AFI Student Film - 2025
THE NIGHT I FOUGHT DEATH
A film about injustice in India, under British rule in the 1930s. Two prisoners, whose fates hold major influence in the course of India’s struggle for independence, receive a letter from M. K. Gandhi the night before their execution, granting them clemency, should they disband their radical party. One prisoner signs this document right away, but the other contemplates how his younger self would think of him, deserting his core values to save his small life.
The jail was designed with two rooms: a hallway and a cell.
The arches were made with window flats in which we custom fitted pliable luan and fastened to the semicircle shape we cut with a router, as seen below:
“But maybe... Not everything is to be achieved during life...”
This jail door frame was built with 1x3’s and pvc pipes run through to create the cell bars. The door was painted with a metallic silver and a rust brown.
These jails were not well-maintained, and their imagery eludes to the certain death our heroes are faced with.
We used spare plywood to make the lockbox seen here, fastened to the frame.
The lock was bought ordered online, and we fastened it with 1/2” pipe clamps.
The door and lock fully function, and operate as intended in the film.
“A wall lamp flickers on a dilapidated brick wall... Long shadows of iron bars make patterns on the dusty floor.”
This is where our hero writes his manifesto, as seen by the paper scattered on the ground, desperate scratches written in ash that contemplate the role he’s played in life, “23 years isn’t enough for anyone to accomplish anything in their lives. I know I haven’t done enough. They still walk on the soil stained by our blood.”
Director: Megh Patil
Producer: Hemal Tummapudi
Story: Hemal Tummapudi
Screenplay: Megh Patil and Edan Ashkenazi
Cinematographer: Sydney Lawson and Gabriel Heredia
Production Designer: Purnima Bhutoria
Editor: Niko Su