SXSW Short Form Prize Winner ‘Son Of A Bikram’ Set For Long-Form Adaptation With Marginal Mediaworks On Board

EXCLUSIVE: SXSW short film prize winner Son of a Bikram is being adapted as a film and TV series.

Marginal MediaWorks has boarded the comedic short form, which won a special jury prize at this year’s SXSW and recently premiered at Denver’s SeriesFest.

Marginal is partnering with the film’s creators, Ash T and Johnny Rey Diaz, to continue its festival run, and developing it for a longer-form treatment.

Ash T and Rey Diaz co-wrote the film, with the also starring and the latter directing.It centers on Raag (Ash T), an office worker whose life begins to fall apart when allegations of sexual assault against his yoga idol, Bikram, are revealed.

Ash T is an actor, writer, and former physician with TV credits include The Pitt, Better Call Saul and Euphoria, while Rey Diaz is an actor and filmmaker whose previous film, Miracle Wood, premiered at SeriesFest and won the Audience Award and the Best Late Night Award.  He was a series regular on the Michael Schur and Shea Serrano’s Prime Video series Primo and has acting credits for Pam & Tommy, Narcos: Mexico and Grey’s Anatomy.

Marginal, founded in 2019, has built a reputation as an internationally-focused indie film and TV studio in the vein of an A24 or Neon, focused on incubating and developing original IP from outside the traditional studio system. Its short film The Patel Motel Story, a doc about the history of South Asian hoteliers in the U.S., premiered at Tribeca last year, and is now also being eyed as a film or TV show, as is Demons, a short about a South Asian mother and daughter who reunite in a criminal enterprise. Bikram‘s development is following the same route.

“There is no shortage of creativity and talent,” said Marginal founder and CEO Sanjay M. Sharma. “The issue is the existing, narrow, calcified system in Hollywood that requires industry insider and gatekeeper validation. Film is a cultural industry, but the insiders are horribly out of touch with culture. Our thesis has always been that there is outsized value ‘in the margins,’ and that we could match powerful new voices with commercial, original IP — outside the system.”

Sharma is known for playing a key role in establishing Machinima, an early YouTube channels operator that was sold to Warner Bros., and for a spell as President and CEO of All Def Media. Both were YouTube-focused businesses that focused on identifying fandom and hidden breakout stars, similar to Marginal.

“We see signals from what has happened in digital media, from YouTube to the music industry, where technology and cultural trends forced the labels to adapt; the film/tv studios however still haven’t gotten the memo,” said Sharma. “The costs of production have rapidly declined, and creators can find consumer audiences, and critical audiences, outside of the traditional development system of Hollywood.”

As for the the idea of shorts as proofs of concept isn’t new, Sharma added there’s a renewed interest in their value if handled strategically. “Short films shouldn’t be sizzle reels,” he said. “While they are marketing, in a sense, for a larger project, they should be contained, standalone works that at once demonstrate the filmmaker’s strength in the craft, and leaves an audience wanting to see more.”