It is a family drama, an immigrant story, a comedy about dealing with your in-laws, and for me, a piece of family memorabilia. These are the kinds of stories about immigrants, the South Asian diaspora, and those living in lower-income housing that are rarely portrayed on screen. We want Starch to share a narrative of people from these communities that shows them as real, complicated people - not just as angels because of their situations, or victims for others to pity.
We've gone on a long journey to make Starch, and would love your help to get us to the finish line.
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Writer / Director - Ajai Vishwanath
Ajai is a filmmaker and visual artist from Sydney, Australia, currently based in New York City. His debut solo exhibition, Adoxography, opened at Google San Francisco in 2017, and his films and paintings have been shown across Australia and the United States. Ajai is pursuing an MFA in Filmmaking at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where he is a Robert Jahn scholar and a Maurice Kanbar scholar.
Prior to NYU, Ajai completed his BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics with a concentration in Globalisation and a minor in Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania, and spent four years as the Head of Marketing at an Artificial Intelligence company in San Francisco.
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Producer - Apoorva Bakshi
Apoorva Bakshi is an International EMMY Award winning producer, spearheading production of most notably Sundance favourite & International EMMY Winner DELHI CRIME, National Award winning film, SHUT UP SONA; Netflix Musical WHAT ARE THE ODDS?; and widely watched Facebook Original HOMESPUN. She serves as a Founder and Managing Partner of Awedacious Originals and Golden Karavan carving her niche as one of the youngest producers of prolific South Asian productions. Her latest doc productions include an untitled episodic NETFLIX series and film WOMB - WOMEN OF MY BILLION, which is traveling across festivals now.
A fierce guardian of independent voices, Apoorva has successfully acquired and distributed over 40+ award winning independents, notably the Cannes favourites, GANGS OF WASSEYPUR, PEDDLERS & TITLI; Golden Globe shortlists FANDRY & SIDDHARTH; IDFA winner PLACEBO and Indian Selection for the Oscars VISARANAI among others. She has also worked at Sony Pictures Entertainment Networks Asia notably on AMAZING RACE ASIA, CYRIL SIMPLY MAGIC & INDIA’S MINUTE TO WIN IT.
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Producer - Eris Qian
Eris Qian is a writer/director/producer based in New York City and considers herself a global nomad. Born and raised in China, she leverages her diasporic experience to tell stories about characters who defy the norms in finding their place in the world. Eris's debut short film MOTHER TONGUE premiered at CAAMFest and screened at eleven other prestigious festivals. She is a Sundance x WIF Financing Strategy Intensive Fellow for her feature project PULLING SEEDLINGS, which is also a finalist of the ScreenCraft Screenwriting Fellowship and the Sloan Feature Film Award. Her producing work was seen at festivals including Aspen, Palm Springs, OutFest, DGA Student Award, and HBO APA Visionaries Award.
Eris recently associate-produced a feature documentary MILES TO GO BEFORE SHE SLEEPS, which was supported by Doha Film Institute and Women Make Movies. As a natural multi-hyphenate, Eris holds MBA/MFA dual degrees from NYU's Stern and Tisch.
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Co-Producer - Avinash Viswanathan
Avinash is a producer from Chennai, India. With experience in English, Tamil and Hindi language films and TV, Avinash has been a part of films such as Ritesh Bhatra's The Lunchbox, the Academy Award-nominated film Visaranai (The Interrogation) and the Academy Award-winning documentary short, Period. End of Sentence.
Avinash recently executive produced the Netflix series Paava Kadhaigal, which starred Prakash Raj, Simran and Sai Pallavi.
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Cinematographer - Sam Motamedi
Sam is an NYC-based filmmaker and cinematographer. After graduating with a dual degree in Political Science and Persian Studies from the University of Maryland, he enrolled in the NYU Tisch Graduate Film program.
With experience in commercial and narrative productions, Sam's work has screened on CNN, ESPN, and many other local and nationwide stations.
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Assistant Director - Sara Balghonaim
Sara is a writer / director, producer and actress from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. She is currently pursuing her MFA at NYU Tisch's Graduate Film School. Prior to NYU, she worked as an Assistant Director for Haifa Al Mansour on her second feature, The Perfect Candidate. She also AD'ed notable Saudi films like The Rat, The Last Visit and Black Sand.
In 2019, Sara starred in Dunya's Day, winner of the Special Jury Award at the Sundance Film Festival.
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Composer - Jacob Snider
Jacob is a composer, producer and singer-songwriter who was named Best New Artist by NPR / WXPN, and has been featured on the BBC and KCRW to critical acclaim. Jacob has performed at SXSW, and has shared stages with Big Thief and The Roots. On screen, Jacob composed the theme and score for Rough Draft with Reza Aslan, which premiered on Topic in 2020. Upcoming projects include an album with James "Kirby" Fairchild of Modest Mouse, under the moniker Small Isles.
Jacob is a graduate of Columbia University for composition (BA) and NYU for screen scoring (MM). He is represented by Heavy Hitters Music, and Expressive Artists in Los Angeles.
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When Covid forced us to move our production out of Australia and find locations in the US that we could turn into 1990's Sydney, we knew that it would have implications on our budget. But we believe that telling this story about immigration and family is worth the time, effort and money.
In this Indiegogo campaign, we will spend 30 days trying to raise enough funds to cover the costs of our production and reach our goal of $25,000. We will be sharing gifts from the film to match your donations. But if you can't contribute financially, we hope you'll be able to share our campaign with your friends, your colleagues, your parents—anyone who you think might be interested.
We are using our student loans to cover the cost of our crew and our equipment, and we're hoping that your donations can help us cover the rest of our production costs. It's important for us to be transparent, so we've created a breakdown to show you exactly how you will be helping us turn Starch into the final film:
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Your contributions will help us cover the highlighted portions of our budget.
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We can't wait to bring Starch to life and to share the journey with you. We would love it if you could help share the word about our film. You can join our mailing list, check out our website at www.starchmovie.com or follow us on Instagram @starchmovie.
We're also excited to share some gifts from the film with you to match your donations to help us make Starch a reality (our gifts are additive, so the more you donate, the more you get!). Here are some of the perks we're offering:
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$300 or more - South Indian cookbook, with recipes inspired by the film
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$500 or more - Starch hoodie
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$750 or more - Starch Storybook
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$1,000 or more - Handmade Dayakattai board game (with instructions)
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$2,500 or more - Starch coffee table book
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$5,000 or more - Associate Producer Credit
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$7,500 or more - Executive Producer Credit
Thank you for your support!