Fillum Star: The Peter Patel Story(2001)
76 Mins - Feature/Live Action
SYNOPSIS:Peter Patel (Rizwan Manji) is an Indian-American actor who becomes famous in his local community when they hear he is about to appear in a film alongside Tom Cruise. A documentary film crew follows him around for the two days leading up to the film's US premiere and witnesses the phenomenon of Peter's fame.
ANDY'S NOTES:This film was made on an ultra-low budget with the most talented indian-american actors in NYC - starring Rizwan Manji from NBC's "Outsourced". It's now available on DVD from NETFLIX.
For many of us, this was our first video/film project. We film it over several months all over NYC using our actor friends in key roles. Several times we enlisted strangers on the spot to act in the film. The crowd of people holding Peter Patel photos are just people who happened to be watching the India Day parade that year. Rizwan was already known among the desi community for his role in the film "American Desi" and was able to talk the crowd into participating. He was on the parade float in that scene as a part of the "American Desi" cast and crew and did double duty performing as Peter Patel for those few shots. We had a fun time making this movie with our friends and were very pleased that it aired on TV in both North America and in India.
Listen to the title song "Peter Patel" (written/performed by Andy "Gordy" Brown)
