Gabe Gabriel on Runs in the Family

Gabe Gabriel is a queer South African filmmaker based between Cape Town and Los Angeles where they have been working as a writer, director, actor, and independent film producer since 2013. Most recently, Gabe has penned such works as ‘Granny Lee’, a feel-good South African dramedy about a real-life transgender icon ‘Mavis and Grace’, a Thelma-and-Louise-type buddy cop Western,; ‘Sabela Gold’, a 5-season gritty gold-rush crime, and ‘Mother City’, a psycho-sexual neo-noir drama. In 2021, Gabe’ made their directorial debut with South Africa’s first gay romcom, ‘No Hiding Here’, which is currently available for streaming on South Africa’s premier streaming service: Showmax. Gabe’s original works have placed them as a semi-finalist at the Atlanta Film Festival Screenplay Competition, the Final Draft Big Break Contest, the 5th annual Screencraft Fellowship, and the CBS Writers Mentorship program. In Runs in the Family, reformed small-time con artist and single father Varun Chetty is called to break his long-lost ex girlfriend, Monica, out of a rehab clinic across the country. Varun and his transgender son, River, must road trip to her rescue and back, all in time for River to compete in the national talent show that could win him the cash for his long-awaited gender-affirming surgery, so long as no grifters from Varun’s past get in their way.