"The things we chase are the things that are essentially hollow," Riz Ahmed tells The National. "The things that really matter are the things that we run away from all the time."
Exploring this truth forms the heart of the British actor and musician's latest film, Mogul Mowgli, that he produced, co-wrote and stars in.
While the premise of the film sounds all too familiar – a musician on the cusp of superstardom is having an identity crisis caused in part by being the child of Pakistani immigrants growing up in the West – this second-generational tale has never been depicted on screen in such a visceral style.
Mogul Mowgli veers away from the tropes of the identity crisis drama in which a child of immigrants struggles with double consciousness after growing up in the West. These tales all too often use a Romeo & Juliet-style love story to define the culture clash. Instead, Mogul Mowgli strives for a more in-depth, layered investigation into the realities of having a Pakistani background growing up in Britain, with stunning results.
"It's less about Islam says this, and more about that classic father-and-son tension, where each generation has to dance on the grave of the last one, until eventually we realise what we are standing on also defines us," explains the actor, 37. "The film is more about legacy and inheritance."
Speaking of his character, Zed, Ahmed says that the singer has spent his life seeking the answer to the question, who am I? “But if you actually want to know who you are, you've got to stop and really look at yourself in the mirror, you need to understand that you're part of a whole," Ahmed says.
That moment of reflection is forced upon Zed. On a trip to his family home, Zed is diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, a condition where the immune system attacks its own body. "It's really about that identity crisis playing itself out on a molecular level," says Ahmed.
In doing so, the drama explores the relatively young – and still disputed – field of transgenerational trauma, a psychological term which asserts that trauma can be transferred to future generations. The film doesn't come down one way or another on the science, but uses this concept as a jumping point to investigate Zed's psychology and the traits he has inherited.
"Zed is a musician who wants to leave behind this great artistic legacy, but he hasn't really understood what legacy he has inherited," Ahmed says. "That inherited legacy is one of trauma, but it's also one of this amazing cultural heritage, like qawwali music.
Every time you write a story, you take two pieces of flint from your life and knock them together to see what sparks
"Zed is basically chasing all these mirages, but actually what he's looking for is inside of him. It's part of his DNA, part of his childhood and his memory. It's about this journey within, really," adds the actor, acknowledging the concept is "slightly abstract".
Putting these ideas on screen has been a personal project for Ahmed. The title comes from the song Half Moghul Half Mowgli by the Swet Shop Boys, the hip-hop group in which Ahmed raps under his Riz MC moniker. The film even starts with Zed performing the song, which Ahmed wrote describing the polarity he feels when trying to balance his fame with representing his culture.
"When you write something, it's weird," he says about the personal nature of the project. "I heard [filmmaker] Noah Baumbach talk about this recently – every time you write a story, you take two pieces of flint from your life and knock them together to see what sparks. You take elements of your own experience and you extrapolate them, heighten then, so it's very personal in terms of the place it's coming from."
To help him bring this story to the screen, Ahmed approached director and co-writer Bassam Tariq. "Bassam and I are both artists who have spent a lot of our lives trying to answer the question of who am I through our work."
Tariq was going through his own existential crisis when Ahmed came calling. His film These Birds Walk, about a humanitarian's efforts to help a runaway boy in Karachi, Pakistan, won the Black Pearl Award for Best Documentary Film at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival in 2013, and a clutch of other awards. Yet two years later, Tariq was contemplating giving up directing. "It was a great experience, I learnt a lot, but I wasn't sure that is where I wanted to be. I started a butchery in New York."
Ahmed had seen These Birds Walk at a film festival and made contact with Tariq, who had just welcomed his first child. "Riz and I started speaking, talking about the possibility of collaborating. Then things started kicking off in Riz's career with [miniseries] The Night Of. It was exciting, and so I started looking at if there was a way back into film," he says.
We realised that there was a deeper conversation that we're having with the diaspora
"I started to talk about some of these things dealing with ancestral trauma, and the Partition of India, and Riz said maybe there's a way for us to divide these ideas that we want to work on."
They started meeting up whenever their work schedules would allow, swapping ideas and writing together. They took a week-long trip to Pakistan together with the hope of shooting there, before realising it would be too difficult from a production standpoint. Tariq visited Ahmed's family in London. "My family mirrors his family so much," he says.
And that's how the shape of Mogul Mowgli started to emerge.
"We realised that there was a deeper conversation that we're having with the diaspora," says Tarqi, "and in our own experiences with being here in the West."
Mogul Mowgli is playing at the BFI London Film Festival until Tuesday, October 13
Indoor Cricket World Cup - Sept 16-20, Insportz, Dubai
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if you go
The flights
Flydubai flies to Podgorica or nearby Tivat via Sarajevo from Dh2,155 return including taxes. Turkish Airlines flies from Abu Dhabi and Dubai to Podgorica via Istanbul; alternatively, fly with Flydubai from Dubai to Belgrade and take a short flight with Montenegro Air to Podgorica. Etihad flies from Abu Dhabi to Podgorica via Belgrade. Flights cost from about Dh3,000 return including taxes. There are buses from Podgorica to Plav.
The tour
While you can apply for a permit for the route yourself, it’s best to travel with an agency that will arrange it for you. These include Zbulo in Albania (www.zbulo.org) or Zalaz in Montenegro (www.zalaz.me).
Why seagrass matters
- Carbon sink: Seagrass sequesters carbon up to 35X faster than tropical rainforests
- Marine nursery: Crucial habitat for juvenile fish, crustations, and invertebrates
- Biodiversity: Support species like sea turtles, dugongs, and seabirds
- Coastal protection: Reduce erosion and improve water quality
UAE%20SQUAD
%3Cp%3E%0D%3Cstrong%3EMen%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Saif%20Al%20Zaabi%2C%20Salem%20Al%20Marzooqi%2C%20Zayed%20Al%20Ansaari%2C%20Saud%20Abdulaziz%20Rahmatalla%2C%20Adel%20Shanbih%2C%20Ahmed%20Khamis%20Al%20Blooshi%2C%20Abdalla%20Al%20Naqbi%2C%20Khaled%20Al%20Hammadi%2C%20Mohammed%20Khamis%20Khalaf%2C%20Mohammad%20Fahad%2C%20Abdulla%20Al%20Arimi.%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EWomen%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Mozah%20Al%20Zeyoudi%2C%20Haifa%20Al%20Naqbi%2C%20Ayesha%20Al%20Mutaiwei.%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Read more from Aya Iskandarani
Company%20profile
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COMPANY%20PROFILE
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The National Archives, Abu Dhabi
Founded over 50 years ago, the National Archives collects valuable historical material relating to the UAE, and is the oldest and richest archive relating to the Arabian Gulf.
Much of the material can be viewed on line at the Arabian Gulf Digital Archive - https://www.agda.ae/en
INDIA SQUAD
Virat Kohli (capt), Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Vijay Shankar, MS Dhoni (wk), Kedar Jadhav, Dinesh Karthik, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
'Panga'
Directed by Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari
Starring Kangana Ranaut, Richa Chadha, Jassie Gill, Yagya Bhasin, Neena Gupta
Rating: 3.5/5
PROFILE OF SWVL
Started: April 2017
Founders: Mostafa Kandil, Ahmed Sabbah and Mahmoud Nouh
Based: Cairo, Egypt
Sector: transport
Size: 450 employees
Investment: approximately $80 million
Investors include: Dubai’s Beco Capital, US’s Endeavor Catalyst, China’s MSA, Egypt’s Sawari Ventures, Sweden’s Vostok New Ventures, Property Finder CEO Michael Lahyani
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Timeline
2012-2015
The company offers payments/bribes to win key contracts in the Middle East
May 2017
The UK SFO officially opens investigation into Petrofac’s use of agents, corruption, and potential bribery to secure contracts
September 2021
Petrofac pleads guilty to seven counts of failing to prevent bribery under the UK Bribery Act
October 2021
Court fines Petrofac £77 million for bribery. Former executive receives a two-year suspended sentence
December 2024
Petrofac enters into comprehensive restructuring to strengthen the financial position of the group
May 2025
The High Court of England and Wales approves the company’s restructuring plan
July 2025
The Court of Appeal issues a judgment challenging parts of the restructuring plan
August 2025
Petrofac issues a business update to execute the restructuring and confirms it will appeal the Court of Appeal decision
October 2025
Petrofac loses a major TenneT offshore wind contract worth €13 billion. Holding company files for administration in the UK. Petrofac delisted from the London Stock Exchange
November 2025
180 Petrofac employees laid off in the UAE
Groom and Two Brides
Director: Elie Semaan
Starring: Abdullah Boushehri, Laila Abdallah, Lulwa Almulla
Rating: 3/5
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
In%20the%20Land%20of%20Saints%20and%20Sinners
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The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 261hp at 5,500rpm
Torque: 405Nm at 1,750-3,500rpm
Transmission: 9-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 6.9L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh117,059
PROFILE OF INVYGO
Started: 2018
Founders: Eslam Hussein and Pulkit Ganjoo
Based: Dubai
Sector: Transport
Size: 9 employees
Investment: $1,275,000
Investors: Class 5 Global, Equitrust, Gulf Islamic Investments, Kairos K50 and William Zeqiri
RACECARD
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Dubai World Cup draw
1. Gunnevera
2. Capezzano
3. North America
4. Audible
5. Seeking The Soul
6. Pavel
7. Gronkowski
8. Axelrod
9. New Trails
10. Yoshida
11. K T Brave
12. Thunder Snow
13. Dolkong
The%20specs
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Know your Camel lingo
The bairaq is a competition for the best herd of 50 camels, named for the banner its winner takes home
Namoos - a word of congratulations reserved for falconry competitions, camel races and camel pageants. It best translates as 'the pride of victory' - and for competitors, it is priceless
Asayel camels - sleek, short-haired hound-like racers
Majahim - chocolate-brown camels that can grow to weigh two tonnes. They were only valued for milk until camel pageantry took off in the 1990s
Millions Street - the thoroughfare where camels are led and where white 4x4s throng throughout the festival
