Mysore Magic
2023 · 14m · USA
Directed by Abijeet Achar
Based on the true story of how director Abijeet Achar's Mauritian mother and Indian father met at a disco competition in Mysore, India in 1982, this vibrant romance celebrates immigrant joy and cross-cultural love.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Director's parents' 1982 disco-competition origin story, shot in Atlanta pretending to be India. Sweet, period, immigrant joy, comp-stack reaching for The Big Sick — this is the friend-of-the-family wedding video as festival short.
Recreating 1982 Mysore in Atlanta to dramatize one's parents' meet-cute at a disco competition is a sweet autobiographical impulse, with capable VFX. I respect the production challenge more than I anticipate the dramatic stakes — Mira Nair's lineage demands more than nostalgia.
Recreating 1982 Mysore in Atlanta through production design and VFX for a parents' meet-cute is an ambitious craft swing for a personal short — that's a lot of period-specificity to carry on a romance runtime. 14 minutes; whether the recreation holds determines everything.
Reviews
Achar crafts a sweet romance story replete with humor and a striking visual flair, carried by two strong and endearing protagonists.
The film has an impressive transportive quality to it—both temporally and geographically—shot in Atlanta yet convincingly depicting 1982 Mysore, a remarkable fact that shows how production design and VFX can do a lot of heavy lifting.
Festivals
- Palm Springs International ShortFest 2023
- HollyShorts Film Festival 2023
- Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival 2023
- Beverly Hills Film Festival 2023
- San Luis Obispo Film Festival 2023