We often hear stories of ordinary people who go on to achieve extraordinary things. Sometimes, a dream begins as nothing more than a fleeting thought—one that may seem unrealistic at first, but refuses to leave you. Something similar happened to Gagandeep Singh Gill, a boy from Anand, Gujarat, who once dreamed of becoming a filmmaker. In Class 12, while watching a film, he caught himself thinking, “I could have made this better.” He dismissed the thought as arrogance, but somewhere within him, he knew filmmaking was one of the few things that truly made his mind come alive.

Today, Gagandeep is building a career as a filmmaker in Los Angeles and has been selected for the Berlin Commercial Festival. He has also received the Los Angeles American Advertising Federation Award for his work on the Levi’s Libre and Kodak campaigns, as well as a National ADDY Award for his Levi’s advertisement. His work on Levi’s Libre also won International Telly Awards. In 2026, his work was selected for the LA Shorts International Film Festival, and he also won the Young Ones Portfolio Award for his body of commercial work.

His journey, however, began far away from Hollywood a small-town boy—with a borrowed camera and a dream he wasn’t even sure he was allowed to have.

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Gagandeep Singh Gill is an engineering graduate.

A small town boy with a borrowed camera

Speaking to SCREEN, Gagandeep Singh Gill recalled how his love for cinema began. “I really loved watching films growing up. I am from Anand, which is a pretty small town in Gujarat. We barely had one or two theatres when I was growing up. Twice a year, my parents would take me to watch a film. It used to be a very spiritual experience for me. That’s when I started gravitating towards art,” he said.

Like many young Indians, Gagandeep initially thought engineering was the obvious path. During his college days, he often shot films with his friends. The question of whether someone from a small town could actually make it in filmmaking remained at the back of his mind. But there was something about making films that he couldn’t ignore—the joy it brought to everyone involved. “I could see the joy in my friends. The communal aspect of it inspired me to take it seriously,” he said.

Gagandeep Singh Gill applied to film school in Pasadena during the COVID-19 pandemic.

An application submitted in times of confusion

Gagandeep graduated during the pandemic, at a time when the world had effectively come to a standstill. For a year, he was unsure of what to do next. He spent six months putting together a portfolio, even though COVID restrictions made it difficult to shoot.

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Gagandeep Singh Gill was surprised when his portfolio got selected for film school.

The college selection that turned his life

To his surprise, he got into ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena. “That’s where my life took a turn. I worked very hard. I was the only person with no film experience except the videos I made with my friends,” he recalled.

“For the longest time, I worked as free labour to learn as much as I can and make connections. I made many friends, and they are still my collaborators,” he said. Those experiences eventually began turning into paid work. But Gagandeep is careful about calling himself a success story just yet. “I hesitate to say I am living my dream because I am yet to get there. But I am still very happy with how things are,” he said.

Gagandeep Singh Gill’s journey started with a borrowed camera.

Breaking into the Los Angeles film industry, however, proved to be another challenge. One of the biggest obstacles was his age. “A lot of times people rejected me because I was too young. People would be wary of giving me $100,000 for work,” he said.

Rather than waiting for bigger opportunities, Gagandeep learned to work with limited resources. He now works with smaller companies on their B2B advertising campaigns. “These things too take a long time. Several meetings before they trust you with their money,” he said.

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Gagandeep Singh Gill is currently working as an ad filmmaker.

Advertising may be where his career has found its footing, but cinema remains his ultimate destination.

The grill changed his personality

The transition wasn’t always easy. Gagandeep Singh Gill admits that he grew up with considerable social anxiety. “I had a lot of social anxiety growing up, which is hilarious for the kind of industry and job I am in,” he said.

Moving from India to Los Angeles gradually changed him. Much of that transformation came from putting himself in uncomfortable situations again and again. “You start finding things about yourself that you didn’t think you had. It opens many doors,” he said.

A story he thought of as a school kid

Alongside his professional work, he is also trying to bring to life a story he first thought about as a schoolboy—one connected to India’s freedom struggle. “India received its independence very recently. It has many facets and while India was fighting its own struggle for freedom, there were also people elsewhere in the world who too were struggling to free themselves from the British,” he said.

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Gagandeep doesn’t want to restrict himself to either Hollywood or Bollywood. He wants to travel, explore different cultures and shoot across the world. His latest inspiration is The Odyssey, particularly its scale and the way it travels across multiple locations.

Challenges as a filmmaker

Gagandeep Singh Gill knows that choosing filmmaking means giving up the comfort and stability that a conventional career could have offered him.

“Being a director here is literally like being a freelancer, and being a freelancer means mostly being conditionally employed. Mostly unemployed. Paid enough to survive for two months and you have to keep looking for more work to secure your next few months. It is not a very comfortable position to be in. I am still learning to live like that,” he said.

“There is always a fear—is this going to be the last time I am behind a camera? You have to sacrifice a lot of sanity and sleep. You can never sleep well because of the uncertainty. I had got a decent grade. I could have had a good-paying job and a house. But I couldn’t live like that. I knew I didn’t want that for me,” Gagandeep concluded.