Pagg
2018 · 17m
Directed by Nardeep Khurmi
Genres: dark comedy, drama
Tones: contemplative, provocative, tense
After a hate crime against a Sikh man, turban-wearing Mandeep spends a Fourth of July weekend navigating neighbours who suddenly see him as a threat.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Khurmi walks a genuinely uncomfortable line—the dark comedy undercut of a hate crime story should be toxic, but instead it's the film's only honest move, making everyone else's false comfort the real threat.
A formally precise chamber piece that inherits from the post-9/11 surveillance anxiety genre while refusing easy catharsis; the restraint in the filmmaking mirrors Mandeep's own constrained agency.
The decision to keep the camera mostly on Mandeep's face—observing neighbours observing him—turns a $0 location (a suburban street) and a single actor's stillness into the entire engine of dread.