Product:STAR Date:02-16-2007Desk: ENT-0008-CMYK/15-02-07/20:53:20

COMPOSITECMYKD8 FRIDAY ON FR0 !FR0 160207ON D 008Q!D8 H TORONTO STAR H FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2007

Opening Today

PRITHI YELAJASTAFF REPORTER

Shonali Bose’s film garners crit-ical acclaim at the Toronto filmfestival in 2005. Then the Berlinfilm festival. And after packingtheatres for three months in In-dia, it wins the National Awardfor best picture. Fade out.

Fade in. Despite the buzz cre-ated by Amu — a movie aboutthe 1984 riots in New Delhi,where thousands of Sikhs werekilled in retaliation for the as-sassination of Prime MinisterIndira Gandhi by her Sikh body-guards — Bose can’t find a Cana-dian distributor.

“We had high hopes it wouldget picked up because it was sowell-received. It had been such astruggle to get the film made, wethought, ‘We can’t give up now’,”said Kolkata-born Bose, 42, whois based in Los Angeles.

With the help of cabbies in To-ronto and Vancouver, theydidn’t.

She and husband BedabrataPain, the film’s producer, be-lieved so fiercely in the movie’smessage that they decided to re-lease it themselves.

Amu opens today in theatres inToronto, Vancouver and Mon-treal, and in April in the U.S.,where a distributor has picked itup.

Bose made three trips to To-ronto and Vancouver last year toraise money for the Canadianrelease, including hosting ra-diothons on Punjabi shows andmeeting with Sikh communityleaders, particularly the OntarioSikh Gurdwara Council.

“I’m indebted to them becausethey were the organizing forcebehind the grassroots fundrais-ing effort,” said Bose.

“Really, this film is releasingbecause of the taxi drivers of To-ronto and Vancouver,” she said.Hundreds of them had not yetseen the movie but donated $50,$100 or $200 each, said Bose.

“It was so moving. I literallyfelt like crying over the love andsupport of ordinary people. Insmall increments we raised$50,000 in Toronto and$20,000 in Vancouver, whichwas just barely enough to makeour prints, book our theatres(five in Toronto, two in Vancou-ver and one in Montreal) and dothe bare minimum advertising.”

The movie is in English, butthe Woodbine cinema in Etob-

icoke will run it dubbed in Hindi(India’s official federal lan-guage), something Bose pro-duced especially for the Punjabicommunity here.

“I got such an overwhelmingresponse from them. They hadraised most of the money, butthey said they couldn’t followthe English, so I dubbed it inHindi last year.”

A typical response was that ofthe woman sitting beside Boseat a preview screening in Toron-to this week.

Bose asked: “What did youthink? I’m the one who made it.”

“She just grabbed me andsquished me to her bosom andstarted howling.”

Persuading Indian televisionto show the film is a tougherfight. Government censorsthere wanted to cut 15 minutes,essentially every mention of theriots. Bose and Pain refused.

“We were not going to show iton TV butchered like that. It’s

worst than banning. What ismind-blowing, it’s been 23 yearsand they still want it coveredup,” Bose said.

Though the plot of Amu is fic-tional, it is inspired by true sto-ries Bose came across when sheworked in relief camps in Delhiafter the riots, incidents of whatshe calls “state terrorism.”

“Nineteen eight-four is notabout the past. It’s about thepresent, because it brought intoIndia a brand of politics wherethose who are in power couldorganize such a massacre andget away with it. In spite of nu-merous commissions of inquiry,nobody has been punished.”

In 2005, after the ninth inqui-ry, government minister Jag-dish Tytler was forced to resign,though he is still a member ofparliament.

Amu is not anti-India, Bose in-sists. “Until we deal with thisopenly, it is an open wound. In-dia can never be shining or move

ahead if we don’t come to termswith it.

“It was not an issue of Hindu/Sikh hatred. I was an eyewit-ness. I lived through it. All Iheard were stories of courage —how Hindu neighbours hidSikhs to save them. India is shin-ing in the strength and beautyand courage of its people,whereas you have those in pow-er who can carry out and getaway with massacres.”

The issue is one for all Indians,not just Sikhs, said Pain, a NASAscientist whose $50,000 (U.S.)royalty cheque for imaging tech-nology he invented providedseed money for the movie.

“We are Bengalis. We madethis film because we feel for thisissue, as any Indian should, be-cause it’s Indian blood that hasbeen spilled and Indians’ rightsthat have been violated. Everycondition exists today for a sim-ilar massacre to happen, so longas injustice carries on.”

Cabbies a driving force

STUART NIMMO/TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO

Shonali Bose and her husband, producer Bedabrata Pain, brought Amu to the Toronto International FilmFestival in 2005 for its North American premiere. Local cabbies helped it get into theatres today.

Support fromCanada’s Punjabishelps film on 1984New Delhi riots get released here

SUSAN WALKERENTERTAINMENT REPORTER

Within hours of the death ofPrime Minister Indira Gandhion Oct. 31, 1984, maraudinggangs of armed men swiftlysought revenge.

Her Sikh bodyguards wereblamed for the assassination,and in remarkably short orderthe avengers located Sikhhouseholds in New Delhi andburned or slaughtered their in-nocent inhabitants.

As panic swept through theslums where many Sikhs lived,police and politicians stood by,denying help to stricken citizensand doing nothing to stop therampage. The death toll inDelhirose to 5,000; thousands morewere injured.

With her film Amu, directorShonali Bose hoped to do whatnumerous inquiries have failedto: tell the story of the massacreto the world and obtain justiceand reparation for the familiesof the dead and injured victims.

A film so heavily freighted witha political purpose might nothave succeeded in raisingawareness were it not so well-constructed. Bose was a 19-year-old student in Delhi at thetime of the assassination andsubsequent massacre. Sheworked in the relief camps that

were set up afterwards and oneof her jobs was writing post-cards for widows who were in-forming their relatives of thehorrors they had survived.

She subsequently moved toNew York, earning a degree atColumbia and then enrolling infilm school at UCLA. Her vividmemories of what she had seenand heard in 1984 are there tosee on the screen in a first fea-ture that is as psychologicallytrue as it is politically charged.

Kaju (Konkona Sen Sharma) isan American, a recent universi-ty graduate who has travelled toIndia to acquaint herself withthe country where she was born.Her mother, Keya, is opposed tothe journey, but independent-minded Kaju has gone anyway,ensconcing herself with hermother’s family in Delhi.

As her sightseeing trips take

her around the city, Kaju issometimes overcome with anunpleasant feeling associatedwith particular locations, as ifshe had been there before. Butin the village where she was toldshe lived until the age of 3, sheremembers nothing. She’sadopted, Kaju tells Kabir, a stu-dent from a privileged familywho initially takes Kaju for aspoiled, materialistic American.

After Kaju’s mother makessurprise visit to India, Kaju be-gins to question her about heradoption. She’s been told thather family was wiped out in amalaria epidemic, but throughKabir’s father, a government of-ficial, Kaju finds out that therewas no outbreak. She knowsnothing of her years in India.

“Whenever I try to talk to herabout it,” she says of Keya, “thiswall comes down.” Inevitably,

Kaju goes looking for her birthparents, enlisting Kabir to helpher.

Keya’s silence is a metaphorfor the official silence that hassurrounded the violence ofthose few days in 1984. Kabirgrows interested in the massa-cre after he and Kaju meet peo-ple who lost relatives in thebloodshed. His parents arestrangely reluctant to discussthe subject and wary of his in-terest in it.

Bose cast her own aunt, BrindaKarat, as Keya. Never havingacted in films before, Karat, aleading woman’s activist andmember of the central commit-tee of the Communist Party ofIndia, slips naturally into herrole. She plays a civil rightsworker and single mother whoapparently sacrificed a romancein India when she moved to theU.S.

Konkona Sen Sharma, whowas named best actress in Indiain 2003, does amazingly well inher performance of a 21-year-old American. Ankur Khannalooks a bit too weak for his partas Kabir, but a typical Bollywoodleading man was not called for inthis role.

Bose embeds her history les-son in a drama with authenticemotional mother-daughterconflict. As Kaju finds out thetruth about her past, and herconnection to a story that hasbeen suppressed, she is drawncloser to her mother. At thesame time, this fictional ac-count tells a truth about howmass violence and hatred leavescars that future generationsmust bear.

Konkona Sen Sharma plays Kaju, an American who travels to India against her mother’s wishes to learn about where she was born.

A politically charged lessonAmu

O O O (out of 4)Starring Konkona Sen Sharma, Brin-da Karat and Ankur Khanna. Writtenand directed by Shonali Bose. 102minutes. At Carlton, Empire at Em-press Walk, Kennedy Commons andRainbow Woodbine. PG

WINNER

NATIONAL AWARD INDIA

2005

WINNER

FIPRESCICritics Award

2005

OFFICIAL SELECTION

BERLINFILM FESTIVAL

2005

OFFICIAL SELECTION

AFIFILM FESTIVAL

2005

OFFICIAL SELECTION

TORONTOFILM FESTIVAL

2005

WWW.AMUTHEFILM.COM

jonai productions PRESENTS a film by shonali bose

“I absolutely love AMU.A thoughtful and

important film with auniversal theme.

AMU should be seen.”Deepa Mehta

“Boldly rips away a tapestry of lies and cover ups...afirst rate detective story.” Hollywood Reporter

The Director/Producer will be doing Q&A's throughout the weekend at various theatres.

STARTS TODAY!4:30, 7:00, 9:30. SAT/SUN MATS at 1:30 1:00, 4:00, 7:00, 10:00 1:00, 4:00, 7:00, 9:40

12:45, 2:50, 4:50, 7:00, 9:10

IN HINDI

4:30, 7:00, 9:45. FRI MAT at 2SAT/SUN MATS at 11:30, 2:00 ✷ DIGITAL SOUND

CINEPLEX ENTERTAINMENTCARLTON CINEMAS ✷

AMC THEATRESKENNEDY COMMONS 20 ✷

EMPIRE THEATRESEMPRESS WALK NORTH YORK ✷

EMPIRE THEATRESSTUDIO 10 @ SQUARE ONE ✷

RAINBOW CINEMASWOODBINE ✷

MATURE THEME

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AMC THEATRESINTERCHANGE 30 ✷

A FILM BY VIC SARIN

www.partitionthemovie.ca www.sevillepictures.com

TWOFAITHS. TWOWORLDS. ONELOVE.TWOFAITHS. TWOWORLDS. ONELOVE.

“SWEEPING EPIC.Partition is a labour of love.”

-Liz Braun, The Toronto Sun

“Captures the unfathomable contrasts of India.”-Susan Walker, Toronto Star

“Kreuk and Mistry areoutrageously beautiful.”

-Alison Gilmour, Winnipeg Free Press

“Kreuk and Mistry areoutrageously beautiful.”

-Alison Gilmour, Winnipeg Free Press

www.maplepictures.com

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