Kickstart Your Weekend With 'Arvind'

High school kids are notorious for being dramatic about every little thing, but for 16-year-old Arvind Hathaway, his life really is a drama.

Hathaway wrote the courtroom drama Mommy after his real-life mother, diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, sought to reconnect with her sons after 12 years in prison for attempted poisoning of those same sons. Mommy opened last night at the University of Texas Laboratory Theater for a three-day run, with opening night proceeds going to Safe Place.

Meanwhile, filmmaker Evan Roberts (33 Teeth), who'd met Hathaway at an audition for his second film, decided to make a documentary about the teen as he embarked on this process. "I wanted to investigate someone's understanding of themselves through a fictional project that they created," Roberts explained in a press release.

That resulting film, titled Arvind is already well under way, and Roberts is running a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for postproduction costs. Though the project met its $10,000 goal within the first week, there is still a week to donate more; stretch goals include festival entry fees, airfare to fly Hathaway to the world premiere, and more.

Check out the pitch video below and try to put things in perspective.

Correction: An early version of this story mistakenly called Hathaway a student of McCallum; according to Roberts, he left there last May. This version has been corrected to reflect that information.

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Kickstart Your Weekend is a series intended to showcase Texas film and tech projects that are crowdfunding their way to a goal, be it distribution, a prototype, or production costs. If you have a project that we should know about, email us at filmflam@austinchronicle.com.