 | Deepa Mehta's film, "Water," which will open in theaters nationwide on April 28, will be screeened on campus on April 17. |
The South Asian Studies Council at the Yale Center for International and Area Studies will screen the film "Water," directed by Deepa Mehta, on Monday, April 17, at the Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall St.
Set in the 1930s, the film deals with India's road to independence and examines the plight of impoverished widows at a temple in Varanasi, India. "Water" will open in U.S. theaters on April 28.
The screening will be followed by a panel discussion at 5:30 p.m. with Mehta, writer Bapsi Sidhwa, who novelized the film, and daughter Devyani Saltzman, author of "Shooting Water." The panel will be moderated by Professor Sara Suleri Goodyear of Yale. The screening and panel, both free and open to the public, are sponsored by the Departments of English, Film Studies, Women and Gender Studies and Comparative Literature.
"The panel will be a unique opportunity to discover the multiple creativities and controversies involved in making the beautiful film 'Water,'" said Goodyear, professor of English, "Understanding the transitions of the Indian colonial period has never been more relevant to the modern world."
Set in colonial India during Mahatma Gandhi's rise to power, "Water" begins when 8-year-old Chuyia is widowed and sent to a home where Hindu widows must live in penitence. Chuyia's feisty presence deeply affects the lives of the other residents, including a young widow, who falls for a Gandhian idealist.
"This exciting event is a culmination of our semester-long explorations of modern cinema and documentary films to understand the subcontinent," says Dhooleka Sarhadi Raj, associate chair of the South Asian Studies Council. "Film is simultaneously an art form that communicates, transports and questions the status quo. Given the interest in South Asia, we have been delighted at the enthusiastic campus-wide response to the Council's lecture series on Bollywood and religion and politics in South Asia."
Mehta began her cinematic career producing documentaries and writing scripts for children's films. In 1991, Mehta produced and directed her first feature film "Sam & Me," a story about an unlikely friendship between two outcasts who form a deep bond despite the fact that neither is welcome in the other's world. Mehta's other works include the trilogy composed of "Fire," which is about the politics of sexuality; "Earth," which focuses on the politics of nationalism; and "Water," which deals with the politics of religion.
T H I S
India's road to independence is
topic of film, panel discussion
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