Gauri Awasthi’s short film, 'Twenty Eight Days', follows a 25-year-old Indian-American woman in New York who fears she may be pregnant despite taking the morning-after pill. Set in post-Roe v. Wade America, the film explores reproductive choice, bodily autonomy, cultural expectations around female sexuality, and the emotional toll of waiting for an uncertain outcome. The film premiered at the 14th Annual Chelsea Film Festival in October 2026.
My trigger words are “don’t worry, you’re overthinking,” especially when they come from somebody who lives in a completely different world as me. Women have to worry about their safety, how much space they take up, whether they’re being taken seriously at work, and whether their bodies meet whatever beauty standard is currently in fashion. There’s the pressure to be sexually desirable without being judged for having a sex life, to make our own choices without disappointing our families, and to keep track of all the ways our decisions could come back to haunt us. This is what makes Gauri Awasthi’s short film 'Twenty Eight Days', which recently premiered at the 14th Annual Chelsea Film Festival in New York a bit of a horror film for me.
The 20-minute drama follows a 25-year-old Indian-American woman in New York who fears she might be pregnant after her period is late, despite having taken the morning-after pill. As she waits to find out, she begins questioning her relationships, her autonomy, and what her options might be if she is pregnant. Set in a post-Roe v. Wade America, the film explores reproductive choice through the experience of a young woman confronting the possibility of an unwanted pregnancy. “I made this film because so much of a woman’s life is decided in the waiting,” says Gauri, while highlighting how abortion rights are being fought over in statehouses across the country all the way up to the Supreme Court. “Come November, our bodies are on the ballot again.”
The film captures the mental toll of a lack of control over your own body while the person beside you struggles to understand the stakes. As her boyfriend brushes off her concerns, the protagonist searches for abortion stories and information, trying to prepare for a possibility she cannot yet confirm. For a young South Asian woman, these concerns are compounded by cultural expectations around sex, marriage, and the shame attached to female sexuality.
“Young women in New Delhi have spent this fall marching just to walk through their own city without fear. As an immigrant, I’ve watched the shame around women’s bodies cross borders with us. I wanted to tell the story of a young South Asian woman facing this alone for the first time in New York, carrying a culture that keeps female sexuality silent. Whether she’s in New York or New Delhi, the question is the same: who gets to decide what happens to her body?”Gauri Awasthi
Gauri wrote and directed Twenty Eight Days and produced it with Aashna Singh of Girgit Films. The film was shot by Atlanta-based cinematographer Kanishk Grover and edited by Vaishnavi Bhate, who has worked in the editorial department for Homebound (Cannes Film Festival 2025). The film stars New York-based actors Katarina La Poll and Vibhor Mathur. The poster was designed by New York–based artist Gigi Lin. After her debut poetry collection ‘Mother Wound’ that explored inherited trauma, identity, and healing through a daughter's perspective, Gauri looks at the anxieties around reproductive rights, as abortion access continues to face political challenges across the United States.
Follow Gauri here.
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