Written by Oscar winner Alexander Dinelaris Jr. (Birdman, The Revenant)

SYNOPSIS

After the loss of his mother, Amay, a young architect is forced to live for 48 hours with the one person he cannot stand, his father. It seems like a recipe for disaster. Wrong! It’s much worse. Will the young architect crumble, or will this bumpy ride help him rebuild his relationship?

Amay, a junior architect, has been struggling for the last 10 years trying to “make it”. On hearing the news of his mother’s death, he must return home immediately. What scares Amay the most is not the sight of his deceased mother but the thought of confronting the only man he can’t stand – his father, Shiv.

Shiv is a man of his word and promises matter to him, especially the one made to his departed wife. So when his daughter, asks him to move with her to America, he accepts the proposal without a fuss. Amay is more than happy with this plan, but on the day, Shiv’s flight is postponed and he is forced to spend 48 hours with his son in his mess of a house in Mumbai. A disastrous dinner with Amay’s girlfriend, a caved ceiling, three visits to the airport, and two accidents later, it’s an even bigger, quirkier mess. It’s a conflict of one of them trying to become a man while the other is losing every version of the man he once was.

‘The Mehta Boys’ attempts to explore this strange yet universal cross-wiring between fathers and sons.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

This film “The Mehta Boys” has been a part of my life for 8 years before we started the preproduction process. I started writing alone, with limited knowledge. I read books, videos, and masterclasses, and wrote my first draft. I knew I needed a mentor or teacher as soon as I was done. In the search for one, I met Alexander Dinelaris Jr. who on listening to an outline of my story, started scribbling on a tissue and jumped into explaining how the structure was wrong and how it could be fixed. This was the start of a long journey of understanding the techniques that are needed to write a scene, the understanding of structure, the need to stick with character, and a deeper understanding of theme and subtext.

Though I would say that my journey in cinema started when I was a child when my mother would send me to Alexander Cinema, to watch a film almost every day, she would ask me the name of the film and then tell me to watch it again and this time pay attention to the lyrics. And she would send me again and tell me to pay attention to the cinematography and the lighting. This would be the start of my training in cinema.

As I got older I picked up photography and bought myself a camera. I started doing very basic photography and by the time I was 32, I had started doing professional photography. My journey as a photographer led me to an opportunity to act in a theater production, which led to the chance to be a part of an experimental play, two men on a park bench having a conversation. It ran for 10 years, It became a huge hit and people started talking about me as an actor. Suddenly, I was learning to act on the job. I read a lot of books; I observed. I used to do a lot of exercises on my own, developed by myself, and take notes all the time.

I went from being an unintentional student of cinema, a student of light and photography to a student in acting which led me to be a student of screenplay writing. It has taken me years to gather experiences and the skills that I have tried to incorporate into my first film as a Director.