Reeling in International Acclaim
The New Yorker Magazine reviewed her most recent film, claiming that Earth (1999) “... has an urgency and narrative economy like Casablanca” and that it was reinforced by “hypnotic score” and “passionate cinematography.” Deepa Mehta’s Hindu parents hailed from Lahore, now a major city in Pakistan, but before the 1947 Partition, a major city in northwest India. Born, Amritsar, India, 1950, Deepa Mehta received a degree in Philosophy from the University of New Delhi before beginning her cinematic career writing scripts for children’s films. At 23 years, Deepa immigrated to Canada. Her first feature film, Sam & Me, won Honourable Mention in the Prestigious Camera D’Or Category, 1991, Cannes Film Festival. She directed, 1992, a one-hour episode of the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles for ABC Television. Produced by George Lucas, the “Benares” episode was filmed on location in India. Camilla, her second feature film, 1993, starred the late Jessica Tandy, in addition to Bridget Fonda, Graham Greene, and Hume Cronyn. Fire, 1997, first of a trilogy, was launched at the Toronto International Film Festival, 1997, where it tied for the Air Canada People’s Choice Award. It was one of 29 films selected from over 1,400 films for the New York Film Festival that same year. Fire has been sold to more than 30 countries worldwide. The impressive second film in the trilogy, Earth, received a standing ovation when it was launched at the Toronto Film Festival, 1998. It won the Prix Premiere du Publique at the Festival du film Asiatique de Deauville, France, March 1999. The New York Times calls Earth a film “bathed in a deep golden light that recalls the orange sky ... in Gone With the Wind during the burning of Atlanta.” Deepa Mehta, who divides her time between Toronto, her home base, and Delhi, is currently completing the final episode of her trilogy, a production called Water which explores the human condition in the India of the 1930s, an area, today, inhabited by more than one billion people. [Photo, courtesy Dilip Mehta, Contact Press Images]