Documentary filmmaker Sofian Khan has come out with a new film titled Do We Belong? that puts the spotlight on Indian American Srinivas Kuchibhotla and the hate crime that resulted in him losing his life.
Kuchibhotla, a techie, was killed at a Kansas City bar on February 22, 2017 in a racially motivated hate crime by US Navy veteran Adam Purinton.
The documentary features segments with Kuchibhotla's widow Sunayana Dumala, who talks about her late husband and their hopes in America.
Khan had been following the Kuchibhotla tragedy closely and he knew it had created quite a furore in India. But it hardly created any ripples in the US.
That was when Khan felt a “personal connection with Srinivas’ history”, in the way “he sounded - his motives of coming to the US and just what a sweet person he was.”
This was what prompted Khan, who was already working on a documentary about hate crimes and Islamophobia, to focus on Kuchibhotla. "Obviously people watch it and feel that it's part of the movement," he said, "where immigrants are being targeted and singled out, but at the same time, it's also a really personal story."
Kulsuma Aktergetty images