Shalini Adnani knows what it means to belong to more than one place. Born and raised in Chile in a Sindhi family of Indian origin before later moving to London, the writer-director grew up with different cultures and, as she tells us, “two different value systems”. That experience found its way into her first feature, Our Share of Sand, through twelve-year-old Maya, a girl whose family connects her to India but who still arrives there looking at parts of that world from the outside. Adnani’s own route into filmmaking has been equally international: she studied Political Philosophy and Latin American Studies at Bard College before completing an MA in Filmmaking at the London Film School, while her short White Ant premiered at Sundance in 2023 and later won Best UK Short at Raindance.
With Our Share of Sand, Adnani turns her attention to a family whose comfortable life is tied to the sand-mining business and to the people whose labour keeps it going. Maya is twelve, an age Adnani chose on purpose; while developing the character, she returned to something she had read about child development and the point at which our ideas of right and wrong can become black and white. Maya therefore sees things the adults around her have learnt to live with; her friendship with Kiran brings inequality much closer to her, while the story surrounding a diamond passed down through her family gradually raises another question: how much of what families tell themselves about their success leaves out the people who helped make that success possible?
It is an ambitious subject for a first feature, but Adnani has already an impressive body of work behind her: Our Share of Sand was backed by Film4 and the BFI, selected for the GREAT 8 showcase at Cannes and premiered at Venice Critics’ Week before arriving at the BFI London Film Festival. During our interview, Adnani spoke about her own relationship with India, Maya and Kiran’s friendship and the stories families build around themselves.
View of the Arts: You grew up in London but have spoken about drawing on your own memories of visiting India when you were younger. Maya also arrives in India as someone who is connected to the country through her family but, at the same time, is looking at much of what surrounds her from the outside. How much of your own experience found its way into the way she observes this world?
Shalini Adnani: I actually grew up in Chile in a Sindhi family, and later moved to London. But that experience of being connected to India through family while also arriving as an outsider is very familiar to me. Small elements of my upbringing found their way into this story. The experience of belonging to two different cultures and having two different value systems. Also, I read about child development at the age of twelve, and this is the age when we develop our sense of morality, and it can become quite binary. That was an experience I remember having at that age and was an integral part of developing the character.
VOA: Maya is only twelve, and you allow her to slowly understand the inequalities around her rather than giving her,or the audience, an immediate explanation of them. Why was it important to tell this story through a child who is beginning to recognise that the comfortable life her family has built may have come at somebody else’s expense?
SA: It was important to tell this story through a child’s perspective because the story deals with various themes that are taken as a given in our society: our place and responsibility in the world, our values and privileges. Complicity is something that, more often than not, goes unnoticed and remains silent. There’s the kind of complicity that is overt and then the kind, which is far more common, that develops gradually and almost silently. We are complicit in much more harm than most are willing to acknowledge. Therefore, it was important for Maya to experience inequality as something that gradually became personal.
I wanted the audience to experience that uncertainty alongside her: to feel the pull of family loyalty while becoming increasingly uncomfortable with what sustains the family’s life. That tension between love, belonging and moral responsibility is at the heart of the film.
VOA: The relationship between Maya and Kiran is interesting because they are close in age and manage to communicate despite not fully speaking each other’s languages, yet their lives could hardly be more different. What did you want their friendship to reveal about class and privilege without having the characters directly explain those differences?
SA: I suppose their friendship explores how class divisions are learnt. Those differences are already part of their lives, but they don’t necessarily affect how they first see each other. There’s a curiosity and a desire to connect that allows them to communicate through play, gestures and the time they spend together, even without fully speaking each other’s languages.
I was interested in how that connection can exist despite the huge inequality between them. They can enjoy the same moment together, but afterwards they return to very different lives. Maya has a freedom and security that she doesn’t yet fully understand as privilege.
VOA: The diamond at the beginning of the film becomes part of the family story Maya has inherited, but we are never entirely sure whether the version she has been told is true. Were you interested in the way families create stories about their own success and how those stories can sometimes leave out the people whose labour made that success possible?
SA: Yes, I was interested in how family stories change over time and how families tend to put themselves at the centre of those stories. When people talk about their family’s success, they often focus on how clever, hardworking or determined their ancestors were, while forgetting the people whose work also made that success possible. Over time, these stories are passed down through generations, giving families a sense of pride in where they come from and sometimes even a reason to believe they deserve everything they have.
For me, the diamond represents exactly that. It has become such an important part of the family’s history, even though we never really know how much of the story behind it is true. Perhaps certain details have been exaggerated, remembered incorrectly or even made up, but the family still believes in that story, and it influences how they see themselves.
What interested me was how a story doesn’t have to be entirely true to affect people’s lives. Maya inherits not only the diamond but also everything her family has been told about it, and as she begins to question that history, she starts to understand how those beliefs have kept her family from seeing things differently.
VOA: After Kiran’s accident, the film becomes as much about what people choose not to say as what they actually say, especially as Maya begins to understand that telling the truth could have consequences for her father and the rest of her family. What interested you about placing a child in that position, where doing what feels morally right also means questioning the people she loves?
SA: Silence becomes a language within the family. Maya learns through what people avoid saying, how they react to her questions, and what they expect her to understand without making it explicit. I was interested in how a child absorbs those expectations, and how keeping quiet can become an expression of loyalty before she fully understands what she is agreeing to. For me, that is where the moral conflict becomes most intimate. The silence Maya inherits also reflects the silence I think women in patriarchal structures inherit. And so it goes back to the complicity we have in society.
Written and interviewed by Maggie Gogler
Image Phil Sharp
View of the Arts is an online publication dedicated to film, music, and the arts, with a strong focus on the Asian entertainment industry. As we continue to grow, we aim to deepen our coverage of Asian music while remaining committed to exploring and celebrating creativity across the global arts landscape.
