Birthday Blues and a Ding: Kumar Kumar Finds Humor in Isolation at LAAPFF 2025
June 1, 2025
tweet
share
Written by Eseel Borlasa, After Bruce
In a world full of push notifications, unread messages, and Instagram scrolls, what does real connection look like? Kumar Kumar, a poignant and darkly comic short screening at the 2025 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, dares to ask: when your social feed is dead on your birthday… maybe you should be too?
But then, the computer dings.
Directed by Kiran Koshy and produced by and starring Parvesh Cheena, Kumar Kumar captures a quietly devastating portrait of loneliness, mental health, and the immigrant experience -told entirely without dialogue and powered by understated humor.
A Story of Silence, Longing -and Spam Emails
Kumar Kumar centers on a man alone on his birthday. An immigrant of color, recently bereaved, he navigates a digital world where everyone appears connected while he is anything but.
“This story is about loneliness and mental health in the social media age,” says Koshy. “Despite the hyper-connectivity of our world, we’re lonelier than ever. This film highlights how we all crave meaningful human connection and how powerful even the most fleeting spark can be.”
Cheena echoes the film’s emotional undercurrent with a personal lens: “Being a queer Punjabi-American, growing a bigger community has been essential -for survival, and for my art. Our film reflects that aching desire to feel seen, to not be alone.”
In the film, that moment arrives via a corporate email. It’s meaningless on the surface -but not to Kumar. “As hollow and corporate as it is,” Cheena shares, “there is joy for him in not being alone.”
Deadpan Meets Diaspora
Though the subject is weighty -grief, isolation, generational loss –Kumar Kumar delivers its impact through a dark comedic lens. Koshy explains, “We wanted to show that Asian comedic sensibilities are alive and well. Comedy can be a way to make heavy topics digestible, and more lasting.”
Set in the silent mundanity of everyday life, the film reflects the emotional landscape of first-generation immigrants trying to find their footing in a place where familial and cultural norms feel out of sync. “Until recently, Kumar lived with his mother -something deeply common in South Asian cultures,” Koshy notes. “Now, alone, his grief becomes a lens for cultural commentary. The film contrasts Western hyper-individualism with the interdependence found in Asian households.”
“Being a Minority Artist Is Itself Political”
Cheena and Koshy don’t shy away from the film’s sociopolitical resonance. Kumar, as a character, is both ordinary and radical: an immigrant of color, grieving, ignored -and yet full of hope.
“Our film is an empathetic portrayal of an immigrant at a time when immigrants are being vilified,” says Koshy. “And our comedic approach shows we can still laugh -even when the world makes it hard.”
Cheena adds, “Being a minority artist in America is itself inherently political. And this film, though quiet, speaks volumes.”
Festivals as Lifelines
Both filmmakers acknowledge LAAPFF as a critical creative space. “I love LAAPFF,” Cheena notes with trademark humor. “It lets even seasoned performers show a different side of themselves. I’m bridging culture. I like culture. I’m a culture vulture. Hoot hoot. Wait -I’m a culture owl.”
But behind the quip lies sincere appreciation for a space that uplifts diverse voices and supports artistic experimentation. “In a post-colonial world,” Koshy adds, “artist communities of the colonized must challenge dominant narratives and create new ones. LAAPFF is part of that transformative process.”
