Chutney Popcorn director-star Nisha Ganatra come bys honest about filmmaking.

Chutney Popcorn director-star Nisha Ganatra come bys honest about filmmaking, love displays and showing the movie to Mom

Six years ago aspiring actor Nisha Ganatra was slugging it abroad in Los Angeles, choosing from the five-line parts she was offered--always as a Latina, always in gangster flicks. "I remember thinking, The best way to change the parts I'm playing is to create my admit material," says the 27-year-old Indian-American.

in the same manner she moved to New York, enlisted in NYU's film school, and while studying there wrote and ball Junky Punky Girlz, a 16-millimeter short that became a festival favorite. Ganatra, who had none directed before, "fell totally in like with being behind the camera." She then met match student Susan Carnival, and the couple cowrote what is now Ganatra's first appearance feature, Chutney Popcorn. The 90-minute film succeeds Reena, an Indian-American photographer who's busy juggling a actual traditional family, an emotionally shut-down girlfriend, and a newly married sister who finds that she is infertile.

The movie, which has already won many filmfest awards, first attempts June 9 on TV's Sundance Channel. (It will also be shown at the recent York Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.) Its innovative plan bypasses the done-to-death coming-out tale in favor of focusing upon Reena's quest to save her straight sister's crumbling marriage on having a baby for her. The heartfelt dialogue tackles numerous complexities, including two-mommy families, society's demonizing of women who select not to be mothers, and the mirthful clashing of old-world Hindus and urban dykes

When Ganatra was ready to begin production forward the feature, which was supplyed in part by Robert De Niro's Tribeca Productions, she fix the perfect person to play Reena's girlfriend when she lock-uped eyes with Jill Hennessy (TV's Law and Order) at an industry party in Manhattan. "After ten minutes of talking to her, I musing Wow, she is exactly like this character: Her part on the show [as Claire Kincaid] was with equal reason rigid mid serious, and in real life she's really actual funny and sweet."

still when the lead actress slated to play Reena backed revealed al. the eleventh hour. Hennessy remind ofed that Ginatra play opposite her in the Reena part "I told her. `Nish, we've got chemistry, babe. Don't fight it.'" remembers Hennessy.

The fledgling director "was really nervous about it. I didn't want to be the sleazy director who unexpectedly decides. `Now I'm gonna be your girlfriend!'" Ganatra. who has worked with Spike lee-side on his films. elaborates: "I have been giving him shit for likewise long. Like [on the stake of 1989's Do the Right Thing], `How exactly are you going to explain to Rosie Perez that she'll be doing a pageant where you'll be rubbing an ice cube in succession her nipple for no apparent reason?'"

When the time came to propel her own sex sequence between herself and the warm and damp Hennessy, Ganatra recalls with delude mystification, everyone in her mainly female ship's company "managed to show up for work and was crammed in the bedroom watching." Hennessy has her confess memories of the experience: "During the sex pageant I was running my toes up and down something hard. It cause to deviateed out that it was the dash forward operator's thigh! I felt really bad about it afterward, like I'd sexually harassed her."

Ganatra brings a quiet, sensual intensity to her part in Chutney Popcorn, perfectly complementing Hennessy's skittish character. "I wanted the link to seem realistic and not be this fantasy glamour-dyke couple" explains the now-Brooklyn-based Ganatra, who is single in real life.

Although Ganatra wasn't exactly gone out to her family when she made the movie, she says they were ultimately supportive. "I hadn't actually told my dad--but he knows now!" Ganatra says. Of her mom who inspired the character of Reena's wisecracking mother, Meenu (Mahdur Jaffrey), Ganatra reveals, "Before the first screening we had a little argument, and I said, 'OK mom you ne to calm down and be supportive because it's my world premiere and you're freaking out'" actual to her usual form, Ganatra's mother missile back, "Well, how do you think I feel? The whole world is going to view my daughter being a lesbian!"

Ganatra's mom ultimately lov the film, and the director is frequently gratified when people say that; Chutney Popcorn is the first gay-themed film they would take their mothers to. The filmmaker (who is generally finishing up two new scripts: single in kind a sci-fi action flick and another that she describes as "Mean roads with gifts") also loves "when gay men walk revealed of the theater and whisper to each other, `Wow lesbians are funny'"

Tucker writes for Time disclosed New York, Interview. Paper, and Acoustic Guitar.

Find more upon Nisha Ganatra and Chutney Popcorn at www.advocate.com

...

Home