The Making of Gudhal: Yuvraaj Parashar on Turning a Short Film Into a Feature

Every debut feature has an origin story, and Gudhal's begins with a short film that travelled further than most filmmakers ever expect their early work to go.

Bahaar and the festival circuit

Before Gudhal, Yuvraaj Parashar wrote and directed Bahaar, a short film that went on to win recognition at 14 international festivals. That kind of validation, especially for a filmmaker still primarily known as an actor at the time, does more than build a resume. It builds confidence in a specific creative instinct, and for Parashar, that instinct clearly pointed towards socially conscious storytelling.

From short to feature

Scaling a short film's sensibility into a feature is not a simple matter of adding runtime. Gudhal required Parashar to sustain the same restraint and emotional honesty that made Bahaar work across a much longer, more structurally demanding story, one built around the hidden cruelty of old age home abandonment.

Assembling the right cast

Parashar's casting choices, Mona Ambegaonkar, Shahbaz Khan, Pooja Singh, Sunita Rajwar and Sudha Chandran, reflect a filmmaker who understood exactly what kind of performers his material needed: actors capable of quiet devastation rather than theatrical grief.

Bringing in Javed Ali

Music became another key piece of the puzzle, and Javed Ali's title track has emerged as one of the film's most resonant elements, reinforcing the tone Parashar was building scene by scene.

A years-long payoff

By the time Gudhal reached its international festival run, picking up honours including Best Debut Director and Best Social Film, it represented years of groundwork, from Bahaar's festival wins to a feature built entirely around Parashar's own vision as writer, director and producer.

Gudhal is now streaming on Hungama OTT, Airtel Xstream, Tata Play Binge and Watcho.