In Ravi Kapoor’s new movie Four Samosas (2022), Los Angeles’s “Little India” is the backdrop for a rollicking friend-group-heist extravaganza. Amateur rapper Vinny (Venk Potula) hears that his ex-girlfriend Rina (Summer Bishil) is engaged. Vinny takes it hard, never mind that the two broke up four years earlier. In a bid to derail Rina’s wedding, Vinny assembles a slapdash crew to break into Rina’s father’s grocery store and steal the diamonds meant for her dowry. The crew in question includes his Bollywood-aspiring friend Zak (Nirvan Patnaik), over-eager journalist Anjali (Sharmita Bhattacharya), and prickly engineer Paru (Sonal Shah). Without a spoonful of criminal experience between them, it does not take long for the plan to go haywire.
Written, directed, and produced by Kapoor, Four Samosas premiered at Tribeca earlier this year to a warm welcome. It releases in theaters and VOD on December 2nd. Kapoor and Potula, who produced the film alongside starring in it, stopped by to chat about building an indie film from the ground up, and all things Four Samosas.
The following interview has been edited lightly for length and clarity.
Devin: It strikes me that both heist movies and hangout movies seem like key touchpoints for Four Samosas. Did either of you have a particular affinity for those coming in? Or is it something that was new for this project?
Ravi: I mean, I definitely love a good heist film. Watching a group of people come together and do the impossible, and then seeing how they all fall apart at the end as well. I think there’s such a built-in sense of jeopardy for that kind of film. People lock in for that. So, then you can kind of build stuff on top of that. Build the relationships. Build a world around it. I think it’s a great little scaffolding to hang a film on because you have to be really bad to not get people invested in finding out what’s going to happen with a heist. Hopefully, we want to but
Venk: I mean, I’m a huge fan of hang-out movies. Especially Richard Linklater as one of the American pioneers of how it’s done. Everybody Wants Some or what have you. Obviously, this film is different, but there is a friendship-building and creation process that happens in Four Samosas. You kind of feel like you are hanging out with these guys as they’re also doing a heist.

Devin: Sticking with that friend group, their crew is really the heart and soul of this movie. How did you work to make sure you captured that tight-knit vibe on screen?
Ravi: You know, I think we were so lucky in terms of the way we were able to cast this film because there was only one character we auditioned for. Otherwise, Venk and I were able to just go out and offer the roles to people that we knew and loved. People whose work we love, and knew would nail the parts. Also, all people we wanted to hang out with because we just like them as human beings. I think that ends up showing in the work that ends up on the screen. I hope people feel that sense of connectedness between everybody on screen and behind the camera, too. There was a real sense of camaraderie with everybody on the same page about the kind of movie we wanted to make.
Venk: I completely echo that. The way I see it, it starts with Ravi. He’s the leader for us as the cast and the crew to look up to. Someone to set the tone for the kind of environment and vibe for the process. Ravi is so chill. He’s so relaxed, but also confident. He knows exactly what he wants. I think it just seeped into the crew and into the cast which created a special kind of comfort level. Even though I’m sure that for him as the director, writer, and producer there’s always that element of ‘We need to get things done,’ the rest of us never felt rushed. Which, you know, is kind of crazy to pull off on a 16-day shoot.

Devin: Like you point out Venk, you were both balancing multiple roles on this production. Is that exciting? Is it something you look for when you’re thinking about a project, or a necessity just to get everything done?
Ravi: For me, the producing part of it is a necessity. I would love to just focus on the writing and directing, just be locked in with that, and not have to worry about all the other stuff. There are parts of the producing process that I love. Figuring out locations. Bringing the crew together. Those are part of the creative process for me. But the paperwork, that I would love to just hand off to somebody else. Originally, part of the reason I wanted Venk to be on the film, in addition to being the lead actor, was because he was doing a producing course at Chapman and I thought, ‘Oh, Venk might be able to do paperwork.’ How wrong I was!
Venk: That’s on you for picking an actor to do the paperwork! But, as Ravi said, there is a necessity element to producing. I’ve learned that lesson over and over, even if it’s been on a short film. If you want to see something made, you’re going to have to pick it up and figure it out yourself. There’s no golden opportunity that’s coming down.
What I learned on Four Samosas is that there are parts of the process that I actually really enjoy. Since Ravi brought me on as a co-producer, I’ve been privy to so many more parts of the creative process. Also, thinking about the future of the film itself. I think most actors might not be a part of what actually happens like that. And yet, because we’re leading this project together as producers, we do have that working relationship. I like that part of the process. But, Ravi, let’s leave the paperwork to somebody else on the next one.
Ravi: Yeah, good. I’ll also say that while I would love not to have to go out and raise finances for a project, what is interesting about doing that is that it really forces you to kind of go to ask yourself, ‘Why am I making this film?’ You’re constantly having to pitch the film to potential investors and talk about why you are so passionate about telling the story. It’s a multi-year process. So, in some ways, there’s a lot to gain from that because you really do have to lock into your own sense of why you need to make this film.

Devin: As a viewer, it seems like a part of the passion that was making sure this project had a remarkable level of cultural specificity. You really steep it in “Little India” and diaspora communities. Was that something that you wanted to make sure was a part of this?
Ravi: I always knew I wanted to set it in the particular world of “Little India” in Los Angeles. I didn’t want to feel like I was spoon-feeding a non-Indian audience with it, though. I just kind of wanted to put it out there. But, I feel like there was enough in there for an audience that is not South Asian to be able to go along with the journey anyway. Because it is a love story. It is a heist movie. There’s no way that you can not get on board and not know what’s going on.
I wanted to try and be authentic to that world. All these characters are people you could find in “Little India,” just maybe a little more of them than they would be in real life. I think that’s part of the charm of the film. Even though we’ve seen heist movies before, even though we’ve seen love stories a million times, we’re offering a unique setting and world for those things.
Venk: Also, I think people know, for the most part, that India exists. Not everywhere. My uncle immigrated to Alabama and people just thought he was Mexican. But, I do think that we’re in a place now where people generally understand that South Asian diaspora communities exist. What’s so fun about the script is that there’s no explaining of any kind. It’s just these characters who happen to be South Asian-American, but the main thing is that they’re trying to pull off a heist, and this one guy is trying to get his girl back, who’s really not his girl. At the end of the day, it’s just storytelling.

Devin: One of the visual calling cards of this movie is the rounded-square aspect ratio. You also fill that frame with a rich palette of colors. How did you pull that aesthetic language together?
Ravi: It was a bunch of different things. I definitely wanted to kind of create a look for Four Samosas that felt retro and a little weird. Like an eight-millimeter movie to some degree, hence the kind of rounded corners and the four-by-three aspect ratio. We also shot almost the whole thing on one lens—a wide-angle, 14-millimeter lens. It was on for the wide shots, the close-ups, and everything else except for a couple of the fantasy scenes. It was all about trying to really push the kind of expressionistic version of this film that we could. I really sort of wanted to make an art-house comedy. An artistic aesthetic beyond the normal, but still a comedy, a heist movie, and a love story.
In terms of influences, I love the movie Delicatessen, which has got that kind of clown circus feel to it. Lots of wide-angle lenses, and it’s an incredible color palette too. I also love silent films, especially Buster Keaton. There are some scenes in Four Samosas where we really sit back and can see this whole world unfold in a kind of slapstick way. On that, I should point too at a little bit of Wes Anderson, and some of that deadpan humor that you might see in Napoleon Dynamite. I guess there are just a lot of influences that kind of filtered in and came out in a very Four Samosas sort of way.
Venk: On the color palette, I remember being in color sessions with our colorist and they would ask Ravi like, ‘What do you think about this?’ He would go, ‘I think we can go more.’ The colorist would punch it up and Ravi would come back with ‘I think we need to go even further.’ I’m just kind of sitting there wondering how this is going to go. Spoiler, it turned out really well. Which, I think, speaks to the minutia of Ravi pushing to make sure that every element throughout, from the acting to costume design, was united in one vision that I think really is unique and of itself even though there are all these influences. It really is a Ravi Kapoor film.
Devin: Four Samosas is about to be in front of a lot more people after a fun festival run. As you are thinking about more audiences checking it out, is there anything you hope people can chew on as they experience it?
Ravi: Ultimately, I think this is a film about finding your support system. About putting yourself out there and taking a risk. Hopefully, after watching Four Samosas, people might be inspired to go out and take a risk. I don’t think the movie is going to change the world, but hopefully, people will be uplifted by it and feel a sense of empowerment.
Venk: I really hope that any people of color, whether or not they’re South Asian, can see this movie and feel inspired knowing that we really made it from the ground up. I was really stuck and really struggling like Vinny before this, and I think Ravi taking that risk and coming to me and giving me this role has opened so many doors. It’s such a hard field, and I hope that if there are other artists or creatives in the crowd that they can see this and decide to take that next step. Start a blog. Write that story.
Four Samosas premieres in theaters and on VOD December 2nd from IFC Films.

Devin McGrath-Conwell holds a B.A. in Film / English from Middlebury College and is currently pursuing an MFA in Screenwriting from Emerson College. His obsessions include all things horror, David Lynch, the darkest of satires, and Billy Joel. Devin’s writing has also appeared in publications such as Filmhounds Magazine, Film Cred, Horror Homeroom, and Cinema Scholars.