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Dia Mirza-backed short film Panha has been recognised on the festival circuit, winning Best Indian Short Film at the All Living Things Environmental Film Festival (ALT EFF), Best Film at the 9th World Indian Film Festival in Hyderabad, Best Film at the Dhruma Film Festival, and an Honourable Jury Mention at the 13th Mumbai Shorts International Film Festival.

Told through the eyes of seven-year-old Vithu, Panha is set in a Maharashtrian village where his family faces losing its ancestral mango farm to an infrastructure project. While his father hopes to begin a new life in the city, his uncle refuses to part with the land that has sustained generations of the family. As eviction draws closer, Vithu disappears just days before they are forced to leave, setting off an emotional search that tests the family’s love, resilience and understanding of what home truly means.

Speaking about what drew her to support Panha, Dia reflected on her lifelong connection with nature. She said, “Perhaps it started with a mango tree in my backyard and the time I spent on its broad branches reading books during my summer vacations. The branches were so wide that I could lie down with a book, resting against the trunk. Whenever I got into trouble, that tree became my escape and my hiding place. Hours would pass, and I would be so comfortable in its embrace that I never felt the need to climb down. My relationship with nature from childhood shaped the way I looked at the world and gave me a sense of purpose.”

She also recalled how a visit to Pench National Park in Madhya Pradesh after winning the Miss India title changed her perspective. She shared, “I had stepped into a more materialistic phase of life, but a drive through the forest shifted something within me. It reminded me of everything I had known as a child. Spending time with local communities and forest rangers, walking through the forest, taking photographs and having conversations made me realise that it would be pointless to be a public figure if I couldn’t use my voice to help others remember what truly matters. That has been my pursuit ever since.”

She added, “We belong to one another. We belong to the land. We belong to nature. We are not separate from it. Everything we need in our lives comes from the Earth, and it is the Earth that cradles us.”

Directed by Sakshi Mishra , Panha has been produced under the banner One India Stories and marks the first collaboration between childhood friends Dia Mirza and Ananya Rane .