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8 months ago
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EXCLUSIVE: Here’s your first look at actor Ravi Patel (Wonder Woman 1984, Animal Patrol) suited up in Kiss Of The Con Queen, the true crime thriller inspired by the life of accused fraudster Hargobind Tahilramani dubbed the “con queen of Hollywood” after allegedly impersonating movie executives in an elaborate and high profile fraud scheme.
Directed by Tom Waller (The Cave, The Last Executioner), the pic follows the story of an actor based in Bangkok, Thailand, who is led to believe that a powerful female Hollywood studio executive wants to consider him for a leading role in an upcoming DC Origins show, and is lured to Jakarta, Indonesia for an audition, only to find out that the whole thing is an elaborate scam when he is forced to front thousands of dollars in cash for flights and permits, on the promise of being reimbursed by the studio. However, after uniting with other victims and identifying the true identity of the criminal mastermind behind the long-running scam, the actor ends up conning the Con Queen into giving him exactly what he wants – the breakthrough role he was falsely promised.
Production on the pic took place last year in Jakarta, Bangkok, Dublin, and Nashville under a SAG-AFTRA Basic Agreement just before the strike. The film is a multi-territory co-production between Thailand (Tero Entertainment PCL), Japan (Yaman Films), Cambodia (Westec Media), the US (Hawkins FilmWorks), and Ireland (De Warrenne Pictures). Producers are Waller, Michael Pritchett (The Last Executioner), and Takahiro Yamashita (December, Gensan Punch).
De Warrenne Pictures is set to host a screening in Los Angeles for alleged victims of Tahilramani’s scam before a world premiere in Florida next month.
“Over 300 innocent victims in the film industry were targeted over the course of 7 years before the suspect was finally caught, so this wild story is a must-see cautionary tale,” said Waller.
De Warrenne is a two-part outfit. Part of the company, based in Thailand, is best known for handling production services on international film shoots like the Jason Statham-starrer Mechanic: Resurrection in Asia. The company is also responsible for local productions like The Cave, a narrative feature about the Thai Cave Rescue. The other half, based in Ireland, is a straight production company.
Also starring in Kiss Of The Con Queen are Patrick Bergin, Eoin O’Brien, and popular Indonesian actor Yayu A.W. Unru (The Last of Us) who died in December. The pic is one of his last performances.
Hargobind Tahilramani, the real-life “con queen of Hollywood,” last appeared in a UK court in June 2023 when it was ruled the 43-year-old could be extradited to face charges in the US. Tahilramani is accused of conning more than 300 victims, including actors and screenwriters out of more than one million dollars during a multi-year scheme.
Authorities arrested Tahilramani in late November 2020 in Manchester, northern England. Since then, he’s been held at a prison in London. He is accused of impersonating several prominent Hollywood figures, including producer Megan Ellison and executive Amy Pascal in phone calls, emails, and text messages. Prosecutors say Tahilramani, an Indonesian native, would convince US industry professionals to travel to Indonesia at their own expense for non-existent projects before charging them a raft of fees and expenses, which were never repaid.
