Tony Blair Faith Foundation

By my troth, I believe, a short film by Sahara Sharma has been short-listed by Faith Shorts, a project for short-length movies with the goal of increasing understanding between religions and faiths.

Faith Shorts is an annual global short film competition. The project run by Tony Blair Faith Foundation in London has short-listed Sharma’s film in the top five in the 18-27 age category of this year’s competition.

Sharma came across an ad by Faith Shorts while browsing Facebook late at night just a week before the deadline, and the theme – “How my faith inspires me” – had her captivated.

“I always wanted to make a film that would showcase Nepali youth, and the fact that we haven’t lost our faith in our country yet, despite all the chaos at the moment,” says a visibly excited Sharma who is currently in the process of making another short film.

The three-minute film shows four young Nepali souls who are not dismayed by the current situation of their nation and are doing their bit to make a difference – however small it might be.

The message Sharma has tried to express through her film, in her own words, is, “We are not a hopeless country though that might seem to be the case for many of you, given the current political situation. The youth here still love their country and believe that better days are just around the corner.”

The film will now be submitted to the global judging panel, including Tony Blair, Hollywood stars Hugh Jackman and Jet Li, Bollywood actor Anil Kapoor, the Grand Mufti of Bosnia Dr Mustafa Ceric, Lord Puttnam, the Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks and others, and they will choose the winning film in each of the age categories and then select the overall winner.

As for now, the shortlisted film will be showcased widely on the Tony Blair Faith Foundation website and other multimedia platforms.

This article originally appeared on MyRepublica.com