Crowned Athletes is one of two short films that Prabhjit Singh Sabharwal has in this year’s International South Asian Film Festival
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International South Asian Film Festival
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When: Sept. 23-27
Where: Landmark Cinemas Guildford, Surrey, and other venues
Tickets:iSAFF.ca
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As a martial arts practitioner himself, Prabhjit Singh Sabharwal knows what it’s like to be a Sikh athlete. So, the subject of his short film, Crowned Athletes, came naturally.
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“Growing up, I didn’t really see a lot of turbaned athletes,” Sabharwal, who has his third-degree black belt in karate, said.
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“So I started thinking of making a project regarding turbaned athletes, and I was looking to see what was out there — the best of the best. I was trying to see, well, is there an Olympian who has a turban? Someone that I can connect to and someone the youth can connect to?”
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Sun Spots
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Crowned Athletes is one of two short films that Sabharwal has in this year’s International South Asian Film Festival (iSAFF). The other, Parontha, is about his grandmother, and how she connects to her family through food.
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“She doesn’t speak English well, and I don’t speak Punjabi very well, and so being able to connect through food is a very, very relevant experience — not just in the Indian culture, but I know Filipinos who experience the same thing, and all these different races. It’s the fact that we can all have shared experiences of being Canadian and what that really means, and it’s so different for each person.”
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Sabharwal’s films are among 69 screening with this year’s festival, its 16th edition. All told, the program includes 77 films from 15 countries in 19 languages, including eight feature presentations.
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Among the higher-profile titles is Lali, Pakistani filmmaker Sarmad Khoosat’s Punjabi-language dark comedy about a woman regarded as cursed after three prospective husbands die. The film premiered at the Berlinale earlier this year. Khoosat’s previous credits include Zindagi Tamasha and Joyland, both selected as Pakistan’s submissions for the Academy Awards.
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Also generating attention is The Gymnasts of Fisherman Colony. The doc follows three teenage girls pursuing gymnastics in Karachi’s marginalized Machar Colony, where many residents lack documentation and access to basic services. The film is executive-produced by Malala Yousafzai and Law & Order: SVU star Mariska Hargitay.
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Canadian filmmaker Jaskaran Singh’s Jersey Boy, meanwhile, follows a Sikh boy coming of age in post-9/11 America. Winnipeg filmmaker Ian Bawa’s feature debut, Strong Son, portrays a competitive bodybuilder who returns home to care for his aging father. Closing-night documentary Hoop Like This follows the India Rising basketball team and features Jeremy Lin and NBA insider Shams Charania.
