I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. In the context of Sikh and/or Punjabi affairs I am mostly known for my editorial articles and essays, but I have been a creative writer for some time now, authoring work for national broadcasters as well as working as a ghost writer. ‘Their Last Stand’ as a short film came about purely by chance when, whilst working on a different film, I found myself with over a dozen Sardar background-artistes (extras) who were not required on set for a shoot that they had all planned for in advance. Many of these guys had taken days off from work so rather than waste their holiday entitlement, I put forward the idea of shooting this short film. As luck would have it, a very talented videographer by the name of Raj Hundal was amongst the extras and agreed to shoot the short film with us, despite the short notice. Along with my regular creative collaborator at naujawani, Narvir Singh, we set to work creating the setting for ’12 Angry Men’ (the original working title!) with just a few hours notice. We found support from a new face at naujawani, Jagdish Kaur Lall who proved herself a most resourceful production assistant, and by the time we were shooting, she had taken over all elements of the production!

To say that I was surprised by what we were able to produce with limited planning, no money and an incredibly supportive cast, is an understatement. However, it wasn’t plain sailing; when we watched back the first edit, I was unhappy and disappointed with what I saw and I drew a line under the project as another one to chalk up to experience. However, undeterred, Narvir continued to work on the edit and came back to me with a wonderful vision of what could be. With the support of our most talented videographer Gurbir Singh Nakhwal, he created the short film that we are launching this crowd-funding project with – ‘Their Last Stand’. I am delighted that this creative team will be working together to create the feature film and with your backing, we will be adding more talented individuals to our crew to make this become the film that we know it can be.