DEEPA MEHTA ,DIRECTOR,SCREEN WRITER BORN 1950 ,JANUARY 1

DEEPA MEHTA ,DIRECTOR,SCREEN WRITER

BORN 1950 ,JANUARY 1

Born January 1, 1950 in Amritsar, India

Mini Bio (1)
Deepa Mehta is a transnational artist and a screenwriter, director, and producer whose work has been called "courageous", "provocative" and "breathtaking". Her visually lush and emotionally resonating films have played at every major international film festival; receiving numerous awards and accolades, and have been distributed around the world. Deepa was born in India and received a degree in philosophy from the University of New Delhi before immigrating to Canada. She began her career making documentaries in India.

In 1991, Deepa's first feature film Sam & Me, which stars Om Puri, won a Special Jury Mention in the Camera D'Or section at the Cannes Film Festival. Between 1992-1994 she directed two episodes of The Young Indiana Jones, produced by George Lucas for ABC. In 1993, Deepa directed her second feature film Camilla, a Canada-UK co-pro starring Jessica Tandy, Bridget Fonda, Elias Koteas, Maury Chaykin, Graham Greene, and Hume Cronyn. Fire, which Deepa wrote and directed, is the first film in her Elemental Trilogy (Fire, Earth, Water). Fire opened Perspective Canada at the 1996 Toronto International Film Festival, where it was runner-up for the People's Choice Most Popular Film Award. It played at the New York Film Festival and won many awards worldwide, including the Audience Award for Best Canadian Film at the Vancouver International Festival, the Special Jury Prize at the Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival and Silver Hugo Awards for Best Direction and Best Actress in Chicago.

Earth, based on Bapsi Sidhwa's acclaimed novel about Partition, Cracking India, is the second film in the Elemental Trilogy. It premiered as a Special Presentation at the 1998 Toronto International Film Festival, and won the Prix Premiere du Public at the Festival du Film Asiatique de Deauville and the Critics' Award at the Verona Schermi d'Amore International Film Festival. Bollywood/Hollywood was a change of pace. Written and directed by Deepa, it is a lighthearted, affectionate comedy about two mismatched lovers. It opened Perspective Canada at the 2002 Toronto International Film Festival and was a tremendous crossover box office success. It remains one of the top 10 grossing English language Canadian movies. In 2003 Deepa co-wrote and directed the Canada-UK co-pro The Republic of Love, based on a Carol Shields novel.

After a disrupted and hazardous production history Deepa's final film in the Elemental Trilogy Water opened the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival, and was the first Canadian film acquired by US distributor Fox Searchlight. Water is a powerful, hauntingly tragic story, set in Benares (Varanasi) about a child widow who at the age of eight is forced to enter a house of widows where she has to live for the rest of her life. The movie was to have been shot in India in 2000, but Hindu fundamentalists fomented riots, burnt sets, and issued death threats against the director and actors, forcing production to shut down and the filmmakers to leave the country. Water was successfully remounted in Sri Lanka and completed shooting in June 2004, and features many of India's most renowned actors.

Water was an enormous success. It was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film at the 79th Annual Academy Awards, and has screened at festivals around the world, winning many awards, and remains an audience favourite. The Vancouver Film Critics Circle named Deepa Mehta the Best Canadian Director of 2006. This fall (2015) is the 10th anniversary of Water's launch.

In 2006 Deepa made a documentary about domestic violence in Toronto's immigrant families called Let's Talk About It, which continues to be used in community outreach programs. She then thematically segued into the feature film Heaven On Earth, which explores arranged marriages and isolation. Starring Preity Zinta, the film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2008. It was awarded a Silver Hugo for Best Actress at the Chicago International Film Festival, and received the Best Screenplay Award at the Dubai International Film Festival. It also won the Youth Jury Award at the Schermi d'Amore Film Festival in Verona and the Audience Award at the River to River Florence Indian Film Festival.

In 2012, Deepa completed her epic cinematic adaptation of Salman Rushdie's famous novel about the history of India in the 20th century, Midnight's Children. A novel that won three Booker prizes. The movie, with 127 speaking parts, and covering five distinct time periods from 1917-1977, was a vast, ambitious undertaking and has screened all over the world, including the Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, Vancouver International Film Festival, and the BFI London Film Festival. Midnight's Children was chosen as the Best Feature Film of 2013 at the Directors Guild of Canada's Awards.

Deepa's work as an artist, as a progressive voice about social issues, and her generous mentorship have often been recognized. She has received numerous honorary degrees and many awards and honours, among them: The Life of Distinction Award from the Canadian Centre of Diversity, The Excellence in the Arts Award from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and the Woman of Distinction, President's Award from the YMCA. She is a recipient of the Governor General's Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award for Film. Most recently, in 2013, Deepa was appointed as an officer to the Order of Canada, Canada's highest civilian honour, for her work as a "groundbreaking screenwriter, director, and producer." She is also a recipient of the province of Ontario's highest honour, the Order of Ontario.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: Salar.HM

Spouse (1)
Paul Saltzman (1973 - 1983) (divorced) (1 child)
Trivia (5)
Sister of Dilip Mehta
Emigrated to Canada in 1973.
Daughter, Devyani, with Saltzman, born 1980.
Graduated from University of New Delhi.
Father was a film distributor.
Personal Quotes (7)

There aren't that many movies that strike me on a personal level that I would say, "Oh, my God, this would be great to see," because women usually play secondary characters. There's nobody out there saying, "This is where we are."
I think it's slightly naive for me to think that films make a difference. But what it can do is start a dialog and provoke discussion.
I would prefer to be known as a storyteller. I don't set out to provoke reactions. I don't even feel vindicated [by Water's success] but the irony does not escape me. It is like my father used to say: the two things you could never predict were the day of your death and the success of a movie.
[on her film 'Heaven on Earth'] There's a Jekyll and Hyde side to this story. The abuser in this case isn't a monodimensional villain. He's under a great deal of stress to live up to his role as the family patriarch, and to take care of everyone.I had no interest in simply pointing a finger at men and saying it's all your fault! Things are far more complicated than that. There are cultural implications and family dynamics. Sometimes just a plain lack of personal privacy can set a cycle of violence in motion because couples don't have the space to talk through their problems.
There are two things that matter a lot to East Indians in the diaspora: cricket and Bollywood. We're investing money in the community, saying 'We understand this is what makes you happy'. Because of it's position as a superpower, everything India does is now taken seriously, including a cinema that was derided ten years ago.
All art is political, it's not personal. Somehow it reflects on the politics of our time. I don't see myself as carrying a placard with a message in my films. What motivates me are the stories. But those stories are usually issue-oriented. It has to be something I'm passionate about, because making a film too much time and energy.
The first time I made magic was a moment when we were shooting 'Water'. It's where the little girl gives her 'ladoo', a sugary sweet, to the older woman and she watches her eat it. It was the expression on the little girl's face of - in a way she wanted it so much. There was the greed of the child as well as the acceptance that maybe it was the right thing to do.



யார் இவர்?

தீபா மேத்தா என்றால் ‘ஃபயர்', ‘ஃபயர்' என்றால் தீபா மேத்தா என்றால்தான் எல்லோருக்கும் தெரியும். பாரம்பரியம்-மரபு என்ற பெயரில் கெட்டிதட்டிப் போன பண்பாட்டு மூடத்தனங்களை திரைமொழியில் கேள்விக்கு உட்படுத்துபவர்.

உலகப் பெண் இயக்குநர்களின் பட்டியலில் இடம்பெற்ற இந்தியப் பெண். எல்லைகளைக் கடந்த ஒரு திரைக் கலைஞராக அறியப்பட்டுள்ள அவர், இந்தியாவின் புதிய குரலாக, மாற்றுச் சக்திகளின் குரலாக இருக்கிறார். உலகின் முக்கியத் திரைப்பட விழாக்களில் இவருடைய படங்கள் விருதுகளையும் அங்கீகாரத்தையும் பெற்றுள்ளன.

பின்னணி

மீரா நாயரைப் போலவே இவரும் பஞ்சாபைச் சேர்ந்தவர்தான். டெல்லி பல்கலைக்கழகத்தில் தத்துவவியலில் பட்டம் பெற்ற பின், சில காலம் ஆவணப் படங்களை இயக்கி வந்தார்.

1973-ல் கனடாவுக்குக் குடிபெயர்ந்து, டொரண்டோவை மையமாகக் கொண்டு இயங்கி வருகிறார். கனடாவில் குடியேறினாலும்கூட இந்தியா மீதும், இந்தியக் கதைகள் மீதும் பெரும் பிடிப்பு கொண்டவர். அவரது படங்களே இதற்கு அத்தாட்சி.

முதல் அரும்பு

அவருடைய முதல் சினிமா ‘சாம் அண்ட் மீ' 1991-ல் வெளியானது. முதல் படமே, உலகப் புகழ்பெற்ற கான் (Cannes) திரைப்பட விழாவில் ‘மதிப்புமிக்க படம்' என்ற கவுரவத்தைப் பெற்றது. ஒரு முஸ்லிம் சிறுவன், ஒரு முதிய யூதர் என முரண்பட்ட இருவருக்கு இடையிலான சிக்கலான நட்பு பற்றிய கதை.

முக்கியப் படைப்புகள்

ஐம்பூதங்கள் எனும் கருத்தாக்கத்தின் அடிப்படையில் அவர் எடுத்த முதல் படம் ‘ஃபயர்'. பாலுறவில் நிலவும் அரசியலைப் பேசியது. திருமணத்தால் திருப்தியடையாத இரண்டு பெண்கள் இடையிலான தன்பாலின உறவு (லெஸ்பியன்) பற்றிய கதை. காலங்காலமாக நம்மிடையே இருந்துவரும் விஷயத்தைப் பேசுபொருளாக்கியது.

இந்து அடிப்படைவாதிகளின் எதிர்ப்பு, தணிக்கை பிரச்சினை, திரையரங்குகள் மீது தாக்குதல் போன்ற சர்ச்சைகள் இப்படத்துக்கு எதிராக எழுந்தன. பெண்களுக்கான பாலியல் உரிமைகளைப் பற்றி பேசியதே காரணம். தடை கோரப்பட்ட இந்தப் படம், தணிக்கை கத்தரியில் தப்பி பின்னர் வெளியானது.

ஐம்பூதக் கொள்கையின் இரண்டாவது படமான ‘எர்த்’ (1998), நிலத்தின் அரசியலைப் பேசியது. நாட்டின் எல்லைப் பகுதிகளில் காலத்தால் அழிக்க முடியாத வடுவை ஏற்படுத்திய ‘இந்தியா-பாகிஸ்தான் பிரிவினை' பற்றி, எழுத்தாளர் பாப்சி சித்வா எழுதிய ‘கிராக்கிங் இந்தியா' நாவலின் தழுவலே இந்தப் படம்.

ஐம்பூதக் கொள்கையின் மூன்றாவது படம், ‘வாட்டர்'. இதை தீபா மேத்தாவின் ஆகச் சிறந்த படம் எனலாம். எட்டு வயது சிறுமி விதவையாக்கப்பட்டு, எஞ்சிய காலம் முழுவதும் விதவைகள் இல்லத்தில் வாழத் துரத்தப்படும் மனதை உலுக்கும் கதை.

மதத்தின் அரசியலைப் பேசியது. இந்தப் படத்தை எடுக்கவிடாமல் கலவரத்தைத் தூண்டிவிட்டது, வாராணசியில் சினிமா செட்டை எரித்தது, இயக்குநர்- நடிகர்களுக்கு எதிராகக் கொலை மிரட்டல் விடுத்தது போன்ற செயல்பாடுகளில் இந்து அடிப்படைவாதிகள் வரிந்துகட்டிக் கொண்டு இறங்கினார்கள். படப்பிடிப்பு நிறுத்தப்பட்டது.

நான்கு ஆண்டுகளுக்குப் பிறகு, இலங்கையில் எடுக்கப்பட்டு வெளியானது. 2006-ல் ஆஸ்கர் சிறந்த வெளிநாட்டு படப் பிரிவுக்கு இந்தியாவிலிருந்து அனுப்பப்பட்ட கவுரவத்தைப் பெற்றது.

தனித்தன்மை

தனது 30 ஆண்டு திரை வாழ்வில் சகிப்புத்தன்மை இல்லாமை, பண்பாட்டு ஒடுக்குமுறை, குடும்ப வன்முறை போன்ற நமது சமூகத்தின் சர்ச்சைக்குரிய பிரச்சினைகளைப் பற்றிய திரைப்படங்களையே தீபா எடுத்து வருகிறார். சிக்கலான, எளிதில் பிரச்சினைகளாகிவிடக்கூடிய கதைகளைத் தேர்ந்தெடுப்பதற்குப் பயப்படாதவர்.

தெரியுமா?


இவருடைய அப்பா ஒரு திரைப்பட விநியோகஸ்தர். சுயமாக சினிமா எடுக்க ஆரம்பிப்பதற்கு முன், குழந்தைகள் சினிமாக்களுக்குத் திரைக்கதை எழுதியுள்ளார். 2012-ம் ஆண்டில் கனடா கவர்னர் ஜெனரலின் சினிமாவுக்கான நிகழ்த்து கலை விருதைப் பெற்றிருக்கிறார்.

THE ACADEMY AWARD-NOMINATED FILMMAKER DIVES DEEP ON FEMINISM, WORLD DIVIDE, AND THE STATE OF THE CANADIAN FILM INDUSTRY.
WRITTEN BY CHRISTINA GONZALES
PHOTOGRAPHY BY JANICK LAURENT
HAIR & MAKE-UP BY TASHINGA CHAUMA

Deepa Mehta just wants to be in her jeans. The Oscar-nominated director and one of the foremost women in Canadian film feels at home during our interview where she can dissect her curiosity. In front of the camera, she’s polite, striking, and receptive, but eager for it to end. Mehta’s used to being on the other side of the viewfinder.

On her own sets, she’s commanding. She runs the show. “I’m really aware that it’s my set,” she says. After all, Mehta grew up in a household with parents who taught her that what she could have - as a girl growing up 1950s India - was virtually limitless.

Her progressive upbringing was a stark contrast to the idea that most girls in India should be subservient to men. From girls being married off as children to ancient customs like sati, where a woman commits suicide as result of her husband’s death - these rituals lingered in the consciousness of the nation, reiterating a narrative that stated women are not independent, they are owned.  

As a young child, Mehta was observant. She wondered why her mother was treated with careful respect in her own home, while others were belittled in theirs. Why was dignity a right afforded only to some women? Why was it circumstantial?

The wicked duality of the world revealed itself early on in her childhood -- an imprint that would manifest itself into of one of the most celebrated, fearless, and thought-provoking Indo-Canadian filmmakers of the 21st century.

At a time when conversations surrounding women’s rights, immigration, and racial relations has reached a tipping point, Mehta is a resounding artist who, by way of her films, urges viewers to look inward.

Through Fire (1996), Water (2005), and Heaven on Earth (2008), Mehta forces us to face ingrained misogyny. In Earth, an account of a group of friends divided by India’s partition (2017 marks its 70th anniversary), Mehta examines the Pakistani-Indian divide and its resulting wounds with a rawness that no other filmmaker has achieved. The message is clear: Although we’re not one, we still share the same scars.

In her latest movie, Anatomy of Violence (2016), she’s just as forthright: What role does society play in making a rapist? The question forces us to confess our collective sins.

Whether Mehta’s message is inherently political doesn’t matter. “All art is political,” she says.

HOME
Initiating hard conversations comes at a cost. Water, the third movie in Mehta’s elemental trilogy (which includes Fire and Earth) is an agonizing story about institutionalized Hindu widows who are shunned and depraved. It’s told through the eyes of an eight-year-old widowed child. The mere script made Hindu fundamentalists seethe.

Production was halted in the holy city of Varanasi after extremist mobs appeared on the second day of filming: they lit the set aflame, threw its shatters into the Ganges, and accused Mehta of being anti-Hindu for shedding light on subject matter deemed derogatory to Indian women. Those acts were the ones that were inherently political, she maintains.

It was on the flight back to Toronto from India after shutting down Water (the film was eventually completed in Sri Lanka), when she felt a new sense relief - she was finally heading home.

But what does “home” mean?

Mehta arrived in Canada in 1973. Her 1991 directorial debut, Sam and Me, was a thematic depiction of her immigrant experience: The story of a young Indian man who moves to Toronto in the '90s. He ends up being a caretaker to an old Jewish man who also longs for the idea home. “Does it ever leave us?” she asks. It took her another decade after Sam and Me to realize that she could have two homes.

Closed-border politics makes the idea of “home” a contentious topic in today’s larger social dialogue. Home can mean one’s origins; where they were born and the language they speak. But it can also be a place that provides oneself with their core necessities - clean water, shelter, access to healthcare. Just ask the 46,000 Syrian refugees who entered Canada in 2016. For them, the idea of home isn’t so clear-cut.

EDIT_BSB-METHA_W26091701-v3.jpg
“A desire for safety for yourself or your children is so palpable,” Mehta says. Protection and wellbeing satisfy her notion of home. During the 1947 partition of India, 12 million people lost their homes. Displacement is etched into her psyche. It’s what makes people vulnerable, she says, and it takes on many forms, whether it’s a war-induced migration crisis or an arranged marriage.

Of her films, Heaven on Earth is one of her favourites. It’s centred around a Punjabi girl who immigrates to Canada and finds herself victim to domestic violence after she marries a man she’s never met. “You don’t have your mom, you don’t have your sisters, you don’t have your friends, and you’re unfamiliar with the land,” Mehta says.

Strip a woman of her network and she’s defenceless, even in her so-called home.

THE GREAT DIVIDE

Women, first and foremost, are the focus of Mehta’s films - the world through their eyes. The context of her films are Eastern, but try and insinuate that the subject matter only pertains to gender politics in the East and one misses the point. Mehta’s stories are universal.

“You’re talking about eons of teachings and behaviour patterns, which [suggest] that a woman is easy prey and belongs to a man,” Mehta explains. “That’s the inequality.”  Gender disparity, she says, isn’t just an Eastern problem. It’s global and far-reaching, affecting women everywhere. The Fox News scandal, Harvard rape case, and, most recently, sexual assault allegations towards Hollywood titan, Harvey Weinstein, are some highly publicized examples.

Less publicized is the way in which women, even in the Western world, carry most of the burden when it comes to household duties. (According to a 2015 Statistics Canada, women spend 50 percent more of their time doing chores at home than men.)

“How do we begin to fix it?” I ask. She bluntly tells me what her family imparted to her on feminism: “No one told me to go to a cooking class.”

Sometimes, it’s not as explicit as getting paid millions of dollars less than your male counterpart in a Hollywood production, a discussion that’s at the forefront of the global film industry, and spearheaded by Hollywood heavyweights like Jennifer Lawrence and Patty Jenkins who, earlier this year, brought in the biggest domestic box-office opening of all time for a female director for Wonder Woman. In Mehta’s films, the female lead gets paid the same as the man. And if there’s no male lead, her lead actress makes significantly more than the other actors.

Sometimes, Mehta says, it’s as simple as raising sons who don’t believe that they’re more privileged, or better at doing certain tasks, solely based on their gender. Breaking deep-seated social norms starts in the home with the stories we tell our children.

Perhaps it’s okay for a daughter to help her dad with lifting wood and nailing the shed, and okay for a son to help cook and serve dinner. Ultimately, Mehta realized early on that every opportunity boys had, she should have too. That included making films.

THE “OTHER”
Through film, Mehta’s able to challenge gender inequality, whether it stems from out-dated traditions or world leaders. Misogyny is normalizing, and it’s because of Trump, she says. The fact that more Caucasian women over the age of 30 voted for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton still perplexes her.

“How can you respect somebody who talks about ‘grabbing pussies’?” She declares.

Meanwhile, someone as brilliant as Angela Merkel lost 33 percent of votes in Germany’s recent election to the alt-right. “Are we becoming Neo-nazis, all of us?” Mehta reveals herself with questions.

Division among genders, races, sexualities, and countries is at an all-time high. She’s attuned to it.

“Everyone’s feeling angry. Everyone’s been done in. When you look at Indigenous people and you look at their history, it’s a horrific story,” Mehta says. “You look at what happened with slavery in the United States, and what continues to happen to African-Americans, it’s terrible. You think of Holocaust and the Jews, it’s terrible. You think of the partition of India and the colonization of the world by the British, French, and Dutch - half the world was slaves.” She could go on, but halts: “I think all of that history brings us to this point.”

There always has to be an “other.” There always has to be an enemy. We fight, but the scars are all the same - she tried to tell us this with Earth.

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Human conflict is cyclical, and they provide Mehta with the base for her work: Currently, she’s knee-deep in a film based on the semi-autobiographical novel Funny Boy, written by Sri Lankan-Canadian author Shyam Selvadurai. It’s set to come out at the end of the 2018.

Arjie is the protagonist, who comes to terms with being a homosexual male against the backdrop of the civil war between the Tamils and Sri Lankans. People around him make fun of his feminine qualities and call him a “funny boy.”

Conflict always starts with the idea that that someone is different or unlike us. Whether “otherness” is a threat to one’s identity is a psychologist’s work. Mehta begs the question: Aren’t we all the same?

LEAVING A LEGACY
There’s a major problem that Mehta has with Canadian film. It’s that Canada calls itself a diverse and multi-cultural country, yet filmmakers aren’t granted access to funds from government bodies unless the movie is made in English, French, or an Aboriginal language.

“If you’ve come from Syria, and you want to make a film on what the experience was like crossing into Turkey, and you want to do it in Arabic, you will not get money,” she explains.

So filmmakers concede and make their movies in English. “The minute you compromise your language, that’s the minute you compromise the content of your film,” Mehta says. “I can’t imagine making Water in English. It would be ridiculous.” The integrity of her films is a non-negotiable.

Cameron Bailey, a colleague of Mehta’s and the creative director of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), agrees that the funding structure for Canadian films needs to change. “[It] was designed decades ago,” he explains. “Before you saw filmmakers like Deepa Mehta making films in India, in Indian languages, or Albert Shin, a Canadian filmmaker making films in Korea, in Korean language, or Lena Rodriguez in Colombia, [making films] in Spanish. This is part of Canadian cinema now.”

Recently, TIFF launched Share Her Journey, a five-year commitment to increase participation and opportunities for Canadian women behind and in front of the camera. Mehta is one of the campaign ambassadors.

“With all of the success [Deepa’s] had and all of the access that she now has as a filmmaker, she’s still really in the trenches,” Bailey says. “She identifies as an independent filmmaker, she’s aware of the barriers that are currently in place for women who are independent filmmakers, and she’s doing everything she can to help.”

Mehta lists off a number of young Canadian filmmakers she admires: Atom Egoyan, Patricia Rozema, Federica Foglia. She tells me about Salar Pashtoonyar, a filmmaker and refugee from Afghanistan who lived in a Pakistani refugee camp with his mother and four sisters before he came to Canada. Pashtoonyar just released his first drama, which was filmed in Pashtu, and shot in a women’s prison in Afghanistan. Is he going to get funding? Likely not. The thought rattles her core.

If she can leave a legacy that allows for young filmmakers, storytellers, and writers to be able to make Canadian films in the language of their own choice, then she’ll be satisfied, she tells me. Until then, the work doesn’t stop.

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From left: Water (2005), Fire (1996), Earth (1998), Midnight's Children (2012), Heaven on Earth (2008), Beeba Boys (2005), Anatomy of Violence (2016)

***

The photographer is asking Mehta to move around her churidar kameez, an Indian garb. “Can we try a few shots without it?” He asks. “No,” she answers. “It’s traditional.” She’s not rude, nor bothered, only sure.

When I ask her who she surrounds herself with, she tells me that like most artists, she’s a loner by nature. Surely there’s some glitz she can share about filmmaking, so I push further: “Did being nominated for an Academy Award change things for you?” She shrugs. The look on her face is indifference.

It’s not like she’s ungrateful for the recognition and for the opportunities, she says. “It was wonderful, it was lovely, but it doesn’t change.” She confirms. The benchmark for Mehta’s projects have always been what moves her.

And what moves her and peaks her curiosity are stories that are from home, with themes that are universal. Stories that nudge viewers to be more introspective: the struggles and tenacity of women, the pain caused by divide, the war against the other.

When she looks at the shots of her portraits in the viewfinder, Mehta knows what she likes. The photographer succumbs to her. Mehta’s decisive. She runs the show.


ART, CULTURE