MOGUL MOWGLI

After the feature, enjoy a FREE bonus pre-recorded Q&A with director Bassam Tariq, director of MOGUL MOWGLI.

*Limited tickets available. This is film is available to view only from 12:00AM (PT) FRI Oct 30 – SAT Oct 31 11:59PM (PT).

FIPRESCI Award, Panorama, 2020 Berlin International Film Festival

SDAFF CLOSING FILM

I tried to stand up for my blood…

Zed’s about to blow up. After doing the New York club circuit, rapping about being brown and Pakistani in a post-colonial Britain, he’s invited to join a world tour as the opening act. In the calm before the glory, Zed goes home to parents he’s neglected, only to find that his body is seizing up. A cramp clenches his thigh. He wakes up in a hospital room, stricken by a mysterious illness.

But my blood won’t let me stand up.

Zed’s body is attacking itself. And Zed fights back, eager to heal in time for the tour, but not listening to his body and the partitions within. Director Bassam Tariq (These Birds Walk) concocts a brilliant soundscape and impressionistic field of night terrors and cultural breakages, a centripetal swirl collapsing onto a rapper stepping into a cypher with his soul. Riz Ahmed–known not only for his Emmy-winning performance in The Night Of, but also as MC of the Swet Shop Boys–fires up the mic with emotional aplomb and musical dexterity, and delivers a knockout physical performance of face, body, and voice. Together, Tariq and Ahmed respond to the insecurities of love and identity with a powerful tribute to communal legacies, diasporic brotherhood, and the binding embrace of family. 

–Brian Hu

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