Now filming: Majboori
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An independent film and creative production studio in Srinagar.
Shabrang Films was founded by filmmaker Mir Afnaan Nissar in Srinagar, Jammu & Kashmir. We make original cinema in the language and texture of the Valley, from 100-second micro-shorts to narrative films, and we support productions that come to Kashmir to tell their stories.
Our work begins inside the community: local casts, local crews, local truths. Every film is conceived with intention and crafted to travel, carrying an authentic Kashmiri voice to festivals, screens and audiences anywhere in the world.
Alongside the slate, the studio runs a masterclass, an international co-production lab and an on-set apprenticeship that grow the region's filmmaking ecosystem.
Studio tenets
What we believe about cinema, and about Kashmir's place in it.
Kashmiri stories told by Kashmiris, in their own language, from inside the Valley rather than about it.
The moral contradictions of everyday life matter more than spectacle. We film people as they are.
Shot breakdowns, disciplined sets and precise form. Ambition is measured in preparation.
Kashmir represented on its own terms, never reduced to the stereotypes that outside cinema has imposed.
Local crews, low-waste sets and training on every production, so the industry can grow from within.
Conceived in Srinagar, crafted to travel. Regional specificity is what makes a film universal.
Founder profile
Director · Screenwriter · Producer · Srinagar, Kashmir
Mir Afnaan Nissar is a director, screenwriter and producer based in Srinagar, Kashmir, and the founder of Shabrang Films. His work moves between the compressed precision of the 100-second micro-short and longer-form narrative cinema rooted in Kashmiri language and life.
He directed Haqq and Zahar, both made through the studio's 2026 International Co-Production Lab with the 100 Second International Film Festival of Iran, and conceived Zaayi, an environmental parable set on the Jhelum. He is now directing and producing Majboori, a Kashmiri-language short in production in Srinagar, and his slate in development includes Javaid Gora, Qadam and Rah Bakshtam.
Through Shabrang Films he has also built a training pipeline for the region: the free Shabrang Filmmaking Masterclass in 2025, the International Co-Production Lab in 2026, and an on-set Creative Apprenticeship in Srinagar. Beyond film, he has been working on Kashmiri AI, a dataset for the Kashmiri language.
The films do not lecture. They observe, dramatise and reveal, then trust the audience to sit with what they have seen.
His cinema works through contradiction: the devotee who saves water and pollutes a river, the mourners who console and steal, the worshipper walking to prayer in stolen slippers. The camera is placed with intent, sometimes at floor level, and the stories are made with local casts and crews, in the language of the place.
First Runner-Up (2nd Place), 2025 TUM ChangeMaker Awards. Awarded to Shabrang Films for sustainable regional cinema.
Workshops & incubators
Building the bench. Each edition opens the studio's process to new filmmakers.
With the 100 Second International Film Festival of Iran
An international co-production lab held in Srinagar. Working within the discipline of a 100-second runtime, the lab produced more than five micro-shorts in the city.
A free three-day public intensive in Srinagar
The studio's first public workshop: three free days that opened up the working craft of cinema to anyone who wanted to learn it.
On-set training across five departments
The masterclass and the lab continue on set. Apprentices train inside Shabrang productions in screenwriting, assistant directing, cinematography, sound recording and line production.
Explore the apprenticeshipWork with the studio
Whether you are bringing a production to Kashmir or taking your first steps in film, the studio door in Srinagar is open.