amal

Synopsis

Amal, a multi-layered portrait of contemporary India, follows an auto-rickshaw driver in New Delhi (Amal) who is content with his small, but vital role in life. One day he drives an eccentric billionaire (GK Jayaram) who, disguised as a vagabond, is searching the streets for the last morsel of humanity, and someone he can leave all his money to, and Amal’s life may change forever... Filmed on location in New Delhi, India, this modern day fable asks the important question of what success means to each individual and ultimately reveals to audiences that the poorest of men are sometimes the richest.

Amal began as a concept from my brother, Shaun Mehta, who completed his MBA in India. He had several unpleasant experiences with local rickshaw drivers - they're notorious for ripping people off - and eventually met one who was polite, generous, and would refuse to accept a tip. Shaun was so touched by this experience, he wrote a short story fable about this type of man - who is simply content with his place in life and conducts his duties with honour and pride - no matter how mundane those duties may seem to us. I read the story, and was so moved by it I proceeded to adapt it into a short film, which I shot with a small crew in New Delhi in 2003.

This short, Amal, was done as an experiment - to see if we could pull it off. It was my first experience directing a piece that relied solely on performance and script, and we planned very little in terms of location preparation, we just shot it guerilla-style. The response was remarkable. We had an extensive festival run, and made numerous sales. I found the audience reaction fascinating - people were split as to whether the film had a happy or sad ending and this debate as to what people actually took from it reflected strongly how they defined wealth or success in life - which was our intent all along. But I felt there was far more potential in this idea. So in Sept. 2005, we pitched the idea of the feature film at the Telefilm PITCH THIS! competition in the Toronto Film Festival, and...won! This gave us the money to proceed into development.

When we began crewing up for the India shoot, David Miller and Steven Bray - the producers - and I were adamant about hand-picking our crew. We conducted interviews for months, and I always went with my instinct. It was a combination of choosing qualified people and personality types that could adapt to very strenuous environments. We would be shooting in the streets, down and dirty, in Delhi, and would be living in apartments in self-contained neighborhoods. It was my intention to challenge every crew member to experience living in India, not as a tourist, but as a local.

I was very fortunate with the casting because I basically put together a wish list of actors that I would like to work with during my career, and sent them a copy of the script. I never imagined that I would be able to work with some of the biggest names in Bollywood on my first film itself. In 2003, I met Rupinder Nagra by chance at an event in Toronto. We hit it off immediately, and his personality and his ideals mirrored Amal’s character. So Rupinder was really there since the beginning, and helped shape the character that appears in the film.His presence on set was incredible. He brought both a sense of vulnerability and strength to the character, that I cannot imagine any other actor as Amal. We were also very lucky in our casting of Koel Purie, who is new to North American audiences, but who has garnered critical acclaim in India and is set to make her mark in the UK and the USA later this year. Working with Roshan Seth, Seema Biswas and Naseeruddin Shah was really a privilege and a dream come true. I remember one particular day, we were set to shoot a scene with Naseeruddin in Connaught Place in Delhi which is a very busy place, but we were to shoot very early and since Naseeruddin was dressed as a homeless man and looked rather unkept, I thought that we could pull it off with minimal disruption. Well, I don’t know how word spread that he was there, but suddenly we had a crowd of 4000 people surrounding us. They all kept a respectful distance, but there were still 4000 people all trying to catch a glimpse of perhap's India’s greatest actor.

One of my favorite moments in the casting process was auditioning our children. We had a great casting director in India that brought me to a youth hostel for ‘street’ children called Salaam Balak Trust. There the children are encouraged to participate in the arts, and with their educators, we conducted a series of film workshops with them. Those few days spent with these remarkable children were one of the best experiences for me, and led to our casting two child actors from the Trust as a result of those sessions.

In terms of the visual style, Mitch Ness, the cinematographer and I came up with a chart that graphed the evolution of each character in the film - it's an ensemble piece that centres around the main character Amal. Basically, the film would show two contrasting worlds - the 'haves' and the 'have-nots.' With the upper-crust society, we would light and frame them cleanly, have slick, controlled camera moves - all you'd expect from a wealthy environment. With Amal's world, we would use mostly available light, shoot hand-held as the environments called for, and let the scenes tell us how to react as we did them. Each world had several main characters, all of whom would have cathartic turning points in the film. At these turning points, we would switch styles, and by the end, Amal - and those characters in his world - would have the controlled camera moves, the brilliant lighting, and the measured pacing - we reveal them to be the 'haves,' while the other, upper crust world, was very obviously the 'have-nots.' That graph was our stylistic compass, and we've done it in a way where audiences won't really notice this switch, but will hopefully sense it.

The editing process was extensive. Several scenes were trimmed or removed completely, some plots line drastically cut down to make room for others, but everything came into shape. Amal's story line was obviously paramount, and we realized quickly that if a scene didn't have to do with Amal directly, or the old man who leaves his fortune to Amal, then it had to go. But each version was like a vice on the theme, and as we squeezed, it became tighter and more prominent. The film moves very quickly, and is jam-packed with information, action, and balances intervweaving story-lines to form a very strong theme. It's also a visual and acoustic feast...as overwhelming as it can be to experience Delhi.

At this point, we're premiering the film Sept. 13 at the Toronto film festival, and a Canadian theatrical release will follow, under Seville Pictures. The story is so universal - it could be told anytime, anywhere. It could take place in Babylon thousands of years ago or in the future. I think it will appeal to people everywhere.

Richie Mehta's films to date - Amal (the short film) and System of Units - have screened and garnered him much acclaim and numerous awards around the world at film festivals such as Telluride, Palm Springs International Film Festival, Montreal International Film Festival, and the London International Film Festival. Amal is his first feture film.