CASE STUDY: SHORT FILM
A charity dinner. A film. A night that travelled.
London, one summer evening, shimmered with warmth. Saliha Khan Sadozai brought together chefs from across the diaspora to raise funds for the farmers of Kashmir. Qissa filmed it.
Client
Curator
Sector
Location
The Friends of Kashmir film. Made in one evening. Watched everywhere.
1
THE NIGHT
A charity dinner for the farmers of Kashmir.
After the 2025 attacks in Kashmir, the region's farmers lost the trade, the tourism, and the income they had relied on for generations. The state's response did not meet the moment. The diaspora did.
Saliha Khan Sadozai, a Le Cordon Bleu trained chef and the founder of Third Culture Kat, decided to act. She brought together a constellation of chefs she knew and trusted, each from a different heritage, each contributing a dish, and turned a supper club into a charity dinner for the farmers of Kashmir. Qissa came in to film the night.
“To stand with someone, you don't have to be from them. You simply have to stand for them.”
SALIHA’S GRANDFATHER
CARRIED IN THE FILM’S VOICEOVER
2
IN THE ROOM
The people who showed up.
Friends of Saliha's, each running their own food brand, each giving their time for free.
Saliha Khan Sadozai
Host / Third Culture Kat
Le Cordon Bleu trained. Three generations of her family farm mango orchards in Pakistan. Founder of Third Culture Kat, a condiment company built on direct relationships with the farmers she sources from. Hosting the night.
Philip Juma
Juma Kitchen
British-Iraqi chef. Owner of Juma Kitchen, Borough Market's home for Iraqi cuisine. BBC Food and Farming Awards finalist. Known for his hand-made kubba and for putting Iraqi food on the London map.
Obi & Salma
MiddleEats
Egyptian husband-and-wife team. Creators of YouTube's largest English-language channel for Middle Eastern cooking, with 400,000+ subscribers. Authors of Sofretna.
Natasha
Seedy Snacks
Le Cordon Bleu trained chef. Co-founder of Seedy Snacks with her sister Soraya. Handmade artisan crackers built on whole organic seeds and global flavours.
Nour
Nuun
Founder of Nuun, a London cake design studio. Trained in pastry at Sushi Samba and The Modern Pantry. Bespoke contemporary cakes for the people the night was about, and the closing course.
Susan
Saffron & Honey
Founder of Saffron & Honey, a West London Palestinian bakery. Reclaiming Palestinian recipes through baking. Levantine flavours, third culture format.
Olive Odyssey
Sponsor
Palestinian-owned olive oil collective working directly with farmers across the West Bank and northern Palestine. Every bottle traceable to a single farmer, a single grove. On every table.
3
WHAT WE DID
One camera. One edit. One night to capture.
Filmed solo, on one camera, with Saliha's voiceover written and recorded by her, carried across the cut. No crew, no second unit, no second take. A warm, filmic grade in post. Everything else got out of the way.
The cinema came from the room. The job was to be there, to read it as it unfolded, and to bring back a film that meant something to the people in it and to the people it was for.
4
AFTER THE EVENT
"The video instantaneously represented the event. It's not easy to do, because a lot of the videos and aesthetics and things look the same."
"My whole family has watched it like 100 times. My dad doesn't have Instagram, so my sister had to screen record it and send it to him."
"I want to create more awareness, to talk more about the farmers, to talk more about the concept, to talk more about why I'm doing it. I think you're a great person to help me tell that story."
SALIHA KHAN SADOZAI
Founder, Third Culture Kat
5
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT
The film did its job.
The dinner raised what it set out to raise. The film was shared by every chef in the room and by Saliha's network across the UK, Pakistan, and Kashmir. Saliha asked about continuing the work together for Third Culture Kat. The timing did not align, but the door opened.
The state's response had not met the moment. The diaspora's had. The film carried the proof.
From your forever friend, Saliha.
THE CLOSING LINE OF THE FILM
YOUR STORY
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