Karla Murthy is an award-winning director, editor, and producer who got her start working for Bill Moyers and whose previous films include the documentary feature The Place That Makes Us (2020) and the documentary short Love, Jamie, which won a Grand Jury award at the 2023 L.A. Outfest. A first-generation American with an Indian father and a Filipino mother (and then a Filipino stepmother), her life seems to be one long string of successes and accomplishments. Before getting into the film and TV business, she studied at the High School for Performing and Visual Arts in Houston (she once wanted to be a concert pianist and began lessons at age 4) then at Oberlin College, where she graduated with degrees in Religion and Computer Science.
In The Gas Station Attendant (11/12/2025 2 pm Hi-Pointe Theatre), Murthy reflects on who she is and how she was shaped by her parents, particularly her father Shantha Murthy. Born to poverty in a village in India, he ran away to look for work and found jobs in a variety of restaurants and hotels, for a time sleeping on the street at night but always looking to improve his fortunes. Then a chance meeting with a couple from Texas who was staying at the hotel where he worked led to an offer to come to the United States to study. Life in America had its ups and downs:. he qualified as an engineer and worked at Boeing, then was laid off, and since then has patched together a living doing a variety of things including starting many different businesses (none of which were a huge success) and (most recently) managing a gift shop and working at a gas station while his wife worked as a nurse.
At the start of The Gas Station Attendant, a title card proclaims a quote from Moroccan American author Laila Lamia: “Humanity is fundamentally a story of migration.” That’s certainly born out in The Gas Station Attendant as travel seems to be a constant: to India, to New York City, to Texas. Old travels are also recalled with home movies, including the family vacations that were a priority in the Murthy family. Murthy also reflects on her childhood in Texas, the experience of being the only South Asian/Filipino for miles around, and the stereotypes of South Asians in American culture (including, of course, Apu from The Simpsons) that she had to deal with.
Despite the intensely personal nature of The Gas Station Attendant, Murthy maintains a sense of calm while exploring her past (copiously illustrated with video footage from home movies) and that of her father, based in part on phone calls she recorded with him as well as recently-shot film footage. Now married with two children, Murthy remains curious about how she became the person she is today and also wonders if she’s more like her father than she originally thought. The details of the story are specific to her, of course, but many of the threads she follows will be familiar to anyone who has roots in a culture other than the one they grew up in. And even if you’re not an immigrant or the child of immigrants, you’ll probably find you have a lot in common with both Murthy and her father because fathers are fathers and daughters are daughters, above and beyond the specific details of each relationship. | Sarah Boslaugh
The 34th Annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival runs Nov. 6-16, 2025 at various locations around St. Louis. Further information is available from the Cinema St. Louis web site.
