India Sweets and Spices (2021)

After her first year at the University of California, Sophia Ali’s (Grey’s Anatomy, Faking It) character Alia Kapur returns home for summer vacation with a fresh perspective.

Now that she’s back at her family’s affluent home in a fictional New Jersey suburb, in an Indian American community, Alia realises that her friends and family are shallow and she desires to be different, open-minded, and less snobby.

It doesn’t take long until she meets and falls in love with humble Vurun Dutta (Rish Shah), whose parents own a corner store. However, their romance is soon threatened by her judgemental loved ones, and a secret from her mother’s past.

India Sweets and Spices, which received an 81% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, revolves around not just Alia and Vurun’s complicated love story, or the young couple navigating adulthood, but it also skilfully explores arranged marriages, class and gender discrimination, and other prejudices in this South-East Asian community.

The cast includes Bollywood star Manisha Koirala (Dil Se, Company) and Adil Hussain (Life Of Pi, The Reluctant Fundamentalist).

The movie is semi-autobiographical, and it’s inspired by writer and director Geeta Malik’s childhood and her script “Dinner With Friends”, which won the 2016 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting Award.