Drawn From Life

This film follows a Sikh artist in the UK whose extraordinary pencil drawings are the result of a remarkable personal journey. After graduating, he stopped drawing entirely for over a decade, lost in a period of depression and disconnection. The diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome in his thirties gave him the framework he needed to understand what had been happening, and it opened the door to recovery. He picked up the pencil again, slowly at first and then with increasing confidence, eventually producing work of museum quality.

What makes the film particularly moving is how deeply his return to art was also a return to his Sikh identity. His subjects include Guru Gobind Singh Ji and other figures from Sikh history and spirituality, and his reconnection with his community came through his artwork, through being invited to exhibit at temples and festivals. The film is frank about mental health and autism in ways that are still rare in documentary storytelling, and it makes a quiet but powerful case for the healing potential of art made from the inside out.