Our Work Swaha About Director Philosophy Press Connect

Prajna Films

Independent Cinema · Mumbai · Est. 2021
Feature Films
Ad Films
Documentary
Post Production
Co-Production
Our Film — Swaha What We Do
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Golden Goblet — Best Director · Shanghai IFF 2024 Golden Goblet — Best Actor · Shanghai IFF 2024 India Premiere · IFFK · Indian Cinema Now · 2024 World Premiere · Shanghai International Film Festival · June 2024 Asian New Talent Competition · Shanghai IFF 2024 Golden Goblet — Best Director · Shanghai IFF 2024 Golden Goblet — Best Actor · Shanghai IFF 2024 India Premiere · IFFK · Indian Cinema Now · 2024 World Premiere · Shanghai International Film Festival · June 2024 Asian New Talent Competition · Shanghai IFF 2024
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Feature Films

From script to screen — we develop and produce narrative feature films that carry social and emotional weight. Stories that are made to last, for audiences everywhere.

Development Production Festival Circuit
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Ad Films

Commercial storytelling made with a director's eye. We craft advertising films that go beyond the brief — bringing cinematic language to brand narratives.

Brand Films TVCs Digital Content
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Documentary

The world holds stories more compelling than any fiction. We document marginalised communities, vanishing languages, and lives that rarely find a frame.

Social Docs Cultural Ethnographic
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Post Production

Editing, colour grading, sound design, and finishing. Our post-production sensibility is shaped by our filmmaking roots — every cut is a directorial decision.

Editing Colour Grade Sound Design
Prajna Films Presents · Debut Feature
Magahi Language · Black & White · 99 Minutes

स्वाहा
Swaha

In the Name of Fire

Set in rural Bihar, Swaha follows Rukhiya — a determined mother abandoned by her husband, falsely accused of being a witch, left to feed her child against every force the world can summon. Shot almost entirely in black and white, the film gives its characters a haunting, timeless quality. In the final moments, colour returns. It is a sign of hope.

Immersed in Magahi — an ancient language tracing back 2,500 years to the Buddhist era in central Bihar — the film weaves folk songs into its narrative, honouring a community whose cultural heritage faces extinction.

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Golden Goblet Award — Best Director 2024 Shanghai International Film Festival · Asian New Talent Competition
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Golden Goblet Award — Best Actor · Satya Ranjan 2024 Shanghai International Film Festival
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India Premiere · Indian Cinema Now 29th International Film Festival of Kerala · December 2024
▶ Watch Trailer Press & Distribution
Swaha — A film by Abhilash Sharma, Prajna Films
स्वाहा
In The Name of Fire
A Prajna Films Production · 2024
World Premiere Shanghai IFF 2024
India Premiere IFFK 2024
Golden Goblet Best Director 2024
About Prajna Films
Who We Are

Cinema that challenges
perception and evokes reflection.

Prajna Films is an independent film production house based in Mumbai, founded in 2021 with a commitment to stories that carry social and emotional weight. The name Prajna — derived from Sanskrit, meaning wisdom or deep understanding — reflects our belief that meaningful cinema begins with a profound understanding of the human condition.

We are drawn to stories that exist at the margins. Communities, languages, and lives that rarely find representation on screen. Our films are not made for the mainstream. They are made for the truth.

I

Memory

Cinema is an archive of human experience. We make films that the audience carries home — in silence, in sleep, in thought.

II

Truth

We seek stories that refuse easy answers. Discomfort, when honest, is the beginning of understanding.

III

Transformation

A film has done its work when the person who watched it is not quite the same as the person who sat down.

Abhilash Sharma — Director and Founder, Prajna Films
Abhilash Sharma Director & Founder Prajna Films · Mumbai
The Director

A filmmaker who finds
truth in the margins.

Born in the heartland of India, Abhilash Sharma spent childhood summers in the villages of Bihar — where the seeds of his most personal film were unknowingly planted. That child's fear of the Musahar community would become a filmmaker's reckoning, and eventually, Swaha.

After completing his schooling at St. Anthony High School, Dhanbad, he moved to Mumbai where he spent four formative years as an assistant director, absorbing the craft from the inside out. He debuted as a feature director in 2012 with Achal Rahe Suhaag — a modern retelling of the Savitri-Satyavan myth.

His films gravitate toward women's narratives within the socio-political landscape, shaped by Buddhism's philosophy of compassion, the cadences of his mother's Magahi, and a voracious appetite for world cinema. He is currently developing a new project set in Kolkata.

With strong roots in literature and theatre, Abhilash's cinematic voice is spare, compassionate, and unafraid of silence.

15+ Years in Film
2 Feature Films
2★ Golden Goblets
Our Philosophy

"Cinema is not merely entertainment — it is an experience of memory, silence, tension, and transformation. We seek stories that linger, that disturb, that illuminate."

Prajna Films
01

The Marginalised Voice

Stories from the edges of society carry the sharpest truths. We make films about communities, languages, and lives that are disappearing — because cinema is also an act of preservation.

02

The Black & White Eye

Colour can seduce. Black and white demands honesty. When we strip away colour, what remains is the raw geometry of human experience — light, shadow, and truth.

03

Language as Character

Magahi, Kathi script, folk songs 2,500 years old — in our films, the language is not a vehicle for story. It is part of the story. Every word carries a world.

Press & Recognition

What the world is saying
about Swaha

Scroll.in

"A visually striking exploration of rural blight. Sharma's film has empathy for its characters and a deep understanding of the world it inhabits."

Read Review →
The Print

"Sharma had to combat his own childhood fears to make this film. Swaha is an attempt to address that ignorance — and it burns with quiet conviction."

Read Article →
Platform Magazine

"His mother's command of Magahi has significantly influenced his writing — lending a layer of intimacy and authenticity to his stories."

Read Feature →
Reach Out

Let's Talk
Cinema

For press enquiries, distribution, festival screenings, ad film production, collaboration, or simply a conversation about cinema — we'd like to hear from you.

General info@prajnafilms.in
Director abhilash@prajnafilms.in
Based in Mumbai, India
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