Shooting Water: A Mother-Daughter Journey & the Making of a Film
Pages Books & Magazines, Key Porter Books and NOW Magazine invite you to join Devyani Saltzman as she celebrates the publication of Shooting Water: A Mother-Daughter Journey & the Making of a Film. Fresh from the opening-night gala premier of Water at the Toronto International Film Festival, author Devyani Saltzman will be joined on stage by the director of Water, her mother Deepa Mehta, for an intimate conversation about the making of the film and the writing of Saltzman’s new memoir Shooting Water. Afterwards, Devyani will be pleased to sign copies of her new book.
Shooting Water: In February 2000, international award-winning filmmaker Deepa Mehta began shooting the third and final instalment in her Elements trilogy, Water. Initially to be shot in the holy city of Benares, the film examines the lives of Indian widows in the late 1930s, but Hindu fundamentalist created riots, burned the sets and issued death threats to the director and actors. Within a week, production was shut down. So begins the five-year odyssey chronicled in Devyani Saltzman’s new memoir Shooting Water, which culminates in the successful completion of Water in June 2004 on a secret location in Sri Lanka, and with the reunion of an estranged mother and daughter. Part Jewish, part Hindu and raised in Canada, Devyani Saltzman, daughter of Deepa Mehta and Canadian producer/director Paul Saltzman, had spent her life navigating between two religions, two traditions and two people—belonging to both and to neither at once. The filming of Water would be mother and daughter’s second chance. Transformative and inspiring, Shooting Water chronicles Devyani Saltzman’s life-changing experiences in India (and Sri Lanka?), the struggle to produce a film, and through that struggle, the emergence of a deeper love and mutual recognition between mother and daughter.
Devyani Saltzman was born in Toronto, Canada. She received a degree in Human Sciences from Oxford University, specializing in Sociology and Anthropology. 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 now works as a photojournalist and freelance writer.
Deepa Mehta was born in India and received a degree in philosophy from the University of New Delhi. Her award-winning films include Sam & Me (1991); Camilla (1993); Fire (1996); Earth (1998); Bollywood/Hollywood (2002); and Republic of Love (2003), based on the novel by Carol Shields. On September 8th, 2005, her film Water premiered at the opening-night gala at the Toronto International Film Festival. Water is scheduled for commercial release in November 2005.
