Arvind invited me to a preview screening of Sugarhouse tonight, the first movie from his film company, Slingshot Studios.

Here’s a teaser:

Now, I know he’s my brother and I’d be heartless if I didn’t say nice things about the film, but: it is wonderful. That’s the right word. It’s a really compelling piece of film-making with some remarkable performances and great staging. I’m sure I get a little extra from having seen the set and getting my name in the credits, but… It is unambiguously cool. I had one issue with it (only one), which I won’t share as I can’t without spoiling it. But its really irrelevant to the overall sense of “whoa” this film evokes.

For the uninitiated: it’s a relatively low budget urban thriller made possible due to an innovative revenue sharing model developed by my brother and his team, and totally digital production. According to Arvind, it looks like a film that costs between 6-10 times as much.

It’s filmed in HD (I’ve only seen it in SD at the moment and do want to see it in HD if possible…). If you want to know more about it, read up on the Slingshot blog and drop my brother a line.

It’ll be on limited theatrical release in the next month or so before it goes on the festival tour, but I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if this became a cult runaway hit. Ashley Waters, Andy Serkis and Stephen Mackintosh deliver fantastic performances. Go see it, blog about it, tell your friends about it.