Anuja (Sajda Pradhan). Our eponymous protagonist is gifted the way Lila from Elena Ferrante’s evocative 2011 novel My Brilliant Friend is. Much like Lila, Anuja’s brilliance too is in sharp contrast with her shabby surroundings, threatening to engulf them by the sheer force of its power.
Entirely on their own in a world that they are trying to make sense of, the two girls are on the brink of an opportunity which could upend their lives forever in ways yet unfathomable to them. Every scene is so wonderfully whetted and consciously constructed that it pierces the bull’s eye with a sharp, shattering sound.
Whether it is the mongoose story that the film opens with, the manager of the garment factory — where the girls work — harping about free will when questioned about subjecting children like Anuja to gruelling hours, or Anuja reading the matrimonial section of the newspaper to Palak, the film minutely observes the (mis)handling of the various cogs that make the giant wheel go round.
“She shouldn’t be too ambitious about her future,” Anuja reads one of the many qualities desired in a prospective bride as advertised in the newspaper. Palak scoffs. “If the girl will not work, then who will? Have men ever worked?” she questions, pointing to the ugly paradox of gendered labour that transcends class, caste, religion, and region.
Made with the support of Salaam Baalak Trust, a non-profit in Delhi initiated by filmmaker Mira Nair, Anuja entirely rejects the foreign gaze that’s unmistakable, omnipresent in such global collaborations. In fact, it is so earthy, raw, and cutting that it serves as a shining testament to the power and capacity of a meagre needle to draw blood.
Both Ananya and Sajda are excellent as siblings acutely aware of the precarious precipice that they have built their makeshift life on — they have nothing and no one in the world except for each other, their shared courage, and Anuja’s beautiful mind. Palak is the tree and Anuja the fruit, afraid that it might fall too far away.
A Bharatnatyam dancer, Ananya marks her acting debut with Anuja. However, this is Sajda’s second film. A resident of Delhi’s Yamuna Bazar slums who joined Salaam Baalak Trust, she was discovered by a French crew casting for Laetitia Colombani’s 2023 film The Braid and hasn’t looked back since. Sajda’s performance in Anuja haunts the way it does because it is not a performance. It is her life — experiencing the transformative power of seizing an opportunity and letting it change your entire world.
This is the magic of movies. When done right, they can change lives, undo systemic wrongs, and serve as a catalyst of hope in a deeply unfair, unjust world. Instead of casting a cis-actor as has been the norm, the makers of Made in Heaven 2 roped in Trinetra Haldar, a trans medical professional, for a key trans character in the show.
Anuja has followed suit. Instead of caking a privileged child actor with brown makeup, the film has propelled a child from Delhi streets to the Oscar stage. Like Mira Nair did with her 1988 debut film Salaam Bombay! and the subsequent inception of the Salaam Baalak Trust, the team behind Anuja has also set a heartening precedence — of daring to walk their talk. This is the true power of choice and the mammoth difference it can make.