Virtual Opening Night: Mogul Mowgli
Co-Presented with Films at the MFAH
with Director Bassam Tariq and Bun B
Co-presented with Films at the MFAH. Followed by a pre-recorded post-screening Q&A with Director Bassam Tariq and HCAS Board Member Bun B.
On the brink of his first international tour, Zed, a British Pakistani rapper, decides to fly home to the UK to visit the family he has not seen in two years. In the midst of trying to reconnect with his parents and rummaging through cassettes of Qawwali music, he is suddenly struck down by an autoimmune disease. As his condition worsens and his big breakthrough moment is in danger of vanishing into thin air, Zed descends into a physical and emotional crisis amplified by vivid hallucinations. Long-buried childhood memories resurface with a vengeance, mingling with his father’s memories of fleeing India during Partition and confronting Zed with his repressed cultural heritage. Giving center stage to incendiary rap lyrics and a striking central performance by actor Riz Ahmed, a rapper himself, Tariq’s debut feature film is a disquieting and electrifying exploration of male malady, family frictions, social mobility, and transnational citizenship.
This film is only available in Texas.
| Country, Year | United Kingdom, 2020 |
|---|---|
| Director | Bassam Tariq |
| Writer | Bassam Tariq, Riz Ahmed |
| Cast | Riz Ahmed, Alyy Khan, Sudha Bhuchar, Nabhaan Rizwan |
| Producer | Thomas Benksi, Bennett McGhee, Riz Ahmed, Michael Peay |
| Language | English, Urdu |
| Runtime | 89 MINS, SECS |
| Genre | Narrative |
| Subject | Music, Urbana |
| Event Type | Film |
Special Guests
Bassam Tariq
Bassam Tariq is a Houston and NYC bred documentary and narrative filmmaker, screenwriter and producer born in Karachi, Pakistan. His debut fiction feature Mogul Mowgli, starring Riz Ahmed, premiered at Berlinale 2020 and won the International Critics Prize. He is a TED Fellow and was named Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film.” His previous film Ghosts of Sugar Land (2019) won the Short Film Jury Prize at Sundance and was released as a Netflix Original. In 2015, he was a fellow of Sundance’s Art Of Non Fiction Residency and participated in the 2017 Sundance Screenwriters’ Lab for his first narrative feature. In 2019, he accepted the Field of Vision Fellowship helmed by Laura Poitras. His work aims to uncover the diversity of Muslin life and experience.
Bun B
It’s been well over 25 years since Bernard Freeman—known better to the world as Bun B—changed the hip-hop landscape as one half of the legendary UGK alongside the late Pimp C. In 2006 Bun B won an ASCAP Award for Top R&B/Hip Hop Song for his writing and performance on the single “Give Me That” and also holds an MTV Music Award for Best R&B Video for Beyonce’s “Check On It”. His third solo album, 2010’s Trill O.G. was met with critical acclaim. By 2013, he would release his last project before his musical break, The Epilogue. As a professor of Theology at Houston’s Rice University, Bun along with Professor Anthony Pinn led a course about Religion and Hip-Hop Culture. In August 2018, Bun B delivered Return of the Trill, a full length effort produced by Big K.R.I.T.. From selling millions of albums to Grammy nominations, changing academia, publishing, sneaker, food, and car culture, plus philanthropy, there isn’t much that Bun B hasn’t done. Bun B is also a board member of the Houston Cinema Arts Society.