Documentary. 65 minutes. USA and India.
A son retraces his parents’ unlikely story between post-independence India and mid-century America to uncover how their divided worlds became the source of his own belonging.
I Was Thinking of You is a personal documentary tracing the filmmaker’s journey between India and America, through the fractured love story of his Indian father and American mother. Beginning in post-Independence Bombay and mid-century Chicago, their marriage collides with prejudice, culture shock, and competing notions of belonging.
After an unexpected family event, the filmmaker grows up in Bombay, immersed in Indian life yet haunted by absence.
Revisiting the experiences six decades on, he discovers that he’s inherited dual aspects of his life — carrying both Bombay and America within him.
Synopsis
David Devendra Rathod is a director with a broad range of filmmaking experience. Raised in India and later making a life in America, he turned to film as a way of exploring his Indian and American past.
His cross-cultural feature film West is West—starring acclaimed Indian director and actor Ashutosh Gowarikar—was released on Criterion and screened at more than 30 international festivals, including Berlin, Montreal, Seattle, São Paulo, Jerusalem, and Mill Valley.
Beyond feature films, David has directed several music videos and was nominated for Best Director at the MTV Video Music Awards.
In the early 2020s, he returned to Mumbai/Bombay to delve into the complex history of his Indian-American family. The result is I Was Thinking of You—a lyrical, witty, and deeply personal film that weaves together travel narrative and family memoir..