Berlin Contemporary Faces: ‘Keep Awake’ Producer Shrihari Sathe

Producer Shrihari Sathe of New York-based manufacturing firm Dialectic is having fun with the very best time of his life, with at least three of his initiatives, every fully completely different in type, style and tone, being chosen at A-list festivals.

The newest profession excessive for Sathe started with Bangladeshi filmmaker Mostofa Sarwar Farooki’s continent-hopping, multilingual id story “No Land’s Man” being chosen at Busan in October 2021, adopted by Francisca Alegria’s Spanish-language magical realist drama “The Cow Who Sang a Tune Into the Future” premiering at this yr’s Sundance. Now, “Keep Awake,” an growth of Jamie Sisley’s 2015 brief movie of the identical identify that premiered on the Berlinale and received the Jury Prize at Slamdance, makes its world premiere on the Berlin Movie Pageant’s Technology 14plus strand on Feb. 12.

The “Keep Awake” forged consists of Wyatt Oleff, Fin Argus and Chrissy Metz. “Prescription drug and opioid habit is a world drawback. Tens of thousands and thousands of individuals are affected by this within the U.S. and doubtless an equal quantity globally,” Sathe informed Selection. “Usually films or tv exhibits about habit are from the addict’s POV or the place they’re the villains. Jamie has explored this epidemic from the members of the family’ perspective and with a levity that comes from a really genuine place.”

The movie is about two teenage brothers Ethan and Derek, who attempt their greatest to navigate the pressures of teenage life whereas tending to their mom’s debilitating prescription drug habit. It’s based mostly on Sisley’s adolescent years in small-town America. “It’s a private exploration of the roller-coaster trip that households go on whereas attempting to assist their family members battle a illness that impacts thousands and thousands day by day,” mentioned Sathe.

Sathe grew up in Mumbai on the cusp of the tv channel increase and was uncovered to numerous Hollywood content material. Having cinephile mother and father meant that he additionally noticed world cinema with movies that made an impression together with “Bicycle Thieves,” “Breathless,” “Seven Samurai” and “The Piano.” Sathe then moved to the U.S. and enrolled as an economics main on the College of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI, however quickly found that he didn’t actually have a lot of an inherent ability for economics or quantitative arithmetic, and switched majors to movie. Two of his professor mentors helped unlock his inherent group expertise, whereas he went on to earn an MFA in movie diploma from Columbia College’s Faculty of the Arts. At Columbia, he studied producing, the place he nabbed a greatest producer award on the college’s movie competition.

Whereas at Ann Arbor, Sathe had developed a specialised course of research referred to as World Media and Tradition, throughout which he explored movie industries from everywhere in the world. This helped inform his decisions as a producer. The producer has an eclectic vary of credit, spanning continents. For instance, Sathe produced Venice choice “Screwdriver” (2018), Palestinian filmmaker Bassam Jarbawi’s account of a person’s return dwelling after 15 years in an Israeli jail, and Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam’s Toronto participant “The Candy Requiem” (2018), which follows a Tibetan refugee in Delhi confronted by an individual from the previous.

“As a producer, I’m primarily drawn to the underlying story within the screenplay and the director’s imaginative and prescient for it,” says Sathe. “I don’t exit to hunt a movie from a specific nation or a specific language. It’s primarily a director’s voice and what they wish to inform concerning the present state of human society. I’m additionally taking a look at movies which are tales usually not being informed in mainstream cinema or, in some instances, even in arthouse cinema.”

In 2019, Sathe received the Producers Award on the Movie Unbiased Spirit Awards.

Sathe additionally directed “Ek Hazarachi Observe” (2014), which received greatest characteristic and the particular jury award on the Worldwide Movie Pageant of India, Goa.

He’s creating “Goodbye Mr. Kanay,” a multilingual characteristic movie, with “Ek Hazarachi Observe” author Shrikant Bojewar and screenwriter James Windeler (“Candy Little Lies”).

As a producer, Sathe has a number of initiatives that he’s at the moment searching for financing for. “Doha: The Rising Solar,” is an Arabic-language characteristic movie by writer-director Eimi Imanishi that Sathe is producing with Eric Dupont and Virginie Lacombe from France; “Battle,” an English-language characteristic movie set within the American Rust Belt with award-winning writer-director Musa Syeed (“Valley of Saints”); and “Again Seat” with Emmy successful director Lana Wilson (“After Tiller”).

On the TV entrance, the producer has “Watched” with collection creator Afia Nathaniel. Nathaniel’s “Dukhtar” was Pakistan’s entry for the 2015 Oscars and was co-produced by Sathe. On the nonfiction entrance, Sathe is in early improvement on a feature-length documentary with Oscar-nominated director Sami Khan (“St. Louis Superman”). He additionally has plans to interrupt into the streaming market.