Vikram Gandhi has joined Bullitt’s directorial roster for exclusive representation in branded content. An award-winning director and producer of fiction and non-fiction film and television, Gandhi helmed and starred in KumarĂ©, a documentary in which he impersonates a religious leader and gains a following of real people.
KumarĂ© was Gandhi’s first film, became an international cult hit and was critically acclaimed. KumarĂ© won the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 2011 SXSW Film Festival, and earned nominations for the Cinema Eye Audience Choice Prize as well as the DOC NYC Viewfinders Grand Jury Prize.
Since. Gandhi has directed and produced Barry (Netflix), Trigger Warning (Netflix), Grass Is Greener (Netflix), and 69: The Saga Of Danny Hernandez (Hulu).
“Vikram is a multi-talented creative force in the doc. world and beyond and I’ve long been a fan of his work,” noted Bullitt’s Luke Ricci. “He brings a unique lens with which he views the world, and will be a great asset for agencies and brands.”
As a journalist, Gandhi has been a producer/correspondent on HBO’s Emmy-Winning news series Vice since 2012, reporting on terrorism, black markets, climate change, gang violence and other nefarious activities from every continent on the planet. He’s spoken on religion and his work in journalism around the world at conferences like TED, INK Talks, Wired, and Founders Forum.
More Than A Game: Bringing Sincere Representation Of The Shawnee Tribe To Civilization 7
Shawnee Tribe Chief Ben Barnes grew up playing video games, including "probably hundreds of hours" colonizing a distant planet in the 1999 title Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.
So when that same game studio, Firaxis, approached the tribal nation a quarter-century later with a proposal to make a playable character out of their famous leader Tecumseh in the upcoming game Civilization 7, Barnes felt a rush of excitement.
"I was like, 'This can't be true,'" Barnes said. "Do they want us to participate in the next version of Civilization?"
Beloved by tens of millions of gamers since its 1991 debut, Meier's Civilization series sparked a new genre of empire-building games that simulated the real world while also diverging into imaginary twists. It has captivated nerdy fans like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and a young Barnes with its intricate and addictive gameplay and rich historical context.
Choosing among leaders that can range from Cleopatra to Mahatma Gandhi, players build a civilization from its first settlement to a sprawling network of cities, negotiate with or conquer neighbors, and develop trade, science, religion and the arts. Circana, which tracks U.S. game sales, says it's the bestselling strategy video game franchise of all time.
But things have changed since the early days of Civilization. Of course, video game technology has advanced, but so too has society's understanding of cultural appropriation and the importance of accurate historical framing.
Firaxis dropped plans to add a historical Pueblo leader in 2010 after tribal leaders objected. The game incorporated a Cree leader in 2018 but faced public criticism in Canada after its release.
Developers knew that to properly represent the Shawnee leader, they would... Read More