Shubhangi Shekhar To Direct Basketball Feature Doc ‘Hoop Like This’

NBA Champion Jeremy Lin, ESPN Senior NBA Insider Shams Charania and Ghosts star Utkarsh Ambudkar are all set to appear in a new basketball feature documentary.

The trio are part of Hoop Like This, which tells the story of the world’s first professional Indian basketball team.

The film explores the emotional and physical demands placed on these athletes as they pursue history. India does not allow dual citizenship, meaning generations of elite athletes of Indian heritage have been ineligible to represent the national team across all sports. The Brown Ballers are the first true Dream Team of Indian basketball – 12 players who risk their careers, reputations, and identities to rewrite the rules of who belongs in the game. The doc follows them to one of the world’s most intense basketball tournaments on ESPN, where a $1M prize is on the line. 

Each player leads a double life: an orthopedic surgeon who never stopped competing at the elite level, a gas station owner who was once the #11 ranked FIBA 3×3 player in the world and a Silicon Valley software engineer who plays professional basketball in Taiwan.

It marks the feature directorial debut of Shubhangi Shekhar and is exec produced by Grammy-nominated Musician Nav, who has worked with Drake and The Weeknd.

In addition to Lin, Charania and Ambudkar, the doc also features NBA Sacramento Kings owner Vivek Ranadivé, ESPN SportsCenter anchor Kevin Negandhi and comedian Nimesh Patel.

The film will launch with a three-city festival premiere run this May at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, CAAMFest in San Francisco, and Asian American Showcase in Chicago.

The film is produced by Shekhar, Kunal Patel, Pulkit Datta, Zach Galst, Tony Castle, and Roxy Hunt. Akhil Hegde of HRTGE, and Gautam Kapur serve as executive producers alongside Nav. UTA Independent Film Group is representing worldwide sales.

“I realized that our community doesn’t need to look to fiction for heroes,” said Shubhangi Shekhar. “They exist in real life, right in front of us. It’s our responsibility to pay attention and tell their stories.”

Nav added, “I’ve been a big hoops fan since I was a kid and our community has long been underrepresented at a national level. Given where I am at now in my career it felt like the perfect time to champion a story like this.”