A daughter records her father across a lifetime of late-night phone calls — and finds the whole arc of an American dream, from the streets of Bangalore to a small-town gas station counter.
It plays as the festival winds down on Sunday afternoon — the kind of closing-day documentary people walk out of quietly, then talk about all the way to the car. Showtime confirmed via the AAAFF 2026 schedule.
For years, filmmaker Karla Murthy kept recording her father on the phone — the long, looping late-night conversations of an immigrant who never stopped chasing the next idea. The Gas Station Attendant is what she built from them.
Stitched together from those recorded calls, home movies, and archival footage, the documentary traces her father's journey from the streets of Bangalore, India, to a restless, charismatic life in America — a serial entrepreneur forever certain the big break was one venture away, even as the realities of work, money, and family told a more complicated story.
It is, at heart, a portrait of one man and a meditation on the whole immigrant bargain: ambition and disappointment, devotion and distance, and what a daughter comes to understand about a father only after listening back to him. Critics on the festival circuit have called it both intimate and quietly devastating — a small story that opens onto a very big one.
Before it reached Austin, The Gas Station Attendant built one of the strongest documentary runs of the year — premiering internationally and sweeping top doc honors across U.S. festivals.
Singled out by the jury at one of the world's leading documentary festivals, where the film made its international debut.
Took the top documentary prize on its U.S. festival travels.
Won the headline documentary award — a marquee honor on the Asian American festival circuit.
Programmed as a centerpiece by the Center for Asian American Media, the country's premier showcase for Asian American film.
Also screened at DOC NYC, the Palm Springs International Film Festival, Big Sky, and the Atlanta Film Festival, and opened theatrically in New York in June 2026 ahead of a national rollout.
“Devastating and beautiful.”Movie Buff
“Endlessly surprising… exquisite.”Documentary Magazine
“An absolute must see.”Unseen Films
“Profoundly emotional and honest.”Cinerama
Pull quotes as gathered on the film's official press page.
Two reasons this is the screening to make. First, the room: it plays the AFS Cinema, the Austin Film Society's North Austin house — an arthouse built for exactly this kind of film, where a quiet documentary lands the way it's meant to.
Second, the filmmaker Q&A afterward. A film assembled from a father's own voice is a very different thing to sit with when the director is in the room to talk about what it took to make it. That conversation is the part you can't stream later.
And it's the Austin Asian American Film Festival's closing Sunday — a fitting last note for a festival built around stories like this one. The festival runs June 24–28, 2026; this is its 2:00 PM Sunday slot.
Film: The Gas Station Attendant (documentary)
Director: Karla Murthy
Where: AFS Cinema — 6406 N IH-35, Suite 3100, Austin, TX 78752
When: Sunday, June 28, 2026, 2:00 PM, with a post-film filmmaker Q&A
As part of: Austin Asian American Film Festival 2026 (June 24–28)
More on the film: thegasstationattendant.com
A preview from Austin Hangout. Festival, showtime, and award details drawn from the Austin Asian American Film Festival schedule and the film's official site; please confirm the showtime with the festival before you go.