SXSW may be over for the year, but South Asian storytelling isn’t. Just last year, South Asian House made its first appearance at the event as a space for attendees to “celebrate [South Asian] stories and perspectives and invest in opportunities for collaboration and connection.” Back in 2023, there was only one South Asian feature film at the festival. But this year, during the nine days of film screenings, at least seven films I saw had people of South Asian heritage at the helm, whether in lead roles, or as writers, producers, and directors behind the scenes.
One of the history-making projects at the festival was a film called “Ben and Suzanne: A Reunion in 4 Parts.” Its theatrical debut marked the first time a narrative feature by a Sri Lankan director premiered in the United States. For director Shaun Seneviratne, seeing South Asian representation at a film festival like SXSW meant opening the door for more variety within a group of people that covers a vast geography.
“When we were only getting two or three [South Asian-led] films a year, to be honest, I didn’t identify with it because a lot of those stories have a mainstream sensibility that feels rote … [like we’re] doing the Indian or South Asian version of other stories that we’ve seen a billion times,” he shared on Zoom. “Now we don’t have to feel like we’re standing in to speak for the entire group. We can make a movie that feels like it’s personal and specific to South Asian-ness of identity in a little bit of a different way.”
Seneviratne explained that adding more South Asian voices to the mix allows more freedom to pursue other types of stories. Actor Sathya Sridharan, who is Indian American and played one of the titular characters Ben, agreed. “We’re getting to see [that] the aperture is expanding — what does it mean to be brown in this country, or just what it means to be an American, or what are these different human possibilities that we don’t…
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