by Dov Kornits
Born in London, but now firmly based in Los Angeles, writer, producer, showrunner, and now director, Nazrin Choudhury makes her short film debut with Red, White & Blue, which has been nominated for an Academy Award in the live action short film category.
“When I think about Steve McQueen and 12 Years a Slave, it’s sometimes easier if you are able to bring this different perspective, because it’s so close and so real to people who’ve been born and brought up here, to be able to tell that story and to tell it in an objective way,” says Choudhury when we bring up the fact that her film, even in title, is specifically stars and stripy, whilst she spent the majority of her life outside America.
“But that said, this isn’t necessarily an American issue,” she continues referring to the central theme of her film. “It is something that women have to keep fighting for wherever they are in the world. Just because we are telling a very specific story set in Arkansas, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a resonance and a universal element that other people are understanding and feeling.”
One of those people is Red, White & Blue Producer Sara McFarlane. “I was born and raised in Australia, but New York is my home now,” she tells us.
After working with Sydney’s Fulcrum Media Finance for five years, McFarlane relocated to the US. “Film is such a global business. I wanted to experience different types of deals and films and work with and meet different people. I gave myself three to six months and if it didn’t work, I was going to move back. It was my six year anniversary last week.
“This is an American story,” she reverts back to Red, White & Blue. “But, I genuinely believe that this is a global story because, being raised in Australia, it always felt like we were looking outward at what other countries were doing. If this can happen in America, it can happen anywhere.”
Add Choudhury: “The thing about storytelling is that it builds this bridge and gives us human connections and makes us realise that the world is actually much smaller than we may think, and we’re all human, dealing with the same human problems. This isn’t a political story per se. It’s a human story about what it means when you have your rights taken away from you.”
The powerful 20-minute and-change film stars Brittany Snow as a single mum doing it tough, working a waitress job and looking after her two young children. To reveal more would be to ruin the last-minute reveal, however, what can be openly acknowledged are the excellent performances from the kids and adults, and a spirited, humanistic screenplay.
“I initially pitched it to my kids,” says Choudhury, whose most recent writing/producing gig was on Fear the Walking Dead. “It literally came to me overnight, woke up and it was fully fleshed in my head. I talked it through just to make sure that it could sound right, then I sat down and wrote it immediately, and that script was pretty much the production draft, other than turning it into a filming script and adjusting it for practical considerations when you get on set. And then, when we were able to attract high level talent, I knew that we had something special because of the number of people who wanted to work on it.”
So special that it’s now nominated for an Academy Award. “This was never the end goal, truly,” admits McFarlane. “This was not something that we were talking about in June of last year when we started this film. For us, it was more like: ‘how do we get as many people to see this as possible because we’re an independent production?’”
“We premiered at Edmonton International Film Festival, it was the first acceptance that we got,” say the filmmakers, revealing that the film was knocked back from a number of other film festivals. “And then we won the Grand Jury Prize, and that was actually on the last day that you could possibly qualify for the 2024 Academy Awards, and it was a qualifying award and a qualifying festival…” Its destiny was written in the wind.
An Oscar nomination means that Red, White & Blue now has a pretty good chance of being seen by the most people possible. “If we were ever going to be in contention at the Academy Awards, I’m glad that we’re in contention this year versus next year because the conversation has to be had now,” says Choudhury. “What we have behind us is a really committed and passionate audience. People are engaging with us on a level that is unprecedented. People are telling me they’re going to watch the Oscars for the first time in their lives because they care about this film so much; that our nomination is their nomination, and if we are able to win this, they will feel seen and heard. It does go back to the fact that we’re living this. There are sports movies, where it’s like, ‘they’re never going to succeed, they’re never going to win’. We’re somehow in this race, and if we win at the end of it, maybe we will have lived the ultimate Hollywood story.”
