Abracadabra, a 20-minute short film by Amay Mehrishi, gathers many layered emotions within the cramped, shifting world of a school bus. ‘12 year-old Agastya is left adrift when his best friend chooses to sit elsewhere. A small shift quickly spirals into a quiet storm of identity, guilt and longing. As the journey unfolds through chaos and childhood games, a playful magic trick leads Agastya to confront unspoken emotions and the pressure to fit in.’ What makes this film compelling is how Amay frames this journey through the eyes of children and their innocence, as if you are witnessing the birth of these emotions themselves. It can be a little painful to watch because, unlike grown-ups, a child’s mind does not yet know how to integrate such feelings.
Throughout the bus ride we watch things fall apart and slowly find their balance again. The film moves at an unhurried pace, but it remains a tender, affecting experience. Amay grew up and studied in Bombay before moving abroad to study cinema at the London Film School. Abracadabra was his graduation film and had its world premiere in the Generation Kplus category at the Berlin Film Festival.
Abracadabra, The Starting Point
When I started preparing ideas for my graduation film, I wanted to develop something from personal experiences and values, things that I have grown up learning or seeing around me. I remember very early on in the writing process, a random memory popped up from my school days about how I was the last kid left on the school bus every day on the way home from school. This image of a young boy, in an empty bus with just the bus driver and the attendant, stayed with me. What followed was incessant journaling, brainstorming and ideating what could be the story of this young boy. As that kid, I could imagine seeing the journey of my bus in all of its chaos and the silences that crept in when everyone was dropped off. This transient movement reflected an emotional journey that really captured the essence of what the main character, Agastya, goes through in that one bus ride. Slowly, I developed the characters of the 32 kids in the bus, their interactions, things they see, feel, share and how through the lens of Agastya, a plethora of emotions could be embedded within. What stayed consistent was the innocence of childhood, the friendship and the tenderness that come with it.
Feelings, Inside Out
Intimately and observationally, I want the audience to immerse themselves inside this moving bus, witnessing moments of tenderness and cruelty, performed rituals of masculinity, and quiet gestures of rebellion. There is a poetic simplicity to the bus itself: always moving forward, even as its passengers struggle to keep pace internally. This film speaks of a sensitivity that I feel all of us are born with- a sense of desire, longing, and friendship that we often don’t know how to express, especially as children. To me, this film came from a personal space of memories, experiences, values, and all things that make us who we are as we grow older. The title Abracadabra, often associated with wonder, here becomes a quiet wish to undo what cannot be undone.
Storytelling, The Magic
As humans, we are all intrinsically drawn to stories and the magic that it emits within us. To feel, empathise, empower and express is what forms the foundation of storytelling for me. Stories make us feel less alone, and I find storytelling such a liberating form of art. Be it in any form, films, books, music, poetry, painting- anything that resonates and is a shared emotional experience between humans, for me, that is storytelling. It really gives me an immense sense of happiness, wonder and curiosity to be bringing stories to life through the medium of films. I feel I’m constantly observing, inwards and outwards, and drawing inspiration for my next character or the next story. As I slowly find my footing as a writer, director, and filmmaker, I find it extremely healing to be allowing your experiences to help shape a story into being. While art is subjective, I feel that if the process of making it comes from a personal space, it most definitely connects with all. I have always had butterflies imagining my films being watched by an audience, and to be on a set, bringing a story to life with a team is the most enchanting feeling. Often stressful, no doubt, but I feel grateful to be in a position to be able to tell stories. I hope to continue doing the same and to bring us closer as humans in this shared experience that we call storytelling!
Words Hansika Lohani
Date 28.4.2026
Amay Mehrishi