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He Makes Short Videos That Restore Your Faith in People

Watch Inder Nirwan’s stories of Vancouver heroes like choir leader Vanessa Richards.

A man with medium skin tone and short black hair and a salt and pepper beard wears a black shirt and a grey-brown felted suit jacket. He is smiling at the camera.
Vancouver filmmaker Inder Nirwan, founder of Kahani Pictures. Photo submitted.
Jackie Wong 7 Mar 2025The Tyee

Jackie Wong is a senior editor for The Tyee.

Inder Nirwan’s video series, iNVANCiTY, offers welcome reminders of what’s going right in the world — at a moment we need them most.

Next Wednesday, it will be five years to the day that the World Health Organization declared the worldwide outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Five days later, B.C. provincial health officer Bonnie Henry declared a provincewide state of emergency as the number of COVID cases nearly doubled in one day.

While 2020 was a challenging year on many fronts, I also remember it for the remarkable swell of public health and racial justice solidarity that seemed to buoy many of us during an otherwise scary, isolating time.

I’ve been wondering if 2025 will see a similar collective uprising.

In all areas of my life, I’ve been seeing a renewed desire for connection, community and especially lightness. People are looking for reminders of what’s going right and what’s to be celebrated in our corner of the world.

Enter iNVANCiTY, the volunteer side hustle of the award-winning Vancouver filmmaker and founder of Kahani Pictures, a company that focuses on video production for social impact.

“I hope that this series instils a sense of curiosity for what’s happening in our neighbourhoods,” Nirwan tells me.

“As much as the internet connects us around the world, it can disconnect us from our local communities. These stories are about fascinating people, experiences, phenomena that all occur in our hometown — tangible, accessible wonders.”

A screenshot shows a Black woman with medium skin tone, in a living room. Behind her there are plants on a balcony. She’s wearing a black head wrap, hoop earrings, and a knotted grey cardigan.
‘We need nothing more than our own breath. It is a medicine,’ Vancouver singer Vanessa Richards said in this May 2022 video by Inder Nirwan of Kahani Pictures. Still via iNVANCiTY on YouTube.

One of Nirwan’s iNVANCiTY videos is a five-minute documentary about Vanessa Richards, a Vancouver facilitator and leader of a longtime community choir.

In June 2020, Richards was invited to participate in a festival at Sunset Beach commemorating Juneteenth, the day that Maj.-Gen. Gordon Granger announced the end of the U.S. Civil War and the end of slavery on June 19, 1865.

The Sunset Beach event arrived on the heels of George Floyd’s May 2020 murder by a white police officer in Minneapolis, which sparked renewed international attention in the Black Lives Matter movement.

Richards led the crowd in a rendition of “Amazing Grace” that continues to move me every time I see it.

WATCH: Remember when the pandemic suddenly made it dangerous to sing together? Spend five minutes experiencing how Vanessa Richards overcame isolation with a triumphant solution. Video via iNVANCiTY on YouTube.

“The pandemic and George Floyd's death both exacerbated an already hyper-polarized global concourse,” Nirwan says.

“These two events marked a distinct shift where every news story became instantly universal — and often universally overwhelming.”

The iNVANCiTY video series is an attempt to remind us of how precious life is, despite its difficulties.

“Life has its hardships,” Nirwan notes. “But we can’t keep ourselves in perpetual crisis.”

“We must also remember the good we’re trying to protect.”

The full iNVANCiTY video series is available on YouTube.  [Tyee]

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