Smriti Mundhra and Sami Khan win Oscar Nominations for “St. Louis Superman”

“My earliest memories are of my father and me watching movies together when I was 6 or 7 years old,” says Smriti Mundhra, the daughter of the late Indian film director Jag Mundhra. “He was so passionate about cinema – he would take me to see movies that were way over my head and explained shots, sequencing, storytelling.”

She remembers going to see Mira Nair’s “Salaam Bombay!” in the theater when she was 8-years-old. After the show, Jag Mundra told her, “You know who made this film? An Indian woman! So don’t ever think that can’t be you one day.”

Fast forward to 2020:  Smriti Mundhra has been nominated for an Oscar for the short documentary ‘St. Louis Superman’ which she has co-directed with Sami Khan who is also an Indian-American filmmaker.

Both young Indian-Americans gravitated toward cinema and the ups and downs of creating a name and a life in Hollywood which is not exactly known for its open door to filmmakers of color. “When I couldn’t get my feature film financed after five years of trying, I turned to documentaries,” says Mundhra.

 

‘A Suitable Girl’ premiered at  the Tribeca Film Festival in 2017 and won the Albert Maysles Award for Best New Documentary Director.  She also co-produced ‘Punching at the Sun’, an official selection of the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, as well as over one dozen award-winning short films, including the 2010 Sundance Film Festival official selection and Women in Film award winner ‘New Media.’ In the past five years she has made an award-winning feature doc, a Netflix doc series, two short docs and is now an Academy Award nominee.

Sami Khan completed NBC Universal’s Director’s Fellowship on the SyFy show ’12 MONKEYS’. He has taught film-making at Columbia University, the TIFF Lightbox, and Brooklyn College where his teaching is focused on empowering young people of color. His fiction feature debut ‘Khoya’ as writer-director  was selected for the Tribeca Film Institute’s All Access fellowship and was co-produced by the filmmakers behind Cannes’ prize-winner ‘The Lunchbox’ and received financial backing from Spike Lee.

Khan’s work in fiction and nonfiction has been supported by IFP, the Berlinale, the TIFF Talent Lab, and the Sundance and Tribeca Film Institutes and screened at leading festivals including Toronto, Tribeca, and Mumbai

Both Mundhra and Khan graduated from Columbia University. Recalls Mundhra, “Sami and I have been friends for years. We went to film school together and he’s my husband’s best friend. I think Sami is a filmmaker of remarkable integrity and talent and I always wanted to work with him. This project felt like the perfect fit.”

‘St. Louis Superman’ is set in St. Louis and is the real life story of Bruce Franks Jr., a battle rapper, activist and state legislator.  Known as Superman to his constituents he is an offbeat political figure who has turned immense personal tragedy into a trajectory to effect change in the daily violence around him. This powerful film set in the mayhem of Ferguson is a page ripped out of today’s American life. Bruce Franks is elected to the overwhelmingly white and Republican Missouri House of Representatives, and he needs to pass a vital bill.

This short film which seems to capture a lifetime in 28 minutes has won awards at Tribeca, Hot Docs, Big Sky, Traverse City, AFI Docs, and Indy Shorts. The film was produced by AJE Witness and was the first acquisition by non-fiction executive Sheila Nevins at MTV Documentary Films.

.To watch ‘St. Louis Superman’ is to be submerged into the daily life of Bruce Franks Jr.– you forget there are cameras around. In fact the filmmakers actually moved in with Franks – so they were almost like flies on the wall and got the honest, searing film that they did.

Asked the most difficult thing about filming, Mudhra said, “ Being careful not to re-traumatize Bruce .We asked him to open up to us in profound ways and relive some of his most painful memories. You want the process to be therapeutic, not rip open wounds.”

What is the power behind short films?  Mundhra says they are more like a poem, rather than an essay. “Short films capture a moment in time. Plus, they’re short! Who wouldn’t commit 20-30 minutes to get into a great story?” More seriously she adds, “As documentary filmmakers, we bear witness to history. There’s no better use for cinema than that.”

“The short film categories at the Oscars are arguably the most exciting horserace of the night,” noted ‘Salon’ about the upcoming Oscars. “ No one can predict who the members of the Academy will vote for in part because these are the least seen films at the Awards. But the documentary short films provide some of the year’s best and most dramatic, emotional, amusing, and heartrending stories.”

As the Academy Awards draw closer, the excitement builds. The two young filmmakers are having fun with all the notoriety and fame of being ‘Oscar nominees’, dressing for the glittering events but they also hope that ‘St. Louis Superman’ will impact viewers with the powerful work and struggles of Brian Franks and his very personal  crusade against gun violence.

The two filmmakers are surrounded by a community of aspiring filmmakers and supporters. Sami Khan wrote on social media: “We’re here. For all the filmmakers who were told you don’t belong, we’re here for you. If you were told your voice doesn’t matter because of your race, class, age, gender, sexual orientation, or religion – we got you. Because we were counted out too. But we kept fighting for each other. And now, we’re here.”

Indeed, these two film directors show that by embracing the world and making connections across cultures and races, there are just so many options. Smriti Mundhra helmed Bumble’s first ad campaign for the Indian market starring Priyanka Chopra Jonas. She is now working on an eight-part documentary series for Netflix.

Sami Khan is co-director on ‘The Last Out’, an upcoming documentary about three Cuban baseball players and their precarious journey out of their homeland.  He’s also involved with the television show ‘Transplant’ about a Syrian refugee who becomes the hero of a Toronto Emergency Room.

As the 94^th Academy Awards ceremony draws nearer, it’s a waiting game. The other four contenders are: ‘In the Absence’, ‘Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (if you’re a girl)’, and  ‘Life Overtakes Me’ and ‘Life Run Cha Cha.’

Mundhra points out that “Oscars campaigning is designed to make us feel like competitors. But actually we are friends and colleagues. No matter whose name gets called on February 9, the rest of us will be cheering the loudest.”

“To my fellow filmmakers who are getting some shine right now and taking a leap forward in your careers, don’t forget to hold the door open for someone else. Use your leverage not just for yourself, but for others too. Especially those for whom the doors don’t open that easily.”

(This article was also published in my weekly column India in America in CNBCTV18.com )