In a wide-ranging conversation at the Singapore International Film Festival, acclaimed filmmaker Deepa Mehta reflected on her decades-long career, the controversies that have shadowed her most celebrated works, and her unwavering commitment to independent filmmaking.
Mehta was speaking with longtime collaborator Hussain Amarshi, head of Mongrel Media, which has distributed her films. She will receive a lifetime achievement honor from the festival, capping a year of retrospectives and accolades for the director known for her groundbreaking “Elements” trilogy.
“For the first time these days, I’ve stopped being critical of all my work,” Mehta told the audience. “It’s not that I’m proud of it. I like it, which makes me feel good.”
Her father, a film distributor in India, gave her advice that has guided her career: “There are two things in life. One is you’ll never know when you’ll die, and the other is you’ll never know how a film will be accepted.”
After moving to Canada, Mehta’s 1991 feature debut “Sam & Me,” co-written with Ranjit Chowdhry, drew from her immigrant experience. The film’s success at Cannes opened doors, including a call from George Lucas, who hired her to direct an India-set episode of “The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.”
Despite Hollywood offers and working with Jessica Tandy on “Camilla,” Mehta chose independence. Martin Scorsese reinforced her decision at the Marrakesh Film Festival. “He said, ‘Don’t ever get tempted. Do your own stuff,’” she recalled.
In 1996, Mehta wrote and directed “Fire,” depicting a same-sex relationship between two women in an Indian household, which became the first Indian film to deal explicitly with lesbian relationships.
She had no idea the film would spark outrage. When it was released, theaters in Delhi were burned, and protests erupted across India with demonstrators insisting “there are no lesbians in India.” But a counter-protest moved her deeply. “As far as the eye could see, there were people, mostly women, carrying placards that said, ‘We are lesbians and we are Indians.’ And I thought, ‘How wonderful.’”
Following “Fire” and “Earth” (1998), which became India’s Oscar submission, Mehta embarked on “Water” in 2000. The film about widows in 1930s India faced even more severe opposition.
While location scouting in Varanasi for Lucas’s “Young Indiana Jones,” Mehta had encountered an elderly widow and followed her to a house full of widows — women of all ages with shaven heads wearing white sarees. “I’ve never seen a house of widows before, so that’s what inspired me to do water,” she said.
On the second day of shooting, with Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das already having shaved their heads for their roles, demonstrations erupted. Sets were thrown into the river and burned. Effigies of Mehta were set ablaze. Death threats followed. The police forced the production to shut down.
The experience fundamentally changed her relationship with her birthplace. On the Air France flight back to Toronto, “I put the seatbelt on and for the first time, I felt maybe I’m going home. I never thought of Canada as home till then.”
Five years later, after her anger had dissipated, she remade “Water” in Sri Lanka. The film opened the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival, became Canada’s Oscar submission, and received an Academy Award nomination for best foreign language film, as the international category was known then.
Mehta revealed that every script she’s written has been produced — a remarkable achievement in the film industry. She attributes much of her success to workshopping films extensively before shooting, a technique based on the ancient Indian Natya Shastra performance texts.
“For two weeks or 10 days of workshopping really helps me, because when you see the various ways it can be enacted, you understand what works for you,” she explained.
Mehta’s next project is “Forgiveness,” based on Mark Sakamoto’s book about Japanese-Canadian citizens sent to internment camps during World War II while Sakamoto’s white Canadian grandfather became a prisoner of war in Japan. “It’s about, can we ever forgive what has happened to us, and why is it so difficult?” she said.
Reflecting on the current state of cinema, she expressed concern about political pressures in Hollywood and Bollywood. “The climate of films is really changing,” she observed. “We are compromised before we start.”
But she remains hopeful about independent filmmaking. “I think best is to make small independent films,” she advised young filmmakers. “Write your own story. Find the right way to tell the story within a budget that is feasible. Independence, independence, absolutely independence, especially when you’re starting out.”
Mehta cited influences including Satyajit Ray, Kurosawa Akira, and recently discovered Masaki Kobayashi’s “Harakiri” (1962) and Vinod Kapri’s Indian independent film “Pyre.”
When asked about labels of controversy that have followed her work, Mehta pushed back. “I don’t think that way. Controversy is something that I’ve been labeled with, and I have to live with.”
Her father’s wisdom continues to guide her. “You will never know how a filmmaker will be received,” she reflected. “To even think that way isn’t the way I perceive life or live it.”
On questions of national identity, Mehta cited M.G. Vassanji’s book “Nostalgia.” “I really do believe that if I belong anywhere, it’s to myself,” she said. “So that’s my home.”
