When an Indian filmmaker turns the camera on her estranged family and her childhood mentor, a white British man, she uncovers the complex legacies of love and colonisation. Set between inherited duty and chosen identity, the film is an absurd excavation of what it means to belong.
SYNOPSIS
At 29, Koval, a troubled young Indian woman living vicariously in New Delhi, sets off on a mission to find family. Estranged from her own parents and struggling to belong, she thinks of Alan Lewis, an eccentric Englishman who taught theater and English without a permit in her rough neighbourhood school from ages nine to fifteen. She travels across the world and finds Alan, now living like a hermit outside a French village. They build a fairytale bubble together, both fed up with humanity and estranged from their families, bonding over stories and banter.
Over the years, Koval begins to question this path, noticing Alan’s sadness and regrets. When he dies, she is devastated–until a sudden wedding invitation from her brother reopens a door she thought permanently shut. To complicate things, he is marrying an Englishman–scandalous in their conservative society.
As the dysfunctional family gathers for the first time in years, Koval decides to start building bridges before her parents grow too old. She also realizes how little she knows about her ancestors or traditions, having left home early.
The film follows her bumbling misadventures toward belonging through family lore from her feisty grandmother, a lesson in saree-draping from her mother, and tense conversations with her long-absent father.
With Koval as both director and protagonist, we travel through time and place–from 90s Delhi to present-day Goa and rural France–using vérité footage, personal archives, and Koval’s comedic commentary on being a brown woman raised by the West but longing for home.
Director Statement
I made this film because apparently it’s easier to confront intergenerational trauma with a camera than over chai.
Supporter Statement
"Greetings,
I am writing in support of Koval Bhatia, a filmmaker I consider to be one of the rising stars of the new generation of documentary filmmakers. Koval is extremely intelligent, hard-working, and inventive, with a playful sense of humor, a deep passion for her work, and a yearning to tell stories that can become catalysts for transformative social, cultural, and political dialogue.
One of the things that impressed me about Koval's work-in-progress film, Somewhere Over The Rainbow is the authenticity of her filmmaking sensibility. Koval does it all. The footage she has shot is impressive and self-assured, revealing Koval's astute eye and keen visual sophistication; she knows where to strategically put the camera in each scene. Her editing is crisp, organically fluid, and reflects an intuitively sophisticated understanding of good storytelling. The conversations she has with her former mentor, Alan Lewis, are casual but poignant, always in the service of exploring, testing, and expanding the boundaries of their relationship throughout the film."
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Alan Berliner
Alan Berliner is an American documentary filmmaker and visual artist known for deeply personal, essayistic films that explore memory, family, identity, and history, often using archival material, voiceover, and experimental structure. His best-known works include Nobody’s Business, The Family Album, and Intimate Stranger.
ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)
Director/Producer Koval Bhatia
Koval is a filmmaker and producer based in India. She produced AGAINST THE TIDE, a feature documentary that won the Special Jury Prize at Sundance Festival 2023 and was nominated for IDA and Gotham Awards. Her films have screened at Sundance, IDFA, Hot Docs, Visions du Reel and aired on global broadcasters including BBC, POV and FranceTV. She has received fellowships and grants from Eurodoc, Sundance Institute, IDFA, Doc Society, Al Jazeera and Catapult. She was an inaugural Getting Real Fellow with the IDA in 2022.
She is currently directing her first feature, Somewhere Over The Rainbow, for which she was selected in the 2024 cohort of the Circle Doc Lab. The project was awarded The Whickers Film and TV Development Award after pitching at SheffieldDocFest 2025 and the Rulli Putorti Legal Award at WEMW Trieste.
Koval is the founder of Open Door Docs, a community for Indian women in documentary and is a member of the Asia Pacific Screen Academy, Film Fatales and BGDM.
Riham Ezzaldeen is a filmmaker and producer, recognized for her passion for social justice and commitment to diversifying the entertainment industry. A queer, bilingual artist fluent in Arabic and English, Riham has lived and worked across nine countries, bringing a unique perspective to her projects.
She has produced a variety of documentaries and multimedia projects, receiving awards at the FIFO festival, New Orleans Film Festival, Toronto International Women's Festival and Paris International Short Festival. As a leader in the original content department at What Took You So Long, and a proud member of Brown Girls Doc Mafia, Riham has facilitated numerous successful initiatives.
Riham's recent accomplishments include two feature-length films, "The Source of Life (Te Puna Ora)" and "Treat Me Like Your Mother," and a short film "Testimonial," all on a 2025/2026 festival circuit. Her short film "Citizens of Nowhere" has been screened at 13 festivals, winning 5 awards and reaching semi-finalist status in 5 others in 2023.
Based in New York, with ongoing work in Europe, Riham continues to make impactful contributions to the documentary film landscape.
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