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AFI FEST 2024 — SECOND CHANCE

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Writer-director Subhadra Mahajan presents the North American premiere of her feature debut SECOND CHANCE on the closing day of AFI Fest 2024. Following a woman’s recovery after an illicit, at-home abortion, the film explores how hope and healing may come from the most unexpected of sources.

 

As a young woman who grew up in contemporary India between the urban cities and the rustic Himalayas, SECOND CHANCE is inspired by personal experiences and encounters.

Set in the Pir Panjal range of the state of Himachal Pradesh in Northern India and in deep winter, the film is shot in black & white, with a high contrast between light and shadow. The soundscape is authentic to its environment, yet it echoes the psychology of its lead characters. All actors are local and all locations are real. SECOND CHANCE explores the theme of healing, a wondrous and inexplainable process… It may be a very intimate and internal journey, yet it is a story I feel needs to be told to the world that we live in today: An “instant” world of tunnel vision, where a young person can feel the weight of a personal tragedy as something that they may never recover from. A self-obsessed world which has forgotten that the eternal cycle of Mother Earth functions far beyond human control. A world where we are so constantly reminded of all the things that divide us that we have somewhere forgotten the things that unite us.

It is a story of hope in times of fractured societies, and of unlikely friendships in times of loneliness and isolation. It is a story about light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. My intention as the writer-director is to have the audience witness a tale set in a part of the world they have never seen before, but with an emotional crux that they can relate to, and leave renewed with the faith in their own personal “second chances” in life.Subhadra Mahajan

 

Featuring Dheera Johnson as Nia, Mahajan and Johnson—as well as the film’s cinematographer and producers—will be on hand for a post-screening conversation. See info and link below for details.

 

 

SECOND CHANCE

Written and directed by Subhadra Mahajan

AFI Fest presented by Canva

Sunday, October 27, at 5:10 pm

Chinese 6 Theatres

6801 Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles

fest.afi.com/2024/second-chance

 

 

Second Chance (2024), written and directed by Subhadra Mahajan, from top: Dheera Johnson; Kanav Thakur and Johnson; Johnson, Thakri Devi, and Ganga Ram; Johnson; Johnson.

Images (5) courtesy and © the filmmaker and Diversion.