LOS ANGELES: You may not have heard of Rashaana Shah yet but the chances are good this will soon change. This former Bollywood actress turned Hollywood film producer and entrepreneur is literally exploding onto the scene with films such as the cutting-edge comedy/reality-check, Blowing Up Right Now to the uplifting holiday fare, A New Christmas.
“My years as an actress is a lot of what I am today,” stated Shah about her time in Bollywood. Her leap to Hollywood was in part due to the unique opportunities for independent filmmakers. In 2012, she co-founded Mulberry Films, headquartered in Los Angeles and Mumbai, which focuses on bestselling books for film and television adaptation. Shah consciously picks books based on true-life events and with real heroes that can resonate broadly across global audiences.
A project based upon the Uttarakhand tragedy is in the works. Centred on true-life events which date back to 1965 when the United States CIA and Indian officials collaborated to set-up a listening device on Nanda Devi, the second-highest mountain in India, overlooking a Chinese Nuclear test site. The listening device, which was powered by radioactive plutonium, was lost in the expedition to install it and never found. It is speculated the plutonium being released by the device may have triggered the glacier burst above Uttarakhand.
Nanda Devi was recently in the headlines because of the tragic glacier burst in Uttrakhand that resulted in the death of at least fifty people.
Other projects in various stages of funding and production include, The Collaborator, an adaptation of the bestselling book by Mirza Waheed, a gripping story on the long-lasting effects of war and an adaption of The Queue by Basma Abdel Aziz, a dystopian story set in futuristic Egypt about a centralized authority controlling the lives of the masses.
Mulberry is also the co-executive producer on the television show Ungifted, based on the children's novel by Gordon Korman. The project was picked up by Nickelodeon in 2020 prior to the pandemic, and is soon to get into production. Shah has also starred in multiple Bollywood and international films that have won international accolades and awards including Colors of Passion by renowned director Ketan Mehta and IFC TV miniseries Bollywood Hero by comedian Chris Kattan.
Speaking of filmmaking in general, Shah stated, “If you want to have a global impact there are only two ways of doing it, you become a president of a country or you make a big Hollywood Film.”
Her advice to other aspiring women filmmakers in India, in the United States and beyond: “Support each other,” Shah said, “and don’t fear society…be fearless.”
