After being a podcaster, Kiran Deol is now playing one on the big screen in the zombie comedy Didn’t Die which is making its world premiere tonight at Sundance in the Midnight Section at the Library Center Theater.
In the movie, which reteams Deol with filmmaker Meera Menon, Deol plays Vinta, a snarky post-apocalyptic podcast host, who is hiding her fear behind an armor of ironic distance. Rabid “biters” roam the Earth, and Vinita’s dwindling audience — including her traumatized siblings — live in quarantine. When her philandering ex Vincent (George Basil) suddenly arrives clutching a baby, Vinita’s armor begins to crack. The pic pays great homage to the zombie canon of George Romero.
Deol used to host an all female podcast called Hysteria. While she’s a 2011 News and Documentary Emmy nominee in the category of Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Research for the half hour Woman Rebel., Didn’t Die reps her first leading role.
Deol worked with Menon on her first feature movie which played Tribeca, 2013’s Farah Goes Bang.
“She wanted to make a movie and design it around someone who was a comedian and design something that had a lot of colors and space and a South Asian family,” says Deol who worked with the filmmaker on building her character off an outline.
Deol says that the horror movie speaks to “this moment when we as a society have really struggled with collective grief, the collective grief of Covid, the collective grief of a pandemic, and now the fires in Los Angeles. We’re dealing with a lot of grief as a nation.”
How do we handle it? How do we move on? And there’s something really current about that and I really hope it speaks to people.”
We also speak with Deol about the pipeline for diverse comedians and breaking down barriers in a fear-based industry.
“As a comedian, I know so many incredibly talented people who are on the internet, who you can check out,” she explains, “Everyone is responsible for building their own brand before they matriculate now as opposed to necessarily getting shots.”
“I understand it’s a fear-based business, because so many people are afraid of losing their jobs,” Deol says.
“But when that happens, how do you take the swings to get the next Broad City? How do you get the next Issa Rae? How do you get the next — however that might be?”
“My heart hopes that people especially executives and network people are allowed in their jobs to take risks and not be punished for that. Because if you can swing hard, that’s how you can hit the fences.”
Up next for Deol is her comedy special Joysuck which she recorded at the Dynasty Typewriter comedy club at 2511 Wilshire Blvd.
Cinetic Media is selling Didn’t Die.
Deadline Studio at Sundance presented by Casamigos