Mogul Mowgli

About

Director: Bassam Tariq (UK, USA, 2020)
Certification: 15 | 1h 29min | Drama | Language: English

Bassam Tariq's visceral directorial debut, co-written with Riz Ahmed, finds a British-Pakistani rapper's life spiralling out of control when, on the cusp of success, he succumbs to a debilitating illness.

"Although his cutting lyrics speak provocatively about identity politics, it is not until Zed (Ahmed) returns home after two years on tour that he is called by his real name: Zaheer. But it is the vulnerability of illness and his decreasing mobility that brings both focus and fragmentation – memories and hallucinations merge to the beat of Qawwali music and are haunted by fervent apparitions of a masked figure – conjuring the unspoken spectre of Partition, which looms large in his father's unspoken words". Elhum Shakerifar

In this film about British identity Riz Ahmed is back on the big screen in the main role, performing once more as a musician who faces the uncertainty of an illness as we just saw in Sound of Metal. In this opportunity, the recovery journey will take him to confront his family, his rich cultural heritage and ethnic background. Ahmed who is credited in the film as actor, co-writer and producer is a rapper himself and activist known musically as Riz MC.

The film was nominated in seven categories to the British Independent Film Awards 2021, where it took the prizes as Best Debut Screenwriter (Riz Ameh) and Best Music (Paul Corley). It received the FIPRESCI (Panorama) at Berlin 2020; and it was nominated as Outstanding British Film of the year at the Bafta Awards 2021.

With support from the BFI Film Audience Network (BFI FAN) awarding funds from The National Lottery.

★★★★ "Culturally rich and emotionally raw, Mogul Mowgli is a brilliant showcase for Riz Ahmed's bevy of talents, and speaks visceral truth to the British-South Asian experience so rarely explored on screen." – Empire

"The use of spoken word verse is an effective device… The words are the key to unravelling the conflict between Zed the rapper, and Zaheer, the Muslim son of a Pakistani immigrant". – Screendaily