Script File

New Deli

To avoid his eviction and deportation from the US, an ingenuous Indian architecture student teams with a free spirited classmate to save his uncle’s Brooklyn delicatessen from demolition.

Following the death of his father, scholarship winner Aadi Djarinda travels from India to Brooklyn to complete his architecture studies. But there’s a catch – to stay in the US, he needs a stable roof over his head and that means he must reside with his uncle Ranu, now his only kin, and proprietor of the Taj Delicatessen, premises he has rented for the last thirty-five years. Trouble is, the deli’s future (and Ranu’s livelihood) is problematic.

  • Jeffrey McMahon
    Writer
  • Project Type:
    Screenplay
  • Number of Pages:
    105
  • Country of Origin:
    Australia
  • Language:
    English
  • First-time Screenwriter:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • New York Metropolitan Screenplay Comp
    June 25, 2017
    2nd Place
  • New York Metropolitan Screenplay Comp
    June 25, 2017
    2nd Place Feature Screenplay
Writer Biography - Jeffrey McMahon

Jeff McMahon, graduate of Adelaide University with a Bachelor Degree in Economics and Russian History, is a screenwriter and novelist with four screenplays currently on the market; ‘Duplicity’, a drama set in the S-E of Australia, and three comedies set in the US, one of which, ‘New Deli’ (a romantic-comedy set in Brooklyn), was awarded second place in the 2017 New York Metropolitan Screenplay Competition, and semi-finalist in a number of others. Two other comedies are at 1st Draft stage: one dealing with true love and dementia; the other, a re-telling of the Swiss legend of William Tell, set in Kansas in the fall of 1865, shortly after the Civil War.

With two completed novels (‘Legacies’, and ‘Sojourn’), he also has a work-in-progress thriller in the style of Stephen King.

His professional development has included courses conducted by facilitators such as the late Barry Took (writing partner of the late Marty Feldman), linguist Austin Steele, and casual seminars through the Australian Writers’ Guild involving playwright Andrew Bovell et al.

Jeff has represented the interests of writers in several capacities; as a member of the former South Australian Film Industry Assessment Committee (SAFIAC, SA Dept of the Arts, subsumed by the SA Film Corp), and as a committee member of the Australian Writers’ Guild (SA), during which time he was responsible for coordinating script entries for various categories of that organisation’s annual writing awards – eg Monte Miller Award, Radio Comedy Award.

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Writer Statement

‘New Deli’, with its divers characters, its setting, Bollywood inspired end sequence, probable PG-13 rating, and an underlying theme of prejudice and acceptance, is pitched at the 18-34 year old demographic.