Srinagar, July 28 -- In a modest Srinagar neighborhood not far from the bustle of Lal Chowk, a Kashmiri filmmaker is building a cinematic universe.

Ali Emran, 42, doesn't chase fame. He seeks something else: meaning.

And in a region like Kashmir, where art often wrestles with history, identity, and silence, meaning matters.

Emran's films feel like they remember. They remember the weight of tradition, the softness of spiritual longing, and the wounds that remain just beneath the skin of everyday life.

His stories are shaped by Kashmir, but they speak far beyond it, to anyone who has ever searched for selfhood in a world that often denies it.

In 2006, when Emran released his first short film, The Ninth Act, the idea of a Kashmiri makin...