Dev Patel’s ‘Monkey Man’ to Headline SXSW; Several South Asian Films to Premiere at Two Week-long Festival in Austin
- A total of 115 features will be screened at the event to be held in Austin, Texas, from March 8 through 16.
Dev Patel’s directorial debut “Monkey Man” which draws inspiration from Lord Hanuman, will headline the 2024 SXSW Film & TV Festival next month. Set in Mumbai, the action thriller, starring the British Indian actor, tells the story of a man’s quest for vengeance against the corrupt leaders who murdered his mother. Apart from the vengeance drama, this year’s lineup includes several films helmed by South Asians.
A total of 115 features will be screened including 89 world premieres, three international premieres, six North American premieres, four U.S. premieres, and 13 Texas premieres. The event will be held in Austin, Texas, from March 8 through 16.
Indian American physician and filmmaker Roshan Sethi’s “A Nice Indian Boy,” starring Karan Soni and Jonathan Groff, will have its world premiere at the festival. Based on its namesake play written by Madhuri Shekar, “the film depicts the relationship between Naveen Gavaskar (Soni) and Jay Kurundkar (Groff) – who is a white adoptee with Indian parents, as Naveen prepares to tell his family about his new boyfriend.
Three other films, helmed by South Asian Americans will also have their world premiere. They include Pakistani American filmmakers Amman Abbasi’s “Yasmeen’s Element”; Sri Lankan-American filmmaker and educator Shaun Seneviratne’s“Ben and Suzanne, A Reunion in 4 Parts”; and Iranian American Sara Zandieh’s “Doin’ It,” starring Lilly Singh and Utkarsh Ambudkar.
Also produced by Abbasi, along with Jeffrey E. Stern, Alex Nystrom, Sana Jafri, Missy Laney, “Yasmeen’s Element,”is based by a screenplay by him, Stern, and Jafri. “After losing her homework in the winding paths of her mountain town, resourceful Yasmeen sets off alone on an unexpected journey to find her professor,” reads the film’s synopsis.
Seneviratne’s debut feature “Ben and Suzanne, A Reunion in 4 Parts” follows Ben Santhanaraj (Sathya Sridharan) as he travels to Sri Lanka with the intention of rekindling his relationship with American NGO worker Suzanne Hopper (Anastasia Olowin). As Suzanne’s job gets more and more demanding, Ben attempts to revive their romance before he has to depart once more.
“Doin’ It” follows Maya (Singh), a 30 year old Indian American virgin who gets a job teaching high school sex ed. She sets out on a quest with her best friend to make up for the high school experience she lost out on. It is directed by Iranian American Sara Zandieh.
Also having its world premiere is Gotham Chopra’s “Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story.” The all-access docuseries chronicles the history and uncertain future of one of the most recognizable bands in the world and its front-man Jon Bon Jovi. A legend on the precipice as a vocal injury threatens to bring everything to a screeching halt.
See you in Austin, guys ???????? pic.twitter.com/2N4HJpNEhe
— Gotham Chopra (@gothamchopra) February 8, 2024
Canadian filmmaker Fawzia Mirza’s feature directorial debut “The Queen of My Dreams,” will have its North American premiere at the festival. The film, which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) last year, follows Azra, queer Muslim grad student. In 1999, the sudden death of her father Hassan sends her flying back to her ancestral home in Pakistan. There, her stern mother Mariam demands she play the role of the perfect grieving daughter. But through flashbacks to Mariam’s own life in Karachi 30 years before, we see the connections uniting mother and daughter, starting with their shared love of the Bollywood star Sharmila Tagore.
The festival will also see the North American premiere of “Wakhri,” directed by Pakistani-American filmmaker, activist and entrepreneur Iram Parveen Bilal. Produced by Bilal, Abid Aziz Merchant, and Apoorva Bakshi, the film follows a widowed school teacher in Pakistan who becomes a viral sensation overnight when she accidentally unleashes her unabashed opinions on social media.
Suchi Talati’s coming-of-age film “Girls Will Be Girls,” the maiden production of Bollywood actors Richa Chadha and Ali Fazal, will have its Texas premiere at the festival. The film won two awards at the Sundance Film Festival held in January in in Park City, Utah. The film received the Audience Award in the World Cinema Dramatic category and the Special Jury Award for Acting for its lead actor Preeti Panigrahi. The story, which takes place in the strict boarding school nestled in the Himalayas, eevolves around the rocky relationship between sixteen year-old Mira (Panigrahi) and her mother Anila (Kani Kusruti). When Mira discovers desire and romance in the boarding school, “her sexual, rebellious awakening is disrupted by her mother who never got to come of age herself,” says a synopsis of the film on the festival website.
Subarna Das and Vidushi Gupta’s animated short “This is TMI,” will have its North American premiere. It presents a lively and taboo-busting discussion of a group of young women.