4 min read
Among the movies screened at this year’s SXSW was a little indie that really could. We Were Here, written and directed by Pranav Bhasin, is a knee-slapping short mockumentary about Indian retirees who push back against AI’s dominance by taking over the jobs of machines. I guarantee you won’t see anything funnier for the rest of 2026 than an old man, duct-taped to the back of a minivan, making beeping noises and yelling to the driver how close they are to the curb.
We Were Here is a triumph all on its own, a ten-minute darling with heart, wit, and DIY grit. But against the backdrop of a festival overrun with AI start-ups, Bhasin’s film shines even brighter as an insightful, maybe even radical work of art that ponders artificial intelligence and offers genuine soul instead. It is the sort of movie that inspires award-winning actor Andrew Scott. It’s why he’s the face of Redbreast Unhidden, the official showcase for short films at SXSW.
“It’s about supporting filmmakers,” Scott tells Esquire.
Redbreast Unhidden spotlights short films from emerging filmmakers from around the world. It launched at last year’s SXSW with Scott as its ambassador. This year, Scott expanded his role to executive-produce the winning filmmaker’s next project.
It’s a balmy spring Friday afternoon in Austin when Scott, dressed in a handsome cream suit, sits down for a chitchat about mentorship, whiskey sours, and the importance of authenticity in art—now more than ever. He cites his proud Irish heritage as a no-brainer for aligning with Redbreast, a nearly 170-year-old whiskey brand founded and headquartered in County Cork. For Scott, Unhidden is about paying success forward. By doing so, he aims to reinforce the worth of art over algorithms.
Although Scott chose Bhasin’s We Were Here as the winning film from the five screened, he couldn’t pick a favorite. “They’re very different, in terms of tone and subject matter,” he says. When picking a winning filmmaker, he looks for someone with confidence, whether quiet or audacious.
At SXSW 2026, Andrew Scott returned for the second Redbreast Unhidden to judge a selection of standout short films made by budding filmmakers.
Andrew Scott himself wasn’t always a star of shows like Sherlock and Fleabag or movies like All of Us Strangers, Wake Up Dead Man, and the Oscar-nominated Blue Moon. He was once a green actor who was shown the ropes by stalwart veterans. His experiences instilled in him what mentorship really looks like.
“There was an Irish actor when I made my first movie when I was 17, Donal Donnelly,” Scott remembers, referring to the 1995 drama Korea. “He was incredibly kind to everybody on the set. When you’re on a set for the first time, you’re learning how to be, you know? If somebody is behaving badly, you think, ‘Maybe that’s how I should behave.’ He was the opposite. He was gracious and kind and taught me things.”
Beyond Austin, the future of cinema has never looked more uncertain. Massive mergers and corporate consolidations result in fewer studios, which threatens to shrink the industry and rob it of new voices. Meanwhile, AI, algorithms, and our dwindling attention spans loom as existential threats. What good are movies when brain rot delivers higher engagement? It’s so hard for any filmmakers to get projects made, let alone garner attention for them.
Scott with Pranav Bhasin (left). At SXSW, the filmmakers of Redbreast Unhidden were hosted by the Irish whiskey brand for a weekend celebrating the art of short films.
“When you’re starting out, it’s hard to get films made in the first place,” Scott says. “But it’s also hard to get a platform for the market, or just support. We all need to step up at the beginning of [people’s] careers. If they get a spark of excitement about their work, if it instills some confidence for them to make something else, then I really believe in the importance of art in our world.”
The shorts screened at SXSW all come from writers and directors in the first steps of their careers. While diverse in tone and aesthetics, the films boast intimate perspectives on universal feelings: connections, belonging, the burdens placed on us by those we love. These are themes no machine can calculate, only understood through the lived experiences of real people. Scott believes this is what can turn any short film into something extraordinary. “When someone tells you a story with imagination and flair and confidence, it makes you feel less alone,” he says. “Not everybody can tell stories [through film]. So the ones that can have to be told, ‘You’ve got talent for that.’ ”
In a statement, Andrew Scott called Pranav Bhasin’s We Were Here (above) “clever and funny,” a film that asks “big questions about humanity, our relationship with technology, and with each other.”
“Sometimes there can be extraordinary talents that have not been told, or had the spotlight shined on them to say, Nurture this,” he says. He points to Paul Thomas Anderson and Steven Spielberg, “the greatest filmmakers in the world,” he says. “Somebody at one point had to say [to them], ‘That’s cool.’ ”
Scott will act as executive producer on Pranav Bhasin’s next project. But his advice is applicable to anyone with a camera in their hands and something to say.
“You gotta be yourself,” Scott says. “There’s no point in being an artist if you’re not gonna show us who you are, in whatever way you can.”
