Rehan Ansari is a New York-based writer, filmmaker, and playwright. Born in Karachi, Pakistan, he’s lived and worked as a journalist and writer in both India and Pakistan. He was Foreign Editor at Daily News and Analysis, a columnist at Mid-Day Mumbai, and worked on Indian political psychologist Ashis Nandy's 1947 Partition narratives project out of New Delhi and Lahore. His play Unburdened about the ongoing legacy of Partition was staged in Buffalo, NY and Prague. Rehan has written essays for several publications about art, politics, borders, civil rights, and historical trauma. He’s completing his first novel and his favorite genre is whatever brings in the personal story. The Return is his first feature documentary and he was a 2024 Creative Change Artist-in-Residence at the Laundromat Project.

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ABOUT The Return

An Indian-American journalist dismayed at India’s Hindu supremacist turn realizes she can no longer ignore the ghosts in her family history. Speaking to her Pakistani friend in Brooklyn who tells her stories of why he fell in love with India, she finds the courage to confront her family.

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Film

The Return

Program Affiliation

PBS/Firelight William Greaves Production Fund

Cohort Year

2024

Instagram

@rehanthereturn