| Deepa Mehta | |
|---|---|
| Born | January 1, 1950 Amritsar, India |
| Occupation | Film director Screenwriter Film producer |
| Years active | 1976 - Present |
| Spouse | Paul Saltzman (1973–1983)[1] David Hamilton (present) |
Deepa Mehta, LLD (Hindi: दीपा मेहता) (born 1 January 1950 in Amritsar, Punjab, India)[2] is a Genie Award-winning Indian-born Canadian film director and screenwriter, most known for her Elements Trilogy, Fire (1996), Earth (1998), and Water (2005), among which Earth was submitted by Indian government for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. She also co-founded Hamilton-Mehta Productions, with her husband, producer David Hamilton in 1996.
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Mehta was born in Amritsar in Punjab, India, though her family moved to New Delhi while she was still a child, and her father worked as a film distributor.[1] Subsequently, Mehta attended Welham Girls High School, a boarding school for girls in Dehradun [3] and graduated from the University of Delhi with a degree in philosophy.[4]
After completing her graduation, Mehta started making short documentaries in India, and in time she met Canadian documentarian Paul Saltzman, who was in India making a film, whom she was to later marry and migrating with to Canada in 1973. Once in Canada, she embarked on her film career as a screenwriter for children's films, she also made a few documentaries including,At 99: A Portrait of Louise Tandy Murch (1975).[1] In 1991 she made her feature-film directorial debut with Sam & Me (starring Om Puri), a story of the relationship between a young Indian boy and an elderly Jewish gentleman in the Toronto neighbourhood of Parkdale. It won Honorable Mention in the Camera d'Or category of the 1991 Cannes Film Festival. Mehta followed up with Camilla starring Bridget Fonda and Jessica Tandy in 1994. In 2002, she directed Bollywood/Hollywood, for which she won the Genie Award for Best Original Screenplay.
Mehta directed two episodes of George Lucas' television series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. The first episode, "Benares, January 1910", aired in 1993. The second episode was aired in 1996 as part of a TV movie titled Young Indiana Jones: Travels with Father. Mehta also directed several English-language films set in Canada, including The Republic of Love (2003) and Heaven on Earth (2008) which deals with domestic violence and has Preity Zinta playing the female lead. The film premiered at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival.[5]
Mehta is best known for her Elements Trilogy, Fire (1996), Earth (1998) (released in India as 1947: Earth), and Water (2005), which won her much critical acclaim.[6] Some notable actors that have worked in this trilogy are Aamir Khan, Seema Biswas, Shabana Azmi, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, John Abraham, Rahul Khanna, Lisa Ray, and Nandita Das. These films are also notable for Mehta's collaborative work with author Bapsi Sidhwa. Sidhwa's novel Cracking India, (1991, U.S.; 1992, India; originally published as Ice Candy Man, 1988, England), is the basis for Mehta's 1998 film, Earth. Mehta's film, Water, was later published by Sidhwa as the 2006 novel, Water: A Novel. All three films have soundtracks composed by A. R. Rahman.
Mehta is currently collaborating on the screenplay for Midnight's Children with the novel's author, Salman Rushdie.[7][8] British-Indian actor Satya Bhabha will play the role of Saleem Sinai[9] while other roles will be played by Shriya Saran, Seema Biswas, Shabana Azmi, Anupam Kher, Siddharth Narayan, Rahul Bose, Soha Ali Khan,[10] Shahana Goswami[11] and Darsheel Safary.[12] The film is scheduled to be released in 2012.[13]
In Canada she met and married filmmaker Paul Saltzman whom she divorced in 1983. The couple has a daughter, author Devyani Saltzman who chose to stay with her father upon her parents' divorce. Her daughter is an acclaimed author, curator and cultural critic.
Mehta is currently married to producer David Hamilton.[14] Her brother, Dilip Mehta is a photojournalist and film director, who directed, Cooking with Stella, which he co-wrote with Deepa.[4]
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