Brunch Wars - Short Film

TYPE: Narrative Short

GENRE: Dark Comedy

LOGLINE: 
Three friends - Mallory, Billie, and Kel - meet up for their monthly brunch. But this time, their friendly competition over recipes is the least of their problems. 

CAST:

SYNOPSIS:
Long time best friends Kel, Mallory, and Billie have brunch every month where they catch up from their hectic lives while away from each other. This month's competition brings up old wounds not easily forgotten, the accidental death of Kel's dog at the hands of Billie. Has she forgiven him? Revenge is a dish best served over brunch.

BUDGET:
The money raised will be going directly to pay everyone involved in the production. I want to make sure everyone who puts their time in is compensated for their work. Add in insurance, location fees, equipment rental, catering, travel, and other fees and you have a bare bones budget that still allows us to tell our story without making compromises that will hurt the final product.

ARTISTIC STATEMENT:
A primary goal in all my work will be to create stories that cross the divide that has been built in our country and the world that separates "us" from "them." I want to break the psychological phenomenon that prevents people from accepting facts from a source they deem as the "other." The way I believe I can do that is by breaking down what "they" think "the other" is. 

By telling stories that show ethnic minorities as people who go through everything "they" go through, by humanizing a portion of the population that has been demonized since the beginning of media, I believe a more decent discourse can begin. My stories don't HAVE to have anyone of an ethnic minority in them, they just HAPPEN to. This is a very subtle but very powerful message. 

I'm reaching out to you to help me reach that goal with my art. I'm putting up my own money to create this project but need your help to raise the rest of the funds. If you can donate, please do, and if you can't, please share with your own network of people who also want to make a change in our world. There are many forms of activism. My strength does not lie in the political arena but I still want to be an agent of change. What I can do is tell stories and I want to tell accessible, commercial, ENTERTAINING stories that subtly change the perceptions of minorities to those who would demonize them. 

WRITER/DIRECTOR: Kamran Khan
Kamran's passion for storytelling is a common thread through his writing, directing, and award winning photography, which has been featured in Ron Howard's Project Imagination, the Hasselblad Masters Competition, and PDN Magazine's Digital Imaging Awards. His scripts have placed in the American Zoetrope, Scriptapalooza, WorldFest Houston, and Screencraft script contests and the New Hope Film Festival. Kamran is also a member of the NY State Bar where his passion for fictional storytelling is not as enthusiastically received.

PRODUCER: Pulkit Datta
Pulkit started his career assisting award-winning director Mira Nair and has since worked on a wide range of international projects with various production companies. He has worked in creative development and production capacities on narrative films, Sundance-backed documentaries, web content, commercials, short films, and multimedia campaigns. Films he has worked on have screened at major festivals including Toronto International Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, and NewFilmmakers New York. JASON, a short film written/directed by Pulkit, won the online Reel 13 competition by popular vote and was broadcast on PBS. In 2014, Pulkit was selected as an INK Fellow for his work in the film and media fields. His feature film project COLONY (in development) was also selected for the IFP Emerging Storytellers as part of Film Week 2014.

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Caroline Mariko Stucky
Caroline Mariko Stucky is an award winning independent filmmaker with a fierce passion for American culture. For Caroline, film, the world of the image, is the ultimate language that trumps the whirling kaleidoscope of spoken languages of her childhood.

Her work as a Director of Photography includes Homage to Switzerland (2012), The Perfect Bunny (2013), Old Junk (2013), Upside Down (2014), Benighted (2015), The Letter (2016) and Butterfly (2016), Good Grief a.k.a. Starfish (2017), and Wishful Whiskers (2017).