MEET THE PATELS is a laugh-out-loud real life romantic comedy about Ravi Patel, an almost-30-year-old Indian-American who enters a love triangle between the woman of his dreams … and his parents. Filmed by Ravi’s sister in what started as a family vacation video, this hilarious and heartbreaking film reveals how love is a family affair.
Fresh out of a breakup with his secret white girlfriend, who his parents knew nothing about, and freaked out that he’s almost 30 and single, Ravi goes on a family vacation to India with his head and heart spinning.
Ravi is willing to do whatever it takes to find love—but there’s one tricky detail to consider: In his family, everyone has the last name Patel. Patels marry other Patels. It’s not incest, it means they are from the same 50-square mile radius in India. Struck with how overwhelmingly happy the marriages are of his Patel family and friends, Ravi enters a fool-proof Patel matchmaking system and embarks on a worldwide search for another American Patel just like him.
A well-oiled machine, the Patel network is instantly alerted of Ravi’s availability through his legendary matchmaker mother and his life-advice-spouting father, both of whom expertly quarterback Ravi’s love life through a system that has brought love into the lives of all of Ravi’s cousins. During this process, Ravi can’t seem to shake his documentarian sister who follows him around, inserting unhelpful commentary at every whim. Over the course of a year, Ravi’s parents send him on a whirlwind of dates around the United States via the “Biodating” system, a chain of weddings, online matrimonial websites, and the “Patel Matrimonial Convention.” Witty and brutally honest, this comedy explores the questions with which we all struggle: What is love? How do we find it? And even then, how do we keep it?
Directed by siblings Ravi Patel and Geeta Patel, this award-winning film comes to you from Producer Janet Eckholm (AMERICAN SPLENDOR) and Academy Award Winning Executive Producer Geralyn Dreyfous (BORN INTO BROTHELS/THE SQUARE) and PBS. With unique animation and a soulful soundtrack that will have audiences dancing in their seats, MEET THE PATELS melds the documentary and narrative form. Geeta and Ravi, along with their quirky parents keep audiences entertained and glued to the screen. MEET THE PATELS is a film everyone can relate to regardless of gender, age, or cultural background — after all, we have all been there.
MEET THE PATELS also uses humor to address a timely social issue: In early 2009, directors, sister and brother team, Geeta and Ravi Patel began to explore and document the societal pressures of marriage in their first-generation Indian American family. Through research in India and America, they discovered that their “Indian Issue” was more of an “American Issue”: the majority of Americans with strong cultural and religious roots shared a serious psychological conflict when it came to dating (and marrying) outside of their skin color, culture, religion, and ethnicity.
