Newsletter ... November 1999

COMING TO EARTH

Director Deepa Mehta Survives an Indian Fire-Storm

On international screens, three ground-breaking films: Fire, Earth, Water. In India, three violent reactions: outrage, censorship, and threat of death.

Forty-nine year old Canadian director Deepa Mehta was forced to hire armed bodyguards after she appeared at the Indian release of Fire at last year's International Film Festival in India. Although widely praised and highly honoured by Western critics and audiences, including QFA viewers, the film's taboo-breaking portrayal of a love affair between contemporary Indian sisters-in-law incited fury amonst Hindu zealots and resulted in both censorship and outright bans in many parts of India and Pakistan.

The second of Mehta's elemental trilogy, Earth, premiered in London and Toronto this fall, even as Fire's blaze of condemnation still raged in the writer-director's native land.

Seen through the eyes of Lenny, an eight-year-old Parsee girl, the film chronicles the spiral of hate and intolerance as religious and geographical lines are drawn between former neighbours, friends and lovers. While massacre and bloodshed lap at the edges of Lenny's sheltered life, it is the rushing flood of emotional betrayal that washes away her former existence. Observes Katrina Onstad in the National Post (Sept. 24, 1999) "Earth is less sweeping than it sounds, scaled down by the little girl perspective. This is Mehta's trademark: to tell the big story by telling the small story."

A Canadian since the 1970's, Deepa Mehta hasn't always dwelt in such a controversial and dangerous milieu. A philosophy graduate (University of New Delhi), she is veteran editor, writer, director and producer of children's films and television shows, as well as television documentaries. Her first feature film, Sam and Me, earned an Honourable Mention for the Golden Camera Award at Cannes and a co-directed feature, Martha, Ruth and Edie won Best Feature Film Award at the 1988 International Women's Film Festival in Florence, Italy.

Next season's QFA program is likely to complete the local presentation of Mehta's trilogy, with the upcoming release of Water. Set in the 1930's in the time of the British raj, we will witness the spiritual thirst of a Varanasi widow. It remains to be seen whether Indian audiences will have the same opportunity for completion: Earth has already been banned throughout Pakistan.

-- Liz Mayer

FILM FESTIVAL REVIEWS

Several members of the QFA Executive recently attended the Toronto International Film Festival as guests of the Film Circuit. Another delegation was also fortunate to attend the festivities at Sudbury Cinéfest. Keep your eyes open for a chance to view these favourably reviewed movies: Third Miracle, directed by Agnieszka Holland (Washington Square); Sunshine, directed by Istvan Szabo (Mephisto, Meeting Venus); Charles Burnett's The Annihilation of Fish starring Lynn Redgrave and James Earl Jones; Touched, directed by Mort Ransen (Margaret's Museum); and Joan Chen's wonderful Chinese saga Xiu-Xiu: the Sent Down Girl. Also watch for these Canadian films: Roller Coaster, an energetic film about a group of teenagers who escape their group home for a day; and Le grand serpent du monde, which will delight fans of Kerouac's On the Road.

We also recommend wholeheartedly Three Seasons, currently available on video. The first American film to be shot in Vietnam since the war is directed by Tony Bui and stars Harvey Keitel; it is also the first film in the history of the Sundance Film Festival to win both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award.

PAST NEWSLETTERS ON-LINE

September 1999 -- Welcome to our Fifth Season
May 1999 -- It's Your Turn, Laura / C'est à ton tour, Laura Cadieux
March 1999 -- The Cinematic Tourist: Lessons of Foreign Films