Written by Asli Shebe.
Photo by Danielle McGotty
“Meet the Patels,” one of the films featured on Sunday, Oct. 25, at the 2015 SCAD film festival, tells the story of actor and director, Ravi Patel, finding love with the help and input of his family. The film explores the concept of love being a family affair.
The film began as co-director and sister of Ravi Patel, Geeta Patel, records a family vacation. After encouragement from her brother, Geeta decided to work with Ravi to turn it into a documentary.
“I really think Ravi had a lot to do with this because when we went to India on our family trip he already was going through this story and seeing our family and our culture from the outside. He was telling me ‘Geeta, you know, we should make a documentary,'” she explained.
When asked if love being a family affair — and whether parents get involved in the decision-making of marriage and relationsips — was universal, or rather, specific to Indian culture, Geeta shared her thoughts on the matter.
“It’s definitely universal because parents want their kids to be happy. A lot of the faith-based community, but in general, it’s traditionally what you do when you get to a certain age, right? I mean even in America,” Geeta noted.
“Because, you know, everybody, they have parents and there’s always expectations of what they want their children to be. And children have their own ideas. There is always agreement, disagreement, conflict,” added Geeta’s father, Vasant Patel.
“Why are we not making enough films about parents and kids? I mean, it’s what affects our psyche,” remarked Geeta. “We basically made this film as a coping mechanism for life.”
Vasant remarked how touching it is for him and her wife Champa (Ravi and Geetas’ mother), to see their children working together. “It’s so fulfilling for us to know how smart, how creative, how passionate they are,” Vasant said.
“I’d say the thing that we have, and we’re lucky to have, is that every single person in our family tries,” said Geeta.
“Meet the Patels” premiered in the U.S. on Sept. 11 2015. For more information visit the films website.
Asli Shebe is a senior writing major from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. She began working for District in 2014 as a staff writer, then copy editor, A&E editor, Chief Assignment editor and finally, Editor-in-Chief in 2017. Asli currently holds the record for obtaining the most job titles during her time at District. When she’s not writing for District you can find her biking around the Historic District of Savannah at odd hours of the day.
