‘Foreign And Familiar’: Monarch Media To Produce Comedy Feature Scripted By Leah Kunnath

EXCLUSIVE: Monarch Media has optioned Leah Kunnath’s comedy script Foreign and Familiar, and are currently setting it up as a film, which Steve Barnett and Alan Powell will produce for the company.

Loosely based on Kunnath’s own teen years, Foreign and Familiar tells the story of a rebellious first-generation Indian-American teen who embarrasses her traditional Indian family, resulting in her parents sending her to high school in India to learn more about her culture.

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Monarch’s Vicky Patel will executive produce the project with Adam Goldworm of Aperture Entertainment.

Kunnath’s first comedy feature script earned her a fellowship position with the Blacklist’s Minority Report initiative, and was also a semifinalist at the Austin Film Festival.

Other projects in the works at Monarch, from Barnett, Powell and Patel, include Chris Pratt starrer The Black Belt, which Paul Briganti is directing from the Black List script by Randall Green, and Something Here, a musical combining country, hip-hop and pop music with original music from Florida Georgia Line’s Tyler Hubbard. The team also recently produced the family musical A Week Away, which sold to Netflix last year.

Goldworm and Aperture are currently producing New Republic and Grady Hendrix’s Horrorstor, Paramount’s sci-fi thriller The Oberlin Incident, TriStar’s Vince McMahon biopic Pandemonium, directed by John Requa and Glenn Ficarra, and Searchlight’s Elijah, from director Alex Aja. Goldworm is also currently in post on the indie thriller Monstrous starring Christina Ricci. He previously produced the indie hit My Friend Dahmer and the Michael Caine-Aubrey Plaza drama Best Sellers, exec producing Vin Diesel actioner, The Last Witch Hunter.

Kunnath is represented by Aperture Entertainment and attorney Ashley Silver of Brecheen Feldman.

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