MEET THE PATELS

Directed by Geeta V. Patel, Ravi V. Patel

Asian American Panorama / USA / 2014 / documentary, family, romantic comedy / 88 mins / English, Gujarati, Hindi with English subtitles / HD

‹ ›

Watch Trailer

MEET THE PATELS

Museum of Contemporary Art, Sherwood Auditorium
Fri, Nov. 14, 2014 7:00 pm Buy Tickets

Description

Audience Award (Documentary), 2014 Los Angeles Film Festival
Audience Award (Documentary) and Founders Grand Prize, 2014 Traverse City Film Festival
Top Ten Audience Favorites, 2014 HotDocs Canadian International Documentary Festival
Audience Award, 2014 Hardacre Film Festival

A sharp, real-life romantic comedy with verite stunts and testimonials on love and relationships, Ravi and Geeta Patel’s new documentary follows Ravi as he resorts to finding a wife the old-world way: by asking mom and dad for help.

Los Angeles actor Ravi had been secretly (and seriously) dating a white American woman, Audrey, for two years before breaking up with her and embarking on a family trip to his parents’ motherland, India. Once there, extended family and extended strangers incessantly ask when Ravi is getting married. Seeing that his own parents, who steal the show in every scene, seem to be happily married after 35 years of arranged happiness, and the fact that he himself had a happy upbringing rich with Indian culture, Ravi decides to give arrangement a shot. Hoping to find someone bicultural like himself, he embarks on a year-long dating tour throughout North America, meeting potential matrimonial candidates through “biodatas” (a marriageability résumé passed through a vast network of relatives and their friends), the Indian wedding circuit, niche dating websites, and the “Patel Matrimonial Convention.”

If all goes well, he’ll find another Patel, an American-born woman of Indian descent, someone he finds physically attractive, and a woman who loves him and he loves in return. The odds aren’t great, but parents’ tenacity will always be greater. And is that greater than the memory of Audrey, the only love he’s ever known? The hilarity mounts, all while Ravi’s director sister Geeta shoots, capturing second-generation dating in all of its comic turbulence. –Wilda Wong

Co-presented by: Harvard Alumni Association