Career Development Alumni Dhruv Sud Shares Experiences with Gotham EDU
by The Gotham Staff on August 30, 2023 in Gotham Alumni News
As the Gotham EDU Career Development program wraps another amazing summer, we spoke with Dhruv Sud, 2021 Career Development participant, to catch up on his project and hear about the impact Gotham EDU has had.
Tell us a little bit about yourself!
I’m a filmmaker whose work delves into themes of community dynamics, queerness, racial identity, immigration, and privilege through dark comedy, genre, and melodrama. I grew up predominantly in countries where homosexuality is outlawed. I was born in the United Arab Emirates and lived in Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan and Hong Kong before I moved to New York over a decade ago.
I’m a BAFTA Newcomer and an inaugural recipient of the Joel Schumacher / Sophia Cranshaw Mentorship Award from The Gotham Film & Media Institute. My work has also won the Phil Johnston Comedy Grant. I’m a graduate of Columbia University with an MFA in Screenwriting and Directing. My directorial debut, The Coronation, premiered in competition at the Miami Film Festival and went on to screen at festivals across the country. My upcoming film, Instagays, is supported by Film Independent and The Gotham Film & Media Institute.
What motivated you to apply to the Gotham EDU Career Development Program?
I applied for the Gotham EDU Career Development Program in the summer of 2021, and I am so grateful for the experience I had. The Gotham is familiar to pretty much anyone who is interested in film in New York, and I was super excited for the opportunity to work with the organization. The program also offered the chance to develop my thesis film, Instagays, with their mentorship. The Career Development program hosted workshops and masterclasses and I received one-on-one guidance from members of The Gotham’s staff.
Instagays is a gay spaghetti western about a group of vainglorious #instagays whose trip to Fire Island takes a turn when they accidentally murder their token friend of color. With this project, I received the Joel Schumacher / Sophia Cranshaw Mentorship Award for people of color and individuals from LGBTQ+, Black and Indigenous communities, which included the opportunity to discuss and share my film with the committee and the chance to work with MTV Entertainment Group through their Ambassador program.
How did the program help you overcome challenges you were facing in school?
My film is about a very specific community and isn’t particularly conventional or straightforward in terms of tone. When I first brought this script to academic settings I was bombarded with questions, notes, and ideas from my straight white male peers on how to make the film more accessible to them. It was a disheartening experience. I took the notes I could from those sessions but became very guarded with the project.
It wasn’t until the application process for the Joel Schumacher / Sophia Cranshaw Mentorship Award that I showed anyone besides my advisors the script. Cait and Brandi really understood and championed the project in a way I hadn’t experienced before and I’m so grateful for their support. Through the program, I workshopped the script and created an interactive pitch for the film that included a social media component where the audience members could follow along on Instagram. I brought the script back to academic settings with more confidence when I showed it to faculty members and classmates, who embraced the project.
What are your personal or professional career goals as a filmmaker/creative? What are you most passionate about or interested in with your work?
My goal to become a part of a wave of vibrant film-making that expands and complicates representation beyond the traditional scope in media. Film and television were the first places I saw queer people and experienced a sense of community. My passion for filmmaking arises from my desire to one day provide the same feeling of recognition for someone else because I know how life changing it can be.
As a Director, I am interested in expressionism and subjectivity and my work is characterized by a sense of genre experimentation, theatricality, and highly saturated aesthetics. My aim as an artist is always to meaningfully engage with the complexities of our existence. I want to tell stories that speak to the practical realities of queer life and that are formulated by my perspective as a BIPOC and immigrant. I endeavor for my future work to provide a much-needed space for examination and reflection on issues such as racism, sexism, drug addiction, and body dysmorphia, within the queer community itself.
What are some of your favorite films, television shows, and filmmakers?
This is always a tough question to answer! But the three films that come to mind are Andrea Arnold’s American Honey, Josephine Decker’s Madeline’s Madeline, and Beware of a Holy Whore by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Arnold pulls you into her character’s headspace is like no other. Madeline’s Madeline had me on the edge of my seat. Fassbinder’s film is a perfect satire of the film industry and the complicated dynamics that arise from collectively trying to build a piece of art.
I’m hugely inspired by the work of queer filmmakers that have come before me. The experimentation of Kenneth Anger, the wit and cynicism found in the comedies of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, the dynamic and troubled characters of Gregg Araki, and the exploration of darkness of Pier Paolo Pasolini are all huge influences on this film and my work as a filmmaker.
I also want to shoutout Joel Schumacher and Sophia Cranshaw! Joel’s work has been a guiding light for me in terms of tone and Sophia’s social impact campaigns have bettered our world. It’s been an amazing experience to get to show the film to people who worked with Joel and Sophia personally. I’m so proud to be able to carry on their legacy in my own little way.
What projects are you working on now and what is your role? What lessons have you learned, and where are you going from there?
I’m wrapping up post-production on my short, Instagays, and we hope to get the film out into the world in the next year. I’m also at work on a feature adaptation of Instagays. I learned so much from of shooting the short, had such amazing collaborators, and feel confident that we could recreate the magic of that experience. I’m also working on a couple other short projects that I hope will allow me to direct again in the meantime and dip my toes into branded content, commercials, and music videos.
As a recent graduate, what advice do you have for film students?
I would say collaborate and foster strong relationships with your peers. I know it seems like basic advice, but no one makes a movie alone and the more people you have around you that you trust creatively, the better off and happier you will be in this industry. Work on each other’s films and find the people who you can weather the storm of being on set with. I am so grateful for the filmmakers and close friends I’ve met through Columbia and The Gotham’s programs, and I am always excited to hear about the amazing things that they are doing with their own careers.