Ahead of the BFI London Film Festival 2020 ALT caught up with the acclaimed filmmaker Bassam Tariq. Known for his documentary filmmaking he is about to make his fiction feature debut with new film Mogul Mowgli. The American film director, producer, and screenwriter was born in Karachi, Pakistan. He co-directed and produced the Sundance-funded documentary These Birds Walk (2013) with Omar Mullick, and he was named in Filmmaker’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film” in 2012. ALT was lucky enough to talk to him at the press launch about working with Riz Ahmed, cultural erasure and what he liked about working on his first fiction feature. Video below.
The details: in selected cinemas and on BFI Player part of the BFI London Film Festival
Mogul Mowgli From Saturday 10 October 2020 – 18:30 BST Until Tuesday 13 October 2020 – 18:30 BST
Although his cutting lyrics speak provocatively about identity politics, it is not until Zed (Riz Ahmed) returns home after two years on tour that he is called by his real name: Zaheer. But it is the vulnerability of illness and his decreasing mobility that brings both focus and fragmentation – memories and hallucinations merge to the beat of Qawwali music and are haunted by fervent apparitions of a masked figure – conjuring the unspoken spectre of Partition, which looms large in his father’s unspoken words. Further bruising Zed’s ego is his nemesis – RPG, a young rapper whose face tattoos and crass lyrics bewilder him. Both a paean to the importance of cultural heritage and a sharply observed reflection on muscle memory, the richness of Tariq’s achievement lies in the details of this heady mosaic.
Directed by Bassam Tariq
Runtime: 89 minutes
The 64th BFI London Film Festival (LFF) in partnership with American Express full programme of its reimagined and innovative new 2020 offering, will be delivered both virtually and via physical screenings. Over the 12 days from 7 to 18 October, the festival will be its most accessible ever, presenting over 50 virtual premieres and a selection of highly anticipated new feature film previews at BFI Southbank as well as in cinemas across the UK, offering audiences a unique chance to engage with the festival in different ways.
With work from more than 40 countries, the programme includes fiction, documentary, animation, artists’ moving image, short film, restored classics from the world’s archives as well as previews of several episodic/series-based works made for the small screen. Public tickets go on sale 21st September if you are under 25 you can watch Mogul Mowgli for just £5 click here
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