by Rwita Dutta
Produced by Mohan Nadar, this extremely pertinent movie had its glorious world premiere in the New York Indian Film Festival where it got the Best Debut Award, received nomination for both Best Actor for Adil Hussain, and Best Actress for Nimisha Sajayan. It had its UK Premiere in the UK Asian Film Festival. The French Premiere took place in St Tropez, Nirvana Festival and the German Premiere in the Indo-German Film Week, where it won Best Debut Award, and also Best Actor for Adil Hussain. The film received Best Debut Director Award in the recently concluded Ottawa Indian Film Festival, Canada, 2023.
Away from the glitz and glam of Birmingham resides an illegal immigrant community of people who are always in hiding, leaving no proof of their existence, not even their footprints. Raghu (a brilliant Adil Hussain), an illegal immigrant in Birmingham – UK, believes that he has finally struck gold as his daughter, Meera (played by Nimisha Sajayan who was outstanding in “The Great Indian Kitchen”, “Nayattu” etc), is all set to marry a wealthy groom, a legal resident in the UK. Raghu was a small-scale business owner in India who fled to the UK with his wife and daughter after being mired in a financial scam. The life that awaited them in the UK was far from perfect – they were dumped into shared accommodation, they did not have legit visas, and they were all expected to work for a meagre wage. Raghu regrets this move, but he is left with no choice but to stay in the UK, make enough money to pay off his debts, and return home with dignity. Six years on, Raghu now works for a fraudulent solicitor who mints money making fake passports and visa appeals. Raghu is his trusted employee, and his boss has paid back his loyalty by finding the perfect groom for Meera.
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Following a heated argument with Raghu, Meera storms out of the home and never returns. Raghu worries, knowing Meera's habit of making hasty extreme decisions in the spur of the moment. He decides to find her all by himself without coming under the police radar. His search unveils a different side of her life that he never knew existed. Raghu realizes that in his race for materialistic riches, he has lost everything and everyone that mattered to him the most. Now, the only priority in his life is to see his daughter safe. But is he too late?
Nathalia and her sister Neeta Shym collaborated on the story of the film which is one of its kind. Also, for Natalia, personal is often political. The narrative hovers around the dark alleys of Birmingham, an underrepresented area in UK. The biggest challenge the cast and crew faced while filming was the onslaught of Covid 19. Yet the amazing directorial skill and stellar performances by an incredible cast did the magic on screen. For the diaspora, this story is universal. Natalia, being a debutante, did not mind showing the ugly truth in this gritty tale. She says if the truth is hard hitting, so be it. Neither she wanted to exaggerate, nor she fabricated the facts, she just chased the truth with utmost honesty. That's the beauty of the film.
Nathalia creates a world she is totally conversant with. She has immigrated to London when she was 10, hoping that everything would be as glamorous as in cinema. But the reality was different. Especially for illegal immigrants whom she observed all the time around her in her growing days in UK. She found it quite intriguing. Later on, she went to film school and decided to make a movie on these unfortunate souls. Furthermore, she asks this very curious question: What happens when an illegal immigrant goes missing!! They are invisible beings for the state and for the society. She did intensive research on these immigrants for four long years before she and her sister have been successful in shaping up a narrative. So, the audience can feel a documentary style being implemented in establishing the story.
Contrary to how Bollywood portrays diaspora as a fortunate community, Nathalia startles us with the other side of the story where we witness an entirely different reality, quite hard to digest. The saga of an undocumented migrant may not be appealing to many, but for the international audience, it scored high. Therefore, the film won accolades across the continents as people accepted it as their own!
Between the British and Indian film industries, she has experience working as an associate director/ 1st AD and has broadcast credits for her previous short-films and commercials. Syam is also a Film Practitioner at a Film School in London. As a director-writer duo, their previous short film, “Lehenga”, was nominated for the ‘Best of British' award at the BAFTA qualifying ‘Iris Prize' Award in Cardiff. “Lehenga” (2mns 31 secs, 2022) is about a man who wants to embrace his feminine self, but hides behind the closet. This super short film is brilliantly done. It's extremely lyrical, the background score is so powerful that it almost narrates the whole inner world of the prospective groom. However short the film may be, it shows Syam's artistic endeavour.
