BFI Distribution has secured UK and Ireland rights to music drama Mogul Mowgli, starring Riz Ahmed, in a deal with Paris-based sales company Charades.
The film received its world premiere at the Berlinale where it won the Fipresci prize. It will be released theatrically on an as-yet-unspecified date this autumn.
Ahmed plays a British-Pakistani rapper who is about to start his first world tour when a crippling illness strikes him down and he is forced to move back in with his family.
It marks the debut fiction feature of documentary filmmaker Bassam Tariq, who co-wrote the screenplay with Ahmed. Tariq is a New York-based Pakistani director whose documentary Ghosts Of Sugar Land won the short film jury award at Sundance in 2019. His 2013 debut, These Birds Walk, won best documentary at Abu Dhabi Film Festival and was selected for SXSW and Zurich.
UK-born Ahmed has secured international recognition from roles in Star Wars blockbuster Rogue One, Nightcrawler and HBO drama The Night Of, for which he won an Emmy. He will next be seen in Sound Of Metal, which debuted at Toronto in 2019, and was recently announced to star opposite Octavia Spencer in alien thriller Invasion for Amazon Films.
Ahmed is also a producer on Mogul Mowgli through his Left Handed Films banner with Thomas Benski at Pulse Films, Bennett McGhee at Silvertown Films and Michael Peay. BBC Films, Cinereach, SFFILM Invest, Vice Studios, and RYOT Films financed the film.
The film shot in London in 2019 and also stars Nabhaan Rizwan, best known internationally for his starring role in on BBC/Amazon crime thriller series Informer and Aiysha Hart.
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