Embrace the hustle., 4min., India
Directed by Aditya Janak Joshi

Get to know the filmmaker:

1. What motivated you to make this film?

The motivation for making this film stems from the world that I grew up observing. I saw two fresh and original worlds both at different times. When I was a kid, there was “Saturday Night Racing” an illegal night bike racing circuit organising racing events every Saturday Night on Mumbai streets. Co-existing at the same time was (still is) Linking Road in Bandra, Mumbai…a prime hub for street shopping in the city and country. I decided to club these two worlds and create a fictional third world and that is how it all began.

2. From the idea to the finished product, how long did it take for you to make this film?

The entire process of idea to film took four months in total. The idea for the short film originated in September ’25 and by the back end of December ’25, the project was ready. We could’ve ended it much quicker but the crew and myself were all working individuals, thus being able to cultivate this project only on weekends.

3. How would you describe your film in two words!?

Unapologetically intense.

4. What was the biggest obstacle you faced in completing this film?

The biggest obstacle was to execute the project in the constrained budget of 6000 INR / 65.95 USD while also not compromising on the quality efficiency and delivering the core message plausibly.

5. There are 5 stages of the filmmaking process: Development. Pre-Production. Production. Post-Production. Distribution. What is your favorite stage of the filmmaking process?

Development. This stage has that magic moment when I watch my film or a particular scene of it in my head for the first time and that seals the deal for me. The feeling is elevating, surreal and incomparable.

6. When did you realize that you wanted to make films?

In 9th grade, which is when I was 14 years old. I had freshly broken up with my childhood dream of becoming a cricketer which is a very relevant dream in the Indian subcontinent. I participated in an intra-school science short film competition with no real motivation but still somehow bagged the award, that moment, is when I decided to make films.

7. What film have you seen the most times in your life?

Its a three-way tie between “Interstellar” “Seven” and “La La Land”. Watched them all thrice.

8. In a perfect world: Who would you like to work with/collaborate with on a film?

It is really tough to pick one but I’d love to collaborate with Daniel Day Lewis.

9. You submitted to the festival via FilmFreeway. How has your experiences been working on the festival platform site?

The experience has been nothing short of delightful. Effective communication, easy-to-follow guidelines, a user-friendly interface and other attributes like so have really uplifted my experience.

10. What is your favorite meal?

My favorite meal is “Chole Bhature” which is an Indian cuisine where huge disc-shaped bhatura breads are scooped into a tad bit sour and fairly spicy chickpea gravy, sided with onion rings and mint chutney.

11. What is next for you? A new film?

Next for me is what I always wanted to do with this idea. So the original nature of this idea was as a feature film. I wrote the entire 144 page script and screenplay and then to make it reach mammoth production houses in the Indian film industry, I compressed it into a short-film which I planned to use as a pitch deck for producers to get a better grip of the world. My plan is to tell them “If I can execute these kinds of visuals and create an immersive world like so in a constrained budget of 6000 INR / 65 USD, imagine the kind of quality I can bring on-board with a decent budget.”