Image via Google Street View

“Revolution’s Wife,” a locally produced short film, will officially start principal photography this week at the historic Fresno Brewery Office Building in Downtown Fresno.

The filmmakers hope to spotlight a largely forgotten chapter of American history and build momentum for a feature-length project.

The World War I-era drama is based on a true story of Padmavati Chandra, a South Asian immigrant whose husband allegedly used her as a political scapegoat in the United States during the war.

The film follows a covert network of Indian revolutionaries who used the Gadar newspaper to organize resistance against the British Empire, looking for Indian independence with support from Germany.

The Ghadar newspaper was published by the Ghadar party, a political party that was founded in 1913 by Indian immigrants in North America who wanted to overthrow British rule in India. The party published the newspaper out of San Francisco and it circulated internationally.

Chandra became a scapegoat after federal agents raided her and her husband’s home and found financial accounts and documents related to the Ghadar Party in her name, which led to an investigation.

Co-writer and director Reenita Malhotra Hora, an award-winning novelist who became a screenwriter, focuses on telling untold stories of South Asians in California. Some of her works include, “Operation Mom,” “Vermilion Harvest,” “Ace of Blades” and the children’s book “Sundri & Mundri’s Lohri Aventure,” which is set in Fresno.

Candace Egan, co-writer and co-producer, is a professor of film and media at Fresno State and former journalist. Her screenplays have earned a Stowe Story Labs Fellowship and recognition in the Page International Screenwriting Awards.

“We wrote ‘REVOLUTION’S WIFE’, a historical drama told entirely through Padmavati’s eyes — not as a symbol or a victim, but as a woman navigating loyalty, identity, and survival,” Hora said in a news release. “Anyone who has watched an immigrant woman disappear into her husband’s story will recognize Padmavatti. History erased Padmavati Chandra. This film brings her back.”

In addition to Egan, recent Fresno State graduates and current students will be working on set.

The release says that Fresno’s deep ties to early 20th-century Punjabi farmers and the Gadar movement makes the Central Valley a fitting spot for the production.

A GoFundMe for the project has raised $4,692 as of Thursday morning, 34% of its $14,000 goal.

The Fresno Brewery Office Building was built in 1907 as part of the Fresno Brewing Company complex. The brick office and warehouse was once a 20-acre brewery operation that had over 1,000 employees across the Central Valley before Prohibition reshaped the industry.

The building is on the National Register of Historic Places.