I am thrilled that my short film, Beneath Us, will be having its Canadian premiere at the 10th annual MOSAIC INTERNATIONAL SOUTH ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL @mosaic_misaff in Mississauga at the Living Arts Centre (4141 Living Arts Dr) at Sunday March 26th at 4pm. It is part of the Canadian Shorts Program and is being presented with @bipoctvfilm .

Thanks so much to the festival for giving us a chance to show this work. This film means a lot to me as a filmmaker and on a personal level. I had originally scheduled to shoot it in Tijuana in early 2019 but had to cancel when my mother passed away. We finally did go to camera late that year (just before the pandemic!) and finished it deep into our collective isolation. My brother Sohrab helped a lot with the film, some investment, and some medical advisement to help cast and production. He saw the film before he passed and was really proud of me and what we had accomplished together. That’s not something I will ever forget.

This’ll probably be the last screening at a festival for the foreseeable future so please do try to make it out if you can. ❤️

I owe a lot to our fantastic cast and crew. Thank you so much for your efforts and dedication to your craft. I’ll be posting tons more about the film and those wonderful people in the coming weeks. Thanks also to the @ontarioartscouncil that provided financial support.

The festival website is here: https://www.misaff.com where you can buy tickets and also check out some of the other fantastic films they have programmed. Follow the short on Insta: https://www.instagram.com/beneathusmovie/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/beneathusmovie

Beneath Us @ Blue Whiskey Independent Film Festival

Very excited to announce that my short film Beneath Us will be having its world premiere in competition at the Blue Whiskey Independent Film Festival in Chicago. The boutique festival seeks out “character-driven independent film programming constructed by bold and innovative storytellers for the purposes of education, entertainment, and thought-provoking discussion.” I hoped Beneath Us could be a film that would be used to spark conversations on labour, immigration, and law enforcement, so I’m thrilled that Blue Whiskey is giving us this venue.

Beneath Us is also a very personal film to me. I’ve spent a great deal of time in the labour rights world while making my documentary feature My Cultural Divide and other shorts about the subject, and many of my fiction films are about immigration and belonging, so in a way this is a meeting of those two themes. I’m also very proud of the collaboration between myself and Mexican producer Marla Arreola, and the mostly local cast and crew that ensured we told a story that was an authentic (fictional) take on the dangers of building walls instead of bridges.

Beneath Us will be screening at Chicago Filmmakers, 1326 W Hollywood Avenue, in Chicago, Illinois Thursday, on July 21 in the 7:00 PM block of the festival.