MUMBAI: Reliance MediaWorks has acquired North American rights of culinary comedy, Today‘s Special, that stars Aasif Mandvi and features Indian actress and cookbook author Madhur Jaffrey.

Directed by David Kaplan, the English-language film, written by Mandvi and Jonathan Bines, is based on Mandvi‘s play Sakina‘s Restaurant in which the actor plays a chef who dreams of opening an upscale Manhattan eatery but is forced to take over his family‘s tandoori restaurant in the Little India neighborhood of Jackson Heights in Queens.

The film was produced by Nimitt Mankad‘s Inimitable as the company‘s first feature and Lillian LaSalle‘s Sweet 180. The movie also stars Naseeruddin Shah, Jess Weixler, Kevin Corrigan and Dean Winters.

Reliance, which has been making inroads into the US market with films like Raavan and 3 Idiots, will release Today‘s Special nationwide on 8 October.

Today‘s Special premiered last fall at the London Film Festival, was the opening-night film at the San Francisco Asian American Film Festival and won audience prizes at fests in Palm Springs and Minneapolis-St. Paul.