Ian Bawa mines personal tragedy for debut feature at TIFF
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New details have emerged about the making of Ian Bawa's debut feature "Strong Son", ahead of its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, focusing on the film's cast and its unusually direct lifting of real events from Bawa's own life. Lead actor Mandeep Sodhi, who plays bodybuilder Harvey Singh, is himself a bodybuilder-turned-actor who left India for Canada in 2011, which shaped the film's sparse style of static home scenes contrasted with gym action sequences. Amrit Parbhakar, who plays the father, joined the production only a week before filming began after another actor dropped out, and had gone blind two years earlier, requiring improvisation on set to fake his eyeline for the camera.
Bawa has said nearly every scene and much of the dialogue, including a recreated 911 emergency call, come directly from his decade of caring for his father before his sudden death from a heart attack, three weeks after the 2020 short film of the same name premiered at TIFF. He recalled feeling that the short's unexpected poignancy became "embarrassing" once his father died, as he grappled with grief rather than developing the planned feature adaptation; he further processed this loss, and that of his mother Pritam Bawa in 2007, through a 2024 short, "My Son Went Quiet". Bawa, based in Winnipeg, said the story captures his father telling him to stop crying and "stop acting like a woman", reflecting the film's wider examination of toxic masculinity in South Asian culture.
- Lead actor Sodhi is a real bodybuilder-turned-actor; co-star Parbhakar joined a week before filming
- Parbhakar, playing the father, is blind, requiring on-set improvisation
- Film's dialogue, including a 911 call, is drawn directly from Bawa's real life
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Bawa's father cared for him with quiet, unshowy devotion in Winnipeg, until his sudden death from a heart attack in 2020, just three weeks after a short film about their relationship, also called "Strong Son", had its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. That short became the seed for a feature film of the same name, now premiering at TIFF, which draws almost entirely on real scenes and conversations from Bawa's decade spent looking after his dad.
The film follows a bodybuilder father and son and touches on ideas of masculinity within South Asian culture, including pressure on men to hide emotion. Its two lead actors bring their own real-life experience to the roles: Mandeep Sodhi is a bodybuilder-turned-actor who moved from India to Canada, and Amrit Parbhakar, who plays the father, joined shortly before filming began and has been blind for the past two years.
TIFF is one of the most prominent film festivals in North America and a launch pad for new directors, so a film's premiere there often marks a significant early milestone in a filmmaker's career.
Full account
Canadian director Ian Bawa has channelled the loss of both his parents into his debut narrative feature, Strong Son, which received its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film follows Harvey Singh, played by Mandeep Sodhi, a South Asian bodybuilder who throws himself into gym training even as his mental health unravels, all while acting as carer for his ailing, strong-willed father at home. Bawa has described the work as emotionally truthful without being a literal documentary, built around the irony of a man growing physically stronger while quietly falling apart.
The feature grew out of a three-minute short film of the same name that Bawa made in 2020, shot on Super 8 and starring his own father, Jagdeep Singh Bawa, as a parent urging his son on at the gym with the refrain that his son was very strong. That short premiered at TIFF during a pandemic-era online edition of the festival, and Bawa was already contemplating turning it into a feature, with his father's support. Tragedy struck barely three weeks after that Toronto showcase, when his father died suddenly of a heart attack. His mother, Pritam Bawa, had died in 2007 following a battle with breast cancer, after 36 years of marriage to his father.
Bawa has said the sudden death derailed his plans and coloured how he felt about the project, admitting the film began to feel uncomfortable to work on because he sensed people's sympathy while privately he was consumed by grief rather than filmmaking. He processed some of that loss through other short films, including 2024's My Son Went Quiet, before eventually returning to complete Strong Son as a feature. The finished film depicts a son moving back into the family home to become his father's carer, enduring panic attacks and breakdowns, and suffering public humiliation when an emotional collapse during an amateur wrestling match undercuts his attempts to prove his physical strength.
According to Bawa, much of the film's dialogue and many of its scenes are drawn directly from his own decade spent caring for his father, including remembered rebukes about not crying or appearing weak, and even the real emergency call he made to paramedics after finding his father in distress. Through this material, the film sets out to examine toxic masculinity within South Asian culture and the pressure on men to appear emotionally invulnerable, married and in control, themes Bawa has said were shaped almost entirely by lived experience rather than invention.
Where outlets differ
Only one of the two supplied source reports actually concerns this story. The first source, describing an interview with Ian Bawa about Strong Son, is the sole basis for this account.
The second supplied source is an unrelated review of a different TIFF title, Misty Green, directed by Chris Rock and starring Rosalind Eleazar, Adam Driver and Anna Kendrick — it makes no mention of Ian Bawa, Strong Son, or any connected themes, and appears to have been included in error, so it has not been used in this write-up.
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Originally published by The Hollywood Reporter as “Six Years After Starring Father Died Soon After TIFF Short Premiere, ‘Strong Son’ Director Returns With Grief Drama”.