Deepa Mehta Talks About Her Deep Connection to Toronto Festival

has a long history with the Toronto Intl. Film Festival, where nearly all of her films have premiered, starting with “Sam and Me” in 1994. She returned to the festival to help mentor up-and-coming filmmakers. Currently finishing up a feature film based on Shyam Selvadurai’s book “Funny Boy,” which is a “a coming-of-age love story set in 1970s-’80s Colombo [in Sri Lanka] with the backdrop of the civil war.” Mehta took time out to talk to us about her connections with the festival via email.

“Sam and Me” was a direct result of my rumination about transnational identity. I was a Canadian who still thought of herself as an Indian. After no backing from Telefilm [Canada] but support from Wayne Clarkson at OMDC, for “Sam and Me” to have won an award at Cannes and playing in Toronto was a big deal. It was a high point in my career, and would have felt like it, I’m sure, if I wasn’t going through a rather ugly divorce at the time. So the highs were cancelled by the lows, so to speak.

As a Canadian filmmaker, having your debut film play in Toronto, how big a deal was it? What was the festival like back then? The festival then was far more intimate. Fewer films with a real desire to focus on/promote Canadian talent. I remember [now-TIFF co-head] Cameron Bailey introducing “Sam and Me” for its first screening in a now-defunct movie hall on Bloor Street. Atom Egoyan, an already established filmmaker of immense talent, was particularly kind to me, a first-timer, clearly out of her depth. There was an easy camaraderie between filmmakers, programmers, the press and the audience.

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