My short film "Closet Supes" to screen on 9/29 at Tasveer South Asian Film Festival in Seattle!

Closet Supes is a short film I made in response to a competition prompt that invited Asian-Americans to make a film examining our unique perspectives as children of Asian immigrants in today’s America. This was an opportunity for me to turn the lens inward on my personal life and tell an atypical immigrant tale of loss, forgiveness, and identity as it is influenced by family, both the kind we are born into and the families we choose. The story is loosely based on my relationship with my step-brother and our mutual love for comic books.

After months of post-production, I’m thrilled to announce that Closet Supes will be screening at the largest South Asian film festival in America, the Tasveer South Asian Film Festival in Seattle! Check the trailer below!

The best part about it is, my step-brother, Sam, and my new wife Camille are coming along for the ride :) Follow my social media to catch glimpses of our red-carpet arrival where we’ll be rubbing elbows with some of the elite names in South Asian film such as Shabana Azmi (Deepa Mehta’s Fire) and Suraj Sharma (Ang Lee’s Life of Pi).

And if you’re interested in learning about how I managed to pull off a hybrid live-action/animated short film on a budget with a skeleton crew, fear not! I’m also a panelist on the festival’s short-film workshop where we’ll be pulling the veil back on the grind behind the shine ;)

Thank you, as always, for your love and support, and for listening to my stories wherever they find an outlet.

Peace!

Photos from the "Dear Brother" live read & feedback

Thanks to everyone who was able to make it to the Dear Brother live read on Tuesday, June 11th. It was a beautiful evening where the actors gave their all and the audience was genuinely moved. Check out some photos from the evening below of our talented cast, along with Hussein Rashid, Ph.D., and myself, during the reading and Q&A (Photo Credit: Camille Cordero).

From left: Rishi Mutalik as “Yusuf”, Anish Roy as “Saleem”, Nitin Madan as “Faisal” and Ishani Das as “Saima”

From left: Rishi Mutalik as “Yusuf”, Anish Roy as “Saleem”, Nitin Madan as “Faisal”, Ishani Das as “Saima”, Alec Bandzes as “Julian”, Hannah McGovern Gross as “Amanda, Erik LaPointe- Ensemble, and Adeola Role as “Sarah Sullivan”

From left: Rahoul Roy as “Kabir”, Nikki Chawla as “Fatema”, Rishi Mutalik as “Yusuf” and, Anish Roy as “Saleem”

Hussein Rashid, Ph. D during the post-reading Q&A

I’m so grateful for the time you spent listening to my work and thank you for being a part of this process! That said, I’d love to hear what you thought and so, I’ve prepared a form you can use to sound off.

audience feedback from live reading of feature screenplay on Tuesday, June 11, 2019

Live Presentation of my award-winning screenplay "Dear Brother" in NYC on June 11!

Last year, I was at the Cannes Film Festival shopping my script "Dear Brother" to producers at the Maison Des Scenaristes pitch competition. This year, I'm planning a live reading of the screenplay in NYC on 6/11, for a small audience, to be followed by a talk back moderated by religious scholar, and Barnard College faculty member, Hussein Rashid, Ph.D., a thought leader on Islam. Come out, support and engage! Tickets are FREE

Inspired by true events, Dear Brother is the fictional story of a Pakistani-American boxer who fights for his freedom after he's ensnared in an FBI counter-terrorism sting operation. Blending elements of the Denzel Washington classic, "The Hurricane" with Sylvester Stallone's "Rocky" franchise, Dear Brother is the boxing epic reflective of our times.

The goal of the evening is to spark dialogue around the issues of how Islamophobia pervades the American law enforcement and criminal justice systems, and provide an opportunity for the writer to receive feedback for future development.

I just finished casting the reading with these amazing actors below:

Anish Roy

Hannah McGovern Gross

Rishi Mutalik

Alec Bandzes

Al Nazemian & Adeola Role

Erik LaPointe & Sunny Choi

Rahoul Roy & Ishani Das

Nitin Madan & Nikki Chawla

If you are interested in the background research that inspired the elements of the story, I’ve included links to articles and a Ted talk by journalist Will Potter below:

• The Sting: How the FBI Created a Terrorist, by Trevor Aaronson, The Intercept, March 16, 2015

• The United States Wants the World to Forget These Prisoners, by Molly Crabapple, Creative Time Reports, July 21, 2014

• Yassin at Ray Brook FCI, by Yassin Aref, Excerpts from a Letter from Yassin Aref, a prisoner at the Terre Haute Federal Prison’s CMU unit, to Carl Strock of the Schnectady Daily Gazette, September 10, 2007

• The Secret U.S. Prisons You’ve Never Heard Of, by Will Potter, TED Fellow Retreat 2015 - Stream the Video Below.

Investigative journalist Will Potter is the only reporter who has been inside a Communications Management Unit, or CMU, within a US prison. These units were opened secretly, and radically alter how prisoners are treated -- even preventing them from hugging their children.

CUFF's World Premiere will be @NYTVF 2018 on July 17 at 8 p.m.!

The long road that started over two years ago when I sat down to write a new TV series has led me to one steamy night this July when I'll see the pilot Cuff have its world premiere at the New York Television Festival. Just three weeks from now, on Tuesday, July 17th at 8 p.m., I'll be in attendance with some of the very special folks who helped me put this show together as well as the people I hold near and dear to my heart. Tickets are only $5 and are on sale now (click the picture below to zip over to the purchase page). Hope to see you at the Helen Mills Theater in Chelsea, NYC! :)

The teaser for CUFF is finally here!

This has been a few years in the making, and now, it's finally here...the teaser for my new episodic CUFF! This is basically what dreams in New York are made of. Artists meeting, vibing and collaborating to create original, exciting work. Thank you to everyone who's poured their hard work into this vision! We hope you enjoy and can't wait to take you deeper into this wild story :)

My Primetime Debut on ABC!

UPDATE: ABC posted the segment on What Would You Do's YouTube channel. Check it out below! 

This week, I'll be gracing the small screen on two, that's right TWO, consecutive nights. First tune in on Thursday 12:35am for Nightline's feature on ABC's hit show "What Would You Do" with host John Quinones. It'll take a behind the scenes look at how the show gets made with actor/producer interviews. 

Me photobombing John Quinones (center) taking a selfie with actors Siraj Huda and Marie Guinier, my TV parents. 

Then, tune in to the main event, on Friday, Aug 14 at 9:00pm ET, What Would You Do on ABC to see me and some fellow actors throw a curveball scenario at some unsuspecting bystanders. Add it to your calendars on your iWatches people! I made it easy for you here jeeeeez cahmaann. Thanks for all the support and love! It's about to get interesting...

K

New York premiere of Dear Brother short!

Click through for tickets! 

If you've known me at all for the past four years or so, you have, at one point or another asked me what I'm working on and, if I held your attention long enough, I eventually got to the part where I described a screenplay that I've poured most of my non-acting free time into- mind, body and soul, titled Dear Brother.

For those that are unfamiliar, the logline: An English born Pakistani boxer, Saleem, fights for his freedom after being wrongfully convicted of planning terrorism.

The script tallied a couple wins at competitions/festivals,  but it needed some more work to really hit all the notes that a powerful story like this ought to.  Well, I've been plugging away at it and luckily, along the way, I met a seasoned and well accomplished screenwriter/Sundance-alum, who believes in the story and has graciously guided me through the most recent round of revisions.  Deep breaths...I am thrilled about this rewrite. 

SO, what better time than now to screen a 3 minute short film adapted from Dear Brother !? I shot this film in response to a competition that a London-based theatre company named Headlong Theatre organized in honor of the 10th anniversary of the attacks on September 11, 2001.  When I found out about the competition, I had exactly three weeks to put the film together. That meant writing it, pre-production (i.e. casting, location scouting, etc.), shooting, and post, condensed into a three-week span, squeezed in between work and other life necessities like food, air and water.  Favors were called in and graciously answered (notably, my brothers; Abhijeet for coming up from New Jersey in spite of the flu, to lend his editing expertise, and Samarjeet for remotely scoring the opening music).  

In the end, we ended up with this short that you can view on my website OR you can come watch it on the BIG(ger) screen on Saturday, April 19th, when it screens as a part of Katra's monthly film series alongside some stellar films including, one starring Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston....!? Yes, I'm not burnin BLUE ICE over here. That's the honest to Jah #TROOF.  So please come out and watch, support, mingle.  Tix available here. 

Hope to see you all there! If not, you will probably miss out taking pictures with me like this classic one with the cast of Lily In the Grinder which screened on April 1st.  I clearly thought I had to kneel like it was the JV baseball team photo. Go Cougars! (I was next to a flight of stairs OK!?)

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Cast and Director photo - David Gregory, Dan Amboyer, moi, and Dir. Michael Morgenstern at the Anthology Film Archives, NYC.  April 1, 2014. Visit Lily In the Grinder's facebook page for more pics and updates on this film!

ICYMI: My article in India Abroad's "Desi View"