Sachin Dheeraj didn’t start off as a filmmaker. He got his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering and worked as a software engineer. He remembers as a kid he always loved movies, but it wasn’t until he started watching foreign language films as an adult that he became seriously interested in cinema, enough so that he began working on film sets in graduate school, fetching water and holding umbrellas for the cast and crew when it was raining. 

In his late 20s, Dheeraj came to The University of Texas at Austin to get his Master of Fine Arts degree in Film and Media Production. Last month, he was given the news that his pre-thesis project, the documentary film Testimony of Ana, was Oscar qualified, meaning in December he could be on the short list to be nominated.

“It definitely feels surreal,” said Dheeraj, who directed, edited and produced the film with a small crew. “I feel honored and humbled by reaching this point. Even though it’s a very long shot, we have a shot. We are in the race.”

Testimony of Ana tells the story of Anaben Pawar, an elderly tribal woman accused of witchcraft in rural Gujarat, India, a charge that often results in being publicly ostracized, beaten or even killed. It’s a practice that, while archaic, still happens to thousands of women today. Pawar is one of the few who has survived to tell her story.

“Once I met her, there was a strength in her voice I knew everyone needed to hear,” said Dheeraj, who showed up to Pawar’s house every day until he earned her trust. “The whole film is a testimony, something she could have told in front of a judge if there were ever a proper trial that took her case forward. Instead, she is saying it in front of the camera for the audience to acknowledge.”

With a run time of 24 minutes, Testimony of Ana, if it makes it to the Oscars, would be included in the best documentary short film category. The process to get there, though, can be daunting, Dheeraj said, and requires time, energy, fundraising and tons of screenings to get buzz around the film. He doesn’t have the money or support of a big studio like Netflix behind him, so he is seeking out grants and other sources of funding to market the film. “It feels like a herculean task,” he said.