REVOLUTION'S WIFE LLC

We are raising funds to produce REVOLUTION'S WIFE, a short film set in 1917 San Francisco that uncovers a hidden chapter of American and Indian history: the Gadar revolution against the British Empire, World War I conspiracy, and at its center, the struggles of one of the very first South Asian immigrant women in the United States, whose voice has never been heard until now. In 1917, one of the first Indian women in America had her name forged on conspiracy documents by her own husband. History erased her. We are making a film to bring her back.

Candace Egan and I, both award-winning writer-producers, are producing REVOLUTION'S WIFE, a historical drama about Padmavati Chandra, one of perhaps four or five Indian women in all of America in 1917. Her husband ran a revolutionary printing press from their San Francisco home, conspiring with Germany to overthrow the British Empire. Padmavati kept the operation running. She signed papers, secured housing, raised their children. And she was kept deliberately in the dark.

When federal agents arrested her husband, she discovered her own name on safe deposit boxes containing conspiracy funds she never consented to. On the last day of the trial, her husband was assassinated in the courtroom. She was left a widow, pregnant with her second child, holding evidence that every surviving faction wanted.

There is no photograph of Padmavati Chandra. I found her voice on audiocassette tapes at UC Berkeley, recorded in 1974. Enough to know she could not simply be forgotten. Padmavati's story is woven into the history of San Francisco. It always has been. The revolutionaries operated from a house on Wood Street. The trial filled a federal courtroom downtown. There is still a bullet hole in the judge's bench. This is a San Francisco story, and it has never been told.

REVOLUTION'S WIFE is told entirely through Padmavati's eyes. A woman who uncovers the full architecture of a conspiracy and chooses herself. The screenplay was selected at the 2024 Atlanta Women's Film Festival. We pitched at Sundance and received a request for the full-length screenplay. We just received an Honorable Mention at the Big Apple Film Festival Women's Showcase and were named Semifinalists in the Fade In Awards. Our DP is Anup Kulkarni (VFX: Life of Pi, Thor: The Dark World). We shoot in weeks.

Why this matters to women in film: This is a story about a woman whose name was used without her consent, whose labor was invisible, whose contributions were erased. That is not just 1917. REVOLUTION'S WIFE puts a South Asian woman at the center of a story that has only ever been told through men. There is no precedent for this character on screen.

Every contributor receives credit in the film. If you want to put your name on a film that recovers a woman the historical record tried to erase, this is it. We would love to have you join this revolution.

More about our story here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eHnPTrbGYM&t=6s