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Parallax Films has boarded international sales on “Private Property,” the new short from Deepak Rauniyar and Asha Magrati, ahead of its world premiere at the 79th Locarno Film Festival.
The film screens in Pardi di Domani’s
Concorso Corti d’Autore, competing for the Pardino d’Oro for Best Auteur Short Film.
A clip has been unveiled.
“Private Property” is also one of six films nominated for the festival’s Pardo for Change Award. Shot in English and Nepali, the U.S.-Nepal-France-Australia co-production is set at a gas station, where Maya, a Nepali immigrant working overnight shifts, clashes with Danny, an unhoused Black veteran, over a single space – a confrontation that pushes Maya first toward the law, then toward a gun.
Rauniyar wrote the screenplay with Magrati, who also produced the film and stars as Maya. “I’m very happy about Parallax coming on board,” Rauniyar said. “They have such a record and such taste – they’ve distributed so many of my favorite films of recent years – and I’m excited about this collaboration.” He added that the two sides are already discussing plans and will meet in Locarno to finalize them.
“‘Private Property’ is a tightly crafted social thriller that examines contemporary America in a way we rarely see – it refuses the narrative about immigrants audiences have come to expect,” said Cao Liuying, Parallax Films’ co-founder and head of international sales. Liuying added that the film closes on an image nodding to “Taxi Driver,” leaving audiences with a question rather than an answer, and said Parallax is planning a major festival campaign, with theatrical and streaming partnerships also under discussion.
The film marks Rauniyar’s first work in Locarno’s official selection, though his ties to the festival go back further. He and Magrati presented their first two features, “Highway” and “White Sun,” through Locarno’s Open Doors program, and Rauniyar served on a festival jury in 2018. “It’s an honor and a privilege,” he said of the official selection berth. “I hope the film screens at its home, in the United States, soon.”
For Magrati, who also serves as a producer and lead actor on the film, playing Maya required stepping outside her own experience. “Embodying her wasn’t natural – she is so different from me – but that was the very reason to make this film,” Magrati said. “After all, if we are not curious about what we don’t know, why make a film? Why play a character?”
The film’s cast also includes Nick Sencey, Hem Thapa, Nicole McCarty, Joe McAlear and Tylar McCarty. Kiersten Houser, Kim Carr and Sheldon Chau produced alongside Magrati, with Avantika Singh Desbouvries, Rajendra Thakurathi and Sakib Iftekhar serving as co-producers, and David Barker and Shruti Ganguly as executive producers. Chau also served as director of photography; J. Him Lee edited, with music by Vivek Maddala. Aadi Films produced in the U.S., alongside co-producer Salt for Sugar Films of France, with Screenxcope of Australia and Dog-Eared Pictures of the U.S. also attached.
Rauniyar, a Nepali writer-director based in the U.S., has had his work screened at Venice, Berlin, Toronto, Locarno, Busan and Sydney. His debut feature, “Highway,” broke ground in 2012 as the first Nepali production to land at a top-tier festival; it bowed at the Berlinale, traveled on to Locarno, and later ran for a week at MoMA in New York. Follow-up “White Sun” took the Interfilm prize at Venice in 2016 and top honors at both the Singapore and Palm Springs festivals, going on to represent Nepal in the Oscar race for best international feature. His 2024 feature “Pooja, Sir” bowed at Venice and has continued touring festivals internationally since.
Rauniyar’s entire feature output has come through a partnership with Louverture Films, the New York-based banner Danny Glover co-founded with Oscar-nominated producer Joslyn Barnes; Anurag Kashyap has been among the films’ executive producers. Beyond directing, Rauniyar teaches at Boston University and has sat on competition juries at both Locarno and Sydney.
His next project, “The Taste of Salt,” follows the rise of “MasterChef” contestant Santosh Shah through an English-language drama exploring migration and belonging as a young cook comes of age. The film bowed as a work in progress at this year’s Berlinale Co-Production Market and is being made jointly by Sam Taylor’s U.K. banner Film and Music Entertainment and Rauniyar’s own Aadi Films.
Watch the clip here:
