Shooting Water: A Mother-daughter Journey and the Making of a Film [Mar 01, 2006] Saltzman, Devyani - Softcover

Devyani Saltzman

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0144001020 ISBN 13: 9780144001026

Publisher: Newmarket, 2006

Synopsis

Spanning three continents and four countries, shooting water is a remarkable story of love and redemption in february 2000, devyani saltzman, daughter of international award-winning film-maker deepa mehta, travelled to benares to work with her mother on water, the final film of the elements trilogy after fire and earth since her parents’ divorce when she was eleven years old, devyani had spent her life navigating between two religions, two traditions, two cultures, and two people belonging to both and to neither at once water would be mother and daughter’s second chance but after only a week of shooting, the film about the oppression of hindu widows became the target of a series of politically motivated attacks by hindu fundamentalists protestors destroyed the sets, burned effigies of deepa, and made threats on her life water was shut down what began as a journey to heal deep wounds from the past turned into a five-year odyssey to complete a film (as it turned out, the odyssey woul

About this title

About the Author:

Devyani Saltzman received a degree in Human Sciences at Oxford University. She grew up on film and television sets, and was the recipient of the Young Professionals International Internship grant to work on a feature-length documentary in India. She works as a photojournalist and freelance writer, and is based in Toronto, Canada. Deepa Mehta is the acclaimed director of Camilla, Fire, Earth, Bollywood Hollywood, and The Republic of Love. Born in India, she currently resides with her husband, producer David Hamilton, in Canada.

From Publishers Weekly:

Starred Review. Saltzman's mother, Deepa Mehta, is a filmmaker who attempts to shoot the final installment of her trilogy, Water (after Fire and Earth), in India. In 1999, the author, then 19, accompanies her mother to work as a third assistant cameraperson. A series of politically motivated attacks shut down the film's production. Four years later, shooting restarts in Sri Lanka, with Saltzman onboard as a still photographer. With the film's production as a backdrop, Canadian Saltzman delves into her past. When she was 11, her father, a Jewish Ukrainian, and her mother, a [Hindu] Indian, divorced. Saltzman was forced to choose with whom she would live. Picking her father, she created a rift with her mother that would take more than a decade to repair: "most of our relationship had to be reconstructed through fragmented pieces of memory, like shards of glass, some reflecting light, others opening deep wounds." Saltzman longs for stability, which she discovers in the world of film. "Film was my second language, even before Hindi.... It was the common culture both my parents had raised me in, beyond being Jewish or Indian." Saltzman never loses any of the threads she delicately weaves together, creating a lush, evocative memoir that is emotional but never cloying. (Apr.)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Newmarket
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0144001020
• ISBN 13: 9780144001026
• Binding: Paperback