Mira Nair has unveiled the first look of ‘Amri’, her biographical drama inspired by life and art of Amrita Sher-Gil, one of India’s most celebrated modern painters. The reveal, made on May 12, 2026, is a milestone for a project the ‘Monsoon Wedding’ director first announced in 2020.
Nair has spoken openly about the influence Sher-Gil’s work has had on her own filmmaking over the decades. “Every film I have made in the last several decades has drawn inspiration from the art of Amrita Sher-Gil,” she said in a press statement. She credited the painter with shaping her visual sensibility, describing how Sher-Gil bridged European modernism with the everyday realities of Indian life.
The film is co-written by Nair and French writer Clara Royer. It is a co-production of Mirabai, Samscape, and Papertown Productions, in association with KNMA and Miramax. Producers include Samudrika Arora, Michael Nozik, and Nair herself.
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The lead: Who is Anjali Sivaraman?
At the centre of ‘Amri’ is 31-year-old actor Anjali Sivaraman. She was selected after an intensive global casting process that reportedly saw over 100 actresses auditioned across Mumbai, London, and New York.
Earlier names linked to the role included Triptii Dimri, Tanya Maniktala, who had previously worked with Nair in BBC’s ‘A Suitable Boy’, and Wamiqa Gabbi. It was Sivaraman’s raw intensity and striking physical resemblance to Sher-Gil that ultimately won Nair over.
Sivaraman is the daughter of singer Chitra Iyer and Vinod Sivaraman, a veteran Indian Air Force pilot. She began her career as a model for designers Tarun Tahiliani and Sabyasachi Mukherjee before transitioning to acting. Her debut came in 2022 with ‘Cobalt Blue’. But it was her turn in Netflix’s teen drama ‘Class’ in 2023 where she played rebellious heiress that brought her wide recognition. In 2025, she appeared in the Tamil coming-of-age film ‘Bad Girl’, produced by Vetrimaaran.
Producer Michael Nozik noted that Sivaraman’s portrayal captures Sher-Gil’s spirit of curiosity and defiance, qualities that defined the painter’s short but extraordinary life.
A star-studded ensemble
‘Amri’ carries one of the more ambitious ensemble casts assembled for an Indian period film in recent memory. Emily Watson plays Sher-Gil’s Hungarian mother, Marie-Antoinette Gottesman, while Jaideep Ahlawat takes on the role of her father, Punjabi Sikh scholar and photographer Umrao Singh Sher-Gil.
Anjana Vasan portrays Amrita’s sister, Indira Sher-Gil, and Jim Sarbh steps into the role of art critic Karl Khandalavala, one of Sher-Gil’s close confidants.
Priyanka Chopra Jonas plays the character Madame Azurie and also serves as an executive producer on the film.
Krisztián Csákvári appears as Victor Egan.
The story the film will tell
‘Amri’ covers the period between 1915 and 1941. That’s roughly from Sher-Gil’s birth in Budapest to her sudden death in Lahore at just 28. The film revolves across Hungary, France, and India, tracing the dual European and South Asian worlds that shaped who she became as an artist and as a woman.
The narrative focuses on her coming of age, her restless search for identity, and her refusal to conform, whether in her art or her personal life. Born to a Punjabi Sikh father and a Hungarian mother, Sher-Gil trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and returned to India in 1934, where she documented rural Indian life with a modernist eye. She is today regarded as a pioneer of Indian modern art.
Producer Samudrika Arora described the film’s emotional core as the tension of belonging to two radically different worlds without fully belonging to either.
What comes next
The timing of the first look release also aligns with a broader cultural moment around Sher-Gil’s legacy. Major retrospective exhibitions of her work will take place across the world starting in 2027, beginning in Paris, then moving to Los Angeles, Doha, and finally New Delhi, where a permanent exhibition is also in the works.
No release date for ‘Amri’ has been officially announced yet.