Man Push Cart, a film about a former Pakistani pop star selling coffee and doughnuts from a New York City pushcart, played to very receptive audiences at the Sundance Film Festival and sold before the end of the festival. Cinematical sat down at Sundance with cinematographer Michael Simmonds, star Ahmad Razvi, and director Ramin Bahrani (pictured above, from left to right), to talk about their film.

Cinematical: Ramin, I read an interview with New York Magazine where you talked about being inspired by Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus in making this film. Can you talk about that?

Ramin: Camus is one of my favorite writers, and in the myth of Sisyphus, the story is about this guy who is condemned to endlessly push this boulder up a mountain, only to have it roll back down. And I had this image of this pushcart guy, hauling this cart over and over again.

Cinematical: You really had Ahmad pulling this heavy cart through New York City traffic. Were you nervous about that?

Ahmad: I was, yeah. (laughs)

Michael: We all were.

Ramin: There was one scene where Ahmad drifted to the middle and these semis were driving by. That was a little scary then. And the time when he fell, too. But here’s the interesting thing – no one ever mentions that at the end there are two people pushing the cart instead of one – and that is a major change.

It wasn't all just snow and screenings at Sundance for the Cinematical; every chance we had, we were snapping pics as well. Here's a round-up of the best of our Sundance pics (more photos past the jump).

Man Push Cart director Ramin Bahrani sent out a press release last night that his film has closed a deal for North American rights with Films Philos. Films Philos will open the film in late fall/early winter 2006. As we previously reported, Man Push Cart closed deals for distribution in France, Greece and Italy a few days ago. Man Push Cart is about a former Pakistani pop star who is selling coffee and doughnuts from a pushcart in New York City. Cinematical interviewed director Ramin Bahrani, star Ahmad Razvi and cinematographer Michael Simmonds, and will have the interview up soon. Indiewire ran a piece on the deal today and in their pic with the article (above), you can see the Cinematical tshirt peeking out from underneath Bahrani's sweater.