A short animated film produced for Pixar by Sanjay Patel, a studio veteran of nineteen years now embarking upon his first directorial effort. Seven minutes long, the film follows the daydream of a young Indian boy, frustrated and fed up with his fathers traditional religious observances, who reimagines the apparently dull Hindu pantheon as a motley crew of superpowered beings: The Avengers, as inspired by the Vedas. The works autobiographical for Patel, relating back to his upbringing in 1980s San Bernardino in southern California. Too often, growing up in a rigidly religious family of first generation immigrants, Patel felt alienated from the culture around him by his relatives and alienated from the culture hed inherited by the cheerfully secular popular culture of the period, all bright colours, brassy synths, toys, cartoons and comic books. While hed learn to embrace and own his ethnic identity, hed continue to feel the absence of faces like his in popular culture. Like any real artist, Patel determined to fill that absence with a work of his own Sanjays Super Team was pitched to his bosses at Pixar three years ago, and this month saw the premiere of the film at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in France. Itll reach a general release with Pixar feature The Good Dinosaur in cinemas this November 25th, bringing a fresh new voice to American animation.
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
