Three years ago I was invited to LaSalle and the set of Calorie, a motion picture inspired by real events and directed by Montrealer Eisha Marjara. It hits Canadian movie screens on Nov. 28, distributed by Filmoption International.
The film is presently screening at the International Film Festival of India, in GOA.
Calorie stars Ellora Patnaik (Sort Of), Anupam Kher (Silver Linings Playbook), Ashley Ganger (Grand Army, Late Bloomer), and introduces Shanaya Dhillon-Birmhan in her first major starring role as Alia. It follows three generations of women whose present and past collide during an emotionally packed summer in India.
Monika (Patnail) is a stressed-out single mom of two teens, calorie-obsessed Alia and rebellious Simi. She decides to send her girls to India to visit their great aunt and uncle. Monika hopes that connecting her daughters to their Punjabi roots will set them straight. But what begins as a reluctant trip soon turns into a transformative coming-of-age journey. Amid culture shock, family clashes, and unexpected bonds, Alia and Simi discover a hidden family tragedy that Monika has kept hidden from them and whose wounds threaten to splinter the entire family in this bittersweet female-driven drama.
Inspired by real events, Calorie is a deeply moving, poignant and unexpectedly funny story about family, identity and the weight of the past, proving that sometimes the only way forward is to go back.
Ashley Ganger and Shanaya Dhillon-Birmhan play sisters.
“Calorie is a female-driven drama that spans continents, cultures, and generations,” said Marjara. “It exposes the deep, affecting and conflicted relationship daughters have with their mothers.”
And here is where true life enters the picture. In the summer of 1985, Marjara’s mother decided to return to India to reunite with her family in Amritsar. It was a tumultuous time in Punjab. “Regardless, she and my younger sister boarded Air India flight 182 from Montreal, and the plane blew up,” she says. “It was a flight that I was fated to be on. The plane exploded in mid-air, killing all 329 passengers, mostly Canadian. At a time when I was coming of age and finding myself as a young woman, the loss left an indelible hole. Questions of identity and the mother-daughter bond became increasingly complex. It left unanswered questions, unresolved issues and profound grief.
“As I witness the next generation grow up, specifically my young nephews, I am fascinated by how they are experiencing the legacy of this tragedy while having little connection to its history except for the politically charged narrative that surrounds the Air India bombing that till this day has left a community deeply divided. The film serves as a way to mend the complicated fabric of this past to those affected by it and provide a broader picture that leans towards connection and healing by putting a family at its center. We witness a Sikh Canadian family grappling with contemporary issues within walls of silence, misunderstanding, and buried hurt and see them come out on the other side more whole, more centered and united.”
A LaSalle duplex was used for flashback scenes while the grand Gurdwara Guru Nanak Sikh Temple turned out to be a made for Hollywood location for other sequences. Since Monika is an architect, they also rented an attractive home in Ahuntsic with a unique design. After the LaSalle shoot concluded, filming was put on hold for a year before the crew resumed work in India. There were issues with VISAs.
While Marjara says all of the characters are fictitious, she did use her own tragic experience for the storyline involving Monika and her daughters. In fact, she previously explored the topic about her life story in an NFB Film called Desperately Seeking Helen.
“This is the 40th anniversary of the Air India bombing,” Marjara says, “and sadly too many people do not know about it.”
Producer Joe Balass says that Calorie is a powerful story about hidden secrets and divisions cutting across generations in Canada and India. “From the start of the 10-year journey it has taken us to make the film, I knew it was essential to find the right actors to embody this family,” he notes.
Calorie received support from Telefilm Canada, and the Canada Media Fund, as well as CBC Films, Hollywood Suite, and ATN.
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