Movie: Amu

Last night I went to see the movie Amu at a special screening at the Forum. Partly due to the weather conditions, there were only about 600 people at the multiplex watching the movies; 200 of them were watching Amu!

Amu is a movie[imdb.com] about a young American-Indian girl who goes to India to know about herself and her roots. She finds India very interesting but something disturbs here and she can't pinpoint the reason. But the tenacious girl keeps digging and finally ends confronting her own family about her real roots.

The director, Shonali Bose, has done a great job at portraying the what happened during the 1984 riots in Delhi, for which none of the main perpetrators has been brought to justice till now! The movie has been censored in India by the film board CBFC and also given an adult certificate (R rating). Censored dialogs can be found on Amu's website. Just like a pen can be stronger than a sword, silence can be more effective than words. Silence has been used for the censored parts and it goes great lengths into explaining the extent of the cover up even 23 years after the incident! A great effort by the director who has met with threats during the making of the movie. A must see.

The movie starts Friday, February 23 in the AMC Forum 22 in Montreal. Shonali Bose will be present during the release weekend for any questions you have about the movie. In Toronto the movie starts February 16 and Vancouver will be able to see it from February 23rd. The movie is English with a few dialogs in Bangla and Punjabi (subtitles are provided).

PS: The foreword from the report on the 1984 pogrom of Sikhs can be downloaded from here.