In advance of a panel discussion at the gleaming new 92nd St. Y offshoot in Tribeca, we sat down with actor Aasif Mandvi and director David Kaplan to discuss their upcoming movie 7 to the Palace. You probably know Mandvi from his consistently funny work as a Daily Show correspondent, but the roots of the new movie, which he co-wrote, stretch back to his days as an off-Broadway performer — specifically his Obie Award-winning one-man production Sakina’s Restaurant.
In Kaplan’s words, 7 to the Palace, currently in post-production, is “a food family comedy set and filmed in Jackson Heights.” In it, Maandvi’s protagonist must give up his dream of cooking French cuisine to run his father’s traditional Indian restaurant. If that premise sounds a bit like an old-fashioned fairytale to you…well, that’s the point. Kaplan’s experience directing last year’s festival favorite Year of the Fish, a similarly fable-ish animated feature set in Chinatown’s underbelly, was “one of the reasons I got hired to do this.” What’s with his fixation on ethnic enclaves? Simply put — “I like New York a lot. Jackson Heights in particular is such a crossroads of different cultures…it’s a vibrant, alive ethnic enclave that reminds me of the New York of my youth, the New York of 20 years ago.”
