ABCD had its world premiere at the 43rd London Film Festival. The festival’s best films are selected for a regional tour of England immediately follows the festival. ABCD was one of those films alongside Boys Don’t Cry, Being John Malkovich, Cider House Rules, Happy Texas and The Virgin Suicides. The London Film Festival described the film as "shockingly accurate and charming,". The reviews in London and throughout the world have included comments such as: "ABCD is one of the sweet little treats of the London Film Festival - a low-key, precisely observed social comedy" "Superbly acted and directed. Krutin Patel is a film-maker to watch for" "A compassionate and funny film about cultural identity, marriage and family" "A refreshing, moving and honest look at lives of the young and culturally displaced at the turn of the century" "An absorbing tale of first generation Indians in America...a thought provoking look at how people can be pulled in different directions by their heritage and their own experiences, and the acting is first rate" "With cinema is such a beleaguered state there is absolutely no excuse not to check (ABCD) out" "I found myself caring for what would happen to the characters as though these were real people I knew and loved…a far superior film to anything we have seen so far in the genre" "ABCD is a sensational debut film…well crafted and has great commercial prospects. Tightly edited and aesthetically rich" "Patel’s film is intelligent, sensitive and takes in the complexity that a cross-cultural story like this demands" "The acting in the film is very accomplished as is the direction - specially in scenes that call for either highly charged emotional moments or subtle, understated ones…you could swear that this wasn’t acting, that it was really happening" MORE REVIEWS OF ABCD ABCD By B. Lall Screen International ABCD (the acronym for American Born Confused Desi " i.e. Indian) is a sensational debut film by NYU film graduate Krutin Patel. The story of first generation Asian Indian immigrant children growing up on the East Coast is well crafted and has great commercial prospects. Directed and co written by Patel, the film successfully brings out the conflict between Indian culture, as represented by the conservative Hindu widow (Madhur Jaffrey) and the American values of the two youngsters. The tragicomic film goes on to explores the tug of war between the two opposing cultures and the emotional consequences of growing up without a firm cultural identity. The 1.3 million strong Indian community in North America has never before been portrayed with such sophistication and concern. Driving away from stereotypes, the film has created believable and accurate Indian characters. Combining wit and humor the film script delivers several memorable lines and punches. A few scenes including the mother's attempt to ward of a speeding ticket are handled with great panache. Tightly edited and aesthetically rich the film about the culturally lost kids also strikes an emotional cord. The brilliant performance of debutant Sheetal Seth as Nina, the young unruly daughter who uses sex as a shield to avoid intimacy, is likely to land her several roles. The commercial release of ABCD in North America will definitely play a fundamental role in increasing the cultural profile of the Indian community. ABCD is bound to be a winner among expatriate audiences and will travel well in the mainstream market as well. ABCD By P. Sebastian The Deccan Herald That's American Born Confused Desi - a film by American Indian writer-director Krutin Patel - and perhaps a more whimsical and apt title for the package at the 31st Delhi International film festival called 'India on the International Screen' - a series of exciting, ground-breaking films on the South Asian immigrant experience. ABCD is a recently coined, popular acronym for Indians raised in America - and indeed anywhere in the West - facing an identity crisis. Following close on the heels of another recent ground-breaking genre, the Indian-English film - which is really about the IBCD, the Indian Born Confused Desi - the 'ABCD' movies entertainingly and wittily narrate two kinds of stories: the first is the obvious culture clash between Indians and Americans/Canadians/ the British, but the second is the more intriguing - the clash between second generation and first generation Indians in the West. The twain shall never meet - we all knew that but could any of us have predicted that the twain shall one day not be East and West but East and East, unable to meet? If East is East was the most entertaining, the superbly acted and directed ABCD was easily the most accomplished and the most refreshing film on the theme of the Indian immigrant experience. Already the talk of Bombay film festival last year, the film is a welcome departure from other ABCD films that have been either about the struggles of the middle class Indian immigrant (along with the stereotype newspaper vendor/ taxi driver) to 'make it' or the successful Indian doctor/engineer making compromises (tsk,tsk) in his pursuit of the American Dream. This is the first film that deals sensitively, deeply and imaginatively about first generation American Indians -in other words - the ABCD. But, asks the film, are American Born Indians really confused? Is there a real identity crisis here and if so what is it? The film raises these questions and answers them interestingly and honestly , without resorting to clichés. This is possible because its maker, Krutin Patel, is an insider to the whole experience. Because Krutin was born in India and went to live in the States when he was 8, he isn't all that confused as the genuine ABCD, whom he has lived with, observed and now finally put on film. "The confusion, the crisis", he says, "hits those who have never grown up in India, those who have never experienced community, those who have never been embraced by the circle of family and friends in India." Patel studied film-making at the prestigious Tisch School of Arts at New York University and decided that for his first film it had to be a story he knew well - the story of the first generation American Indian - and that it was high time a movie was made that would stop demonizing them as a lost, rootless bunch and narrate the immigrant experience from their point of view. Raj (Faran Tahir) and Nina (Sheetal Sheth) are first generation Indian immigrant children who have grown up in America and their mother, Anju (Madhur Jaffrey) who is desperately trying in her old age to reconcile her decision to come to America long ago. Nina, bright and beautiful, strong headed and promiscuous, is still rebelling against the conservative Hindu values of her mother. Her mother wants her to marry an Indian from India and she once again feels the old world oppressively closing in on her. Raj, her polar opposite, who has long ago agreed to an arranged marriage has now begun to feel trapped and wants out. But that would break his mother's heart. The only easily recognizable character here is the widowed New Jersey Indian mother but the children - specially Nina - are to be admired but hard to figure out . One suspects that there are Ninas right here in India waiting to come out of their closets and declare their independence. Says Krutin: "Once, after a screening at the London film festival, this 13 year old Indian girl comes up to me and says: 'that's my life up there.' What we learn from this American desi movie is that this new community is slowly forging its own identity there, making its own choices, taking risks, and willing to face the consequence. Krutin Patel didn’t really consider himself as an actor's director (he has plans to make a David Lean like sweeping epic) but he is , among other things, certainly that: he coaxes superb performances from his actors, particularly Sheetal Sheth. Sheetal is a find, an Indian beauty who can act - she's star material. Patel co-wrote this terrific script with James Ambrose and the characterization of the brother and sister and their relationship is so nuanced and convincing that I found myself caring for what would happen to them as though these were real people I knew and loved. ABCD should do terrifically well in Indian theatres; the urban audience here are going to identify with the movie the way they did with Hyderabad Blues, except ABCD is a far superior film to anything we have seen so far in the genre. Krutin Patel is a film-maker to watch for. KRUTIN PATEL -Profile By P. Sebastian The Deccan Herald Abcds: As far as they can get! The film, ABCD, which was screened at the IFFI 2000, revolves around characters who are culturally lost. PRADEEP SEBASTIAN speaks to KRUTIN PATEL, the film director. KRUTIN PATEL beat them all to it. While all the other abcds - American born confused desis - were busy making it as computer programmers, doctors, scientists, teachers and accountants, he risked being a filmmaker and has lived to tell the tale - his ABCD brings their (and his) story on screen. Says Krutin: “I went to New York University film school - from 1984-88 - and this will give you an indication of the times - I was the only Indian student in the film school. There were lots of Indian students in the accounting, business, arts and humanities departments but I was the only Indian in the film school.” It is even possible that Krutin Patel may have been the first Indian student at the NYU film school, though he can’t say for sure. “'I left India for America when I was eight but have been coming back often. I still speak Gujarati and continue to be a vegetarian. My influences have been Raj Kapoor - I grew up watching his films - and David Lean. I’d like to think I’m much a visual director as I am an actor’s director. I love film noir, so for as my student film I did a short film called Strangers in the Night, about a rich, lonely woman who has an affair and threw in passion, murder and melodrama. The film had a lot of style and got written about in American Cinematographer for the way I used bright, saturated colours instead of contrasty black and white. One of the things they teach you in film school is to write and shoot about things you know first hand, things you know well. So my first film had to be about this identity crisis among first generation Indian Americans, the abcds. I got the script ready four years ago but was able to film it only now. It was completed in November 1999 and had its world premier at the London Film Festival. Since then it has done the festival circuit - Mumbai, Calcutta, now Delhi and very soon, Kerala.” “The film revolves,” continues Patel, “around characters who are culturally lost. They can no longer fully adhere to the customs of the country they have left behind, and yet cannot fully belong to the mainstream American culture because of their ethnicity. It also deals with the emotional consequences of growing up without a firm cultural identity.” ABCD is the first film about Indian immigrants - particularly first generation Indian American - that feels like it comes from an insider; it doesn’t feel like an immigrant-slice-of-life movie at all but a very personal film that’s telling the story of a family that incidentally happens to be Indian. Says Krutin: “I’ve avoided stereotypical scenes and characters: scenes where we go Indian grocery shopping or we go watch a Bollywood film. There is an Indian taxi driver and a newspaper vendor in the movie but they serve a very, very specific purpose. It was just not the dynamics of the Indian family that I wanted to get right - its closeness and so on - but also the dynamics of any family so that the film has universal appeal, so that not just an Indian audience but an audience anywhere can say, these are the same emotions that we go through in our families.” The Indian characters in Meera Nair’s, Mississippi Masala, for instance, don’t seem too different from the ones we know here - and that’s because that’s all they are: an ensemble of Bombay actors playing the stereotype Indian in the US of A. Not only are the characters in ABCD far from Indian stereotypes - they seem even a little alien. In other words, more American than Indian. Patel’s film is intelligent, sensitive and takes in the complexity that a cross-cultural story like this demands. Its the story of Raj (Faran Tahir) and Nina (Sheetal Sheth), first generation Asian immigrant children who have grown up in America, and their mother Anju (Madhur Jaffrey) who is desperately trying in her old age to reconcile her decision to come to America long ago. The film’s opening - with Madhur Jaffrey as the typical, aging widowed mother wondering aloud in her shiny, spacious New Jersey kitchen if it was the right thing to have stayed back in America - is deceptive because the film then cuts to her daughter, Nina, making steamy love to a white American and then she walks out on him. This is an Indian girl? Her brother, Raj, finds himself more drawn to his American colleague than the traditional Indian girl he’s engaged to. His best friend is American, not Indian. Only once does he wonder whether he was passed over for a promotion because he was Indian - but then he’s not sure. The mother arranges a date for Nina with a boy from India and in no time she gets him into bed. He wants to marry her. She runs from him; marries an American in a church. Raj finds the courage and strength to break his engagement. We may not understand how things work there - its a whole different ball game - but we empathize. After all, some of us ibcds - Indian Born Confused Desis - are not too different from the abcds. It’s another culture, a new culture, and these first generation Indian Americans have no choice but to risk living in it. The acting in the film is very accomplished as is the direction -specially in scenes that call for either highly charged emotional moments or subtle, understated ones. The most remarkable scene is when Nina and Raj walk into the house to find their mother dead in the puja room: while Raj rushes to her and cradles her to him (you could swear that this wasn’t acting, that it was really happening, so good is the actor Faran Tahir and the way Patel sets the scene up) it is Nina who reacts in a way that is at once so removed from how an Indian girl would react - she just sobs at the door and slowly crumples to the floor even as Raj is crying out to her to call an ambulance. “We were fifteen days away from shooting and we still hadn’t found Nina,” says Krutin, “and then Sheetal walked in for an audition and the casting director and I knew she looked the part, but could she act?” Sheetal Sheth turned out to be natural, a revelation - she and Mohan Agashe were the best things about the horrible A Pocketful of Dreams but you couldn’t guess from there how good she is till you saw her as Nina. She can make even the promiscuous, rebellious, self-absorbed Nina likeable. There’s an intensity, an emotional honesty to her acting that is rare. I ask Krutin what his next project is. He grins and answers with obvious relish: “'You’ll think this crazy and ambitious but I’m hoping to make an Indian version of Dracula. Take out the garlic, the crosses, the castle, the cloak and instead have a lonely, passionate Indian housewife who wishes for a demon-lover and when her demon lover actually comes into her life, she can’t wish him away.” That’s as far away as you can get from stories about abcds (or is it the same?) But if any Indian filmmaker (other than Shekar Kapur) can pull it off, its Krutin Patel. E-Mail The Filmakers