UNITED STATES, July 5, 2015 (USA Today): Through the big eyes of a little boy, director Sanjay Patel has animated his journey from a California kid watching cartoons to a man respecting his father’s Indian traditions. Premiering in front of The Good Dinosaur (in theaters Nov. 25), the Disney/Pixar short film Sanjay’s Super Team begins with a scene similar to Patel’s own San Bernardino upbringing. Sanjay is glued to the TV and Dad interrupts by ringing his bell for morning meditation. Yet the little Sanjay in Super Team finds something cooler than his superhero show when he joins his father: Three Hindu deities come alive to take care of a pesky monster.
Patel, 41, chose three Deities to reference in Super Team: the monkey-like Hanuman, the Goddess of power and protection Durga, and the blue-skinned Vishnu, who represents preservation. Some might liken them to a Hindu version of the Avengers, or an Indian take on Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, but they’re more meaningful than that to Patel. “I kind of have an insider’s point of view so I see them a little bit differently,” says the filmmaker.
The short doesn’t have any dialogue so Patel enlisted the help of Oscar-winning composer Mychael Danna (Life of Pi) for a fittingly non-Western soundtrack. For the moment when little Sanjay meets the Deities, Danna employs a bansuri, a South Asian flute and spiritual instrument associated with Vishnu, Patel says. “It’s a choice that only somebody who really understood the culture would make and something for sure my dad would really appreciate.”