UNC student Nithya Indlamuri, a second-year student majoring in Journalism and Computer Science, is working as a media intern for South Asian production company Mild Mannered + Timid on films that speak to South Asian culture in the present day.
While at Carolina, Ms. Indlamuri found an outlet for cultural expression through her South Asian Fusion A capella team, Samaa. What brought her to Mild Mannered + Timid was the role that films played in her upbringing. “Film is a big part of my family,” Ms. Indlamuri states, “yet, as an American with South Asian roots, I have rarely… seen authentic stories about people like me and those around me.” Through her extracurriculars at Carolina and her internship, Ms. Indlamuri has been able to take a passion for Asian and Asian American studies beyond the classroom.
The most recent project on which she is working for with Mild Mannered + Timid is “Saltwater,” a short film on masculinity in a South Asian family and the way it presents itself over time between a father and son. As a media intern at a small production company, Ms. Indlamuri works in the post-production process to assist with advertising the film. The film is available for streaming here.
Shobna Nijhawan of the Department of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics at York University (Toronto, Canada), has written the following review:
Saltwater expounds on the life of an immigrant family of three in an impressive manner. Standing in the kitchen at the chopping board, a South Asian father reflects on isolated incidents revolving around his son’s coming of age. The domestic act of cutting a red onion (and occasionally a finger) turns into the leitmotif of the film. Triggered by the pungent juice of the onion, it helps father and son to produce tears and process emotions in silence – to the frustration of the mother, who expects a more involved, authoritative and perhaps masculine form of parenting from her husband (in Hindi-Urdu: “say something, anything”). Nurturing in her own way, the mother staunchly upholds a common perception of the model immigrant family. She brushes away everyday racism (in English: “people in this country are going to say all kind of things”), but also embraces her son’s coming of age in diaspora. The father’s meditation and introspection (occasionally accompanied by English prompts, such as “peel and cut … it always helps”) prevails: many years later, the now adolescent son offers knife and onion to his ailing father and it is over the chopping board, where both join hands and connect emotionally to grieve the passing of their wife and mother, respectively. Saltwater’s nuanced and sensitive rendering of the cultural, ideological and gendered complexities of parenting and coming-of-age in diaspora, complemented by fine cinematography, bilingual conversations and blended South Asian and Western costume and interior design is touching and relatable throughout.
Ms. Indlamuri continues to work with Mild Mannered + Timid on upcoming projects.