LAND OF DREAMS
Documentary Short I 40 mins I USA-India, 2024
Producer I Director I Editor: Ambarien Alqadar
Filmed over a decade between India and United States, Land of Dreams is an intimate portrait of Virender Rana- a taxi driver from India, chasing his dream of becoming a filmmaker in America. While he points the camera at his own life and films a Bollywood style movie, the film follows his journey of coming to America, finding joy as part of a larger Sikh community and that of taxi drivers and laying roots as an immigrant. As he joins the elite Uber Black fleet hoping for his dreams to come true, he faces challenges of being an immigrant on the streets of post 9/11 America. Land of Dreams is a letter of solidarity and hope to anyone who has searched for a home and a land for their dreams in a place where they were not born.
Awards
2025 Society for Visual Anthropology Best Documentary Award, USA
2025 South Asian Film Festival of Montreal, Best Documentary Short Runner-up Award, Canada
Screenings
2026 Society for Visual Anthropology Film Festival, New Orleans, Competition
2026 New Filmmakers, New York, Official Selection
2026 28th Madurai International Documentary & Shorts Film Festival India, Official Selection
2026 12th Kolkata People’s Film Festival, India, Official Selection
2025 Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival, Nepal, Official Selection
2025 The Workers Unite Film Festival, New York, Official Selection
2025 Marupakkam Documentary Film Festival, Chennai, India, Official Selection
2025 International Documentary & Shorts Film Festival of Kerala, Focus, India, Focus
2025 Indie Meme, Austin, Texas, Official Selection
2025 South Asian Film Festival of Montreal, Canada, Official Selection
2024 San Francisco South Asian Film Festival, Official Selection
"The documentary offers a rare view on the immigrant life post 9/11. Rana's filmmaking ambitions add an interesting metatextual layer. The myth of the American Dream is critiqued as the film exposes the different racial and economic vulnerabilities behind it – from post 9/11 surveillance to the precarity of gig work at Uber." Jury Citation, SAFFM Canada
Creative Team
Director of Photography: Jonathan Olshefski
Second Camera (India): Ambarien Alqadar
Additional Editing: Avrajit Mukherjee
Sound Mix & Design: Kevin Cagnolatti
VFX & Color: David Kessler, Studioscopic
Music: Akash Vincent