DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT

PRATIBHA PARMAR -  DIRECTOR/PRODUCER/WRITER (Story)

At the heart of NINA’S HEAVENLY DELIGHTS (NHD) is an unexpected and surprising love story. The core theme of the film, freedom to love, defines all the characters and, in particular, the central character, NINA.  Through her story, inspired by my own life experiences, I explore the pull between family duty and personal desire.

Film offers an amazing scope for illuminating different kinds of possibilities. I wanted to explore the theme of forbidden love and show how it is possible to be true to yourself despite what duty or tradition might dictate and without having to sacrifice your family. NHD has a heart-warming optimism, where everyone does get to live happily ever after.
 
I wanted to make this film in an entertaining and uplifting way but without compromising the integrity of the story. It's a celebratory, urban fairy tale albeit in a world full of real people. The magic of the film is that it touches all kinds of people without pandering to formulas or clichés and manages to remain honest.

All families have secrets and the SHAH family is no different. I wrote the story for NHD seven years ago and it's thrilling to see that my vision has remained intact.  I set the story in Glasgow, as I wanted to capture the charm and warmth of the Scottish Asian people I had met and film in a city that offers many architectural delights. The film is a wonderful blend of Indian and Scottish cultures, which has not been seen before. 


INFLUENCES/INSPIRATIONS

I have drawn inspiration from diverse cinematic traditions - films such as Ang Lee’s Eat Drink Man Woman and Stanley Tucci’s Big Night are intimate films told with truthfulness and sensuality and both feature food. My visual influences come from the French New Wave, to Almodovar, to the US indie directors. Jean-Jacques Beineix’s film, Diva has great character touches and looks visually stunning and Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s "Amelie", which I love for its bold visual flair and magic, were inspirations. The latter’s visual audacity inspired the crematorium scene at the start of NHD, where a shower of marigold petals falls on Nina and signals a heightened, non-naturalistic world. Another French film, Ma Vie en Rose, with its artful balance of magical realism, naturalism and emotional storytelling was another useful reference. I grew up on a diet of Bollywood films with their colorful and unique mixture of family drama, music, dance, comedy, fantasy and inevitably some of this has found its way into NHD.

ON WRITING

After I wrote the story, I brought on board writer Andrea Gibb to turn it into a screenplay. I had read an early draft of her film, Dear Frankie (which had not been produced at that time). I was taken by her nuanced characterizations and witty dialogue. Initially, she was hesitant about her ability to write NHD as she ‘wasn't Asian’ nor did she write ‘comedy.’ But my intention was to work with a writer who was Scottish and who could write real characters and not clichés and Andrea fit the bill perfectly. I reassured her that I would be able to bring the cultural authenticity and nuance to the script.  Our collaborative process over the years has been intense but always fruitful - full of stop ands starts as I looked for further funding and she was kept busy on other projects.

PRODUCTION

‘Turn your constraints into creative challenges’ was advice I had to continuously remind myself of, once we were into production as I was attempting to make a very ambitious film on limited resources. Preparation was of absolute necessity if I was to achieve what I wanted with the film. 

I made sure that I had adequate preparation time with Shelley Conn, who plays the lead Nina, and Ronny Jhutti (Bobbi) before we started pre-production. So I worked with them intensely doing improvisations, excavating their character journeys and clarifying the emotional arcs. We also brought on board a dialogue coach for an authentic Scottish accent.

I had one week’s rehearsal time with the full cast during pre-production. Having had this week of rehearsal paid off as the energy and clarity achieved in the rehearsal process came through in the shoot. Everyone knew what they were doing and once on set we could build on it. 

My experience of working with actors at The London Centre for Theatre Studies and The Actors Centre in Convent Garden means that when it comes to working with actors, I am in my comfort zone and enjoy the process greatly.
 
We had five weeks in which to shoot the film with all its big set pieces of food and dance! I knew that the only way to get what I wanted was to be fully prepared before I arrived on set. I worked with storyboard artists, storyboarding many key scenes. During pre-production, Simon Dennis, my talented DOP and I sat down for days on end and made a comprehensive shot list for the entire film, which became our blueprint. This preparation made a fantastic difference in many crucial ways. Once on set we had a short hand way of communicating, which released precious time for me to spend with the actors. Simon knew exactly what I wanted in each scene and helped me achieve it on set under tremendous time pressures.


PRODUCTION DESIGN

I had a good idea of how I wanted the film to look and over the years I had accumulated tons of design references, which I gave to the Production Designer Andy Harris. I wanted vibrant colors and to create a little bit of India in Glasgow. The look of the family restaurant had to have a sense of faded glory and I wanted flock wallpaper. It had to look like a family restaurant like so many hundreds such Indian restaurants across Britain but without being tacky. I had called the restaurant The New Taj because this is where Nina’s parents, Mohan and Suman, had gone for their honeymoon like so many Indian couples do! The family history had to be enshrined in the design. And I think it is done so quite beautifully!

Derek Yeaman, our location manager, was a stalwart and took us all over Glasgow looking for the perfect location for The New Taj restaurant and family home. I had always imagined this to be on the corner of a street, on a curve. Derek and Andy found The Star Hotel in Port Glasgow, which was a red brick Victorian building, three stories high offering views from all kinds of interesting angles designed by a contemporary of the famous Scottish architect, Charles Renni Mackintosh. It was on a curve. It was just perfect, allowing us to locate our other key locations, Mamie’s Flowers and Jo the Bookie across from the New Taj. I was keen to link the Shah family to the broader community visually and this location helped us to do that.


FOOD

Food is the catalyst for the central love story in the film. The film has a number of mouth-watering kitchen scenes, which show beautifully that Indian food is both an essential cultural and family event as well as a passionate, sensual experience.

I love food but my favorite food has to be Indian. The film's finale, The Best of the West Curry Competition, gives a fabulous excuse to show off Indian cuisine. I wanted the smell and taste of the food to waft across the screen. It was both fun and frustrating trying to pull off the food shots and convey its sensuality, color and textures in the limited time we had.

NHD pays homage to the much derided flock wallpaper in high street restaurants that have made Indian food the staple of British diet! I enjoyed researching and making up the recipes in the film and testing them out before the shoot. Watch out for the cookbook!


CASTING

Susie Figgis came on board to help us cast the leads, Laura Fraser and Shelley Conn. I had written the character of Raj Khanna with Art Malik in my mind's eye. So when he accepted the role, I was thrilled.

From the get go I was committed to bringing in young Scottish-Asian talent, particularly for the character of Nina’s younger sister, the 14 year Priya Shah.  To this end I worked with Raindog Productions in Glasgow. They leafleted and canvassed widely and we had a fantastic response. BBC Scotland picked up on the buzz and filmed us doing the workshops with all the young people who had responded. Out of this process of open casting came Zoe Henretty, who was an immediate and natural choice for Priya, bringing with her the well known, dead pan Scottish humor.

Working with an ensemble of young and more experienced actors was a joy and one of the most exciting aspects of making this film, especially doing improvisations and moving off the page. Creating characters and back-stories with comic talents like Elaine C. Smith and Kulvinder Ghir was a singular pleasure. The character of the TV host for the finale cook-off gave an opportunity to up the comedy. With my encouragement Kulvinder created a Scottish-Asian character, Murli, who was an over-the-top host on the local (fictitious) Asian Cable TV station, Korma TV. He rose to the challenge so effectively having the Scottish crew in stitches, that I decided to add another narrative strand and introduced a community radio station, Korma Radio, on which Murli is a personality. I was keen to exploit every opportunity to embed the Shah family into the city and community of Glasgow. Dramatically I wanted to make the Curry Cook-off an event that mattered to the community and to Nina.


MUSIC

For me music is a crucial element of storytelling. I started thinking about the music during the writing process, as both dance and music are integral to the story and add another layer. The finished soundtrack is an exciting mixture of popular commercial songs, big Bollywood classic songs, and specially commissioned tracks and score. I chose the songs intentionally. They all have an active dramatic function rather than just being songs cut to pretty scenery or flashy dance steps.

I brought on board Fiona Mcblane (formally of EMI) as the Music Supervisor. She introduced me to John Coxon of Springheel Jack and Farook Shamsher of Joi who collaborated to record some brilliant tracks for the film. These tracks have a unique crossover vibe, a natural fusion of funky break beats with Indian Tablas and sitars giving the film a contemporary urban feel.  Additionally they did two remixes of The Nolans classic hit, “I'm in the Mood” - a Bollywood remix and a wicked club, dance remix.  The latter has all the makings of a hit!

Further on in the post-production process, the composer Steve Isles joined the team to create memorable, evocative themes to enhance the magic in the film.

Classic Bollywood tracks, “Chalte Chalte,” “Pyar Kya to Darna Kya,” “Aap Jaise” and “Ina Mina Dika” are some of my favorite songs. Asian audiences around the world will recognize them immediately.  The choices of these songs are no accident and in particular the song, “Pyar Kya to Darna Kya,” is an anthem to forbidden love and comes from the all time classic film, "Mughal-e-Azam." Its one of those songs that brings grown Indian men to their knees – I have seen it, trust me!


DANCE

The character of Bobbi gave me a dramatic excuse to develop another one of my passions - dance. Piers Gielgud, the choreographer has more than fulfilled my vision for bringing together diverse dance traditions and created a delightful mix of Bollywood and Western contemporary dance. The fact that Piers and his partner Suzanne run a dance company, ReAnimator, was a big plus as they had access to trained dancers. Watching Piers teach Ronny Jhutti how to dance while wearing 3-inch heels was a sight to behold! 

BOBBI'S BOLLYWOOD VAN

A wonderful coincidence happened during pre-production.  We found out that one of the Master truck artists from Pakistan was in Glasgow visiting for a few days. These incredible folk artists transform regular trucks into works of art using decorations and painting in elaborate designs. I had always envisaged Bobbi who runs a Bollywood video store to have a van decorated in the colorful style of Pakistani trucks. It would have been a challenge for the art department to duplicate, but to find the real artist, Ghulam Sarwar, amongst our midst was a heavenly gift.

SHOOTING ON HD
The film's ambitious set pieces of food montages, The Best of the West Curry

The film's ambitious set pieces of food montages, The Best of the West Curry Competition, as well as the dance numbers were only possible because we shot on H.D. This format gave me both economical and aesthetic freedom, and most importantly, it made it possible to keep the dance finale. Unpredictable and persistently wet Scottish weather made it impossible to shoot it on Loch Lomond, as originally planned! So we decided to shoot it against green screen, a challenge we embraced with enthusiasm. It was one of the most fun days on the shoot when the whole cast were dressed up in fabulous outfits and danced for hours to Nazia Hassain’s classic and catchy Bollywood pop song, “Aap Jaise.” By the end of the day even the sparks and grips were singing along.

Another advantage of shooting on HD was that it took away the worry about the shooting ratio, and the only constraint on shooting more takes was time rather than worrying about film stock. It proved crucial to have this option to shoot more than 2 or 3 takes sometimes helping to shape performances in more depth especially with tricky emotional scenes. For the bigger ensemble scenes, I had two cameras, which helped me to pick off visual details that enhanced the editing and making these big set pieces more layered. When I had to direct 12 people eating and dancing around the dining table to The Monkee’s “Day Dream Believer,” two cameras were essential in capturing fresh and spontaneous performances.


……………AND FINALLY

The journey from script to screen has been a particularly long and challenging one.   I set out to direct this film about curries, kilts and queens in the spirit of fun, filling the screen with truthful human emotions in a world full of color, music and sumptuous food. My hope is that audiences will love the film as much as I do!
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Q&A WITH PRATIBHA PARMAR – DIRECTOR/PRODUCER/WRITER (STORY)  

Tell us about the film? Where did the title come from?

The inspiration for the story came from my own experiences and in some ways it's autobiographical. I wanted to write a love story where a young woman falls in love with another woman in a surprising way, when they least expect it. I wanted to set it in an Indian restaurant because my partner grew up in her family-owned Pakistani restaurant in London and we had fallen in love when making a curry for a group of mutual friends. The title of the film actually comes from my sister, Nina, who once owned a catering company called, Nina's Heavenly Delights. So that's how those different personal elements came together. Ultimately, it's a film about family, food and love, all themes that I am interested in. 
 
Why did you set the story in Glasgow and did you enjoy working there?

I loved working in Glasgow. I fell in love with the city on my first visit there many years ago when I was making a documentary for Channel 4. I remember going to an Indian restaurant and being greeted by Indian waiters in kilts and turbans. The way they spoke in a lilting Scottish-Asian accent made me smile. I also loved the charming mixture of Scottish and Indian cultures. At the time I decided that one day I wanted to come back and shoot a feature film in Scotland and so when I wrote the story, I decided to set it in Glasgow.  It seemed a natural fit. Creatively for me, it was great to find so many fantastic locations and we were also very lucky to find many of them close together, which helped enormously on a practical level.

Can you talk about the writing of the screenplay?

I was keen to bring on board a Scottish writer who could write real characters who were not clichés but multi-faceted and layered. I had read Andrea Gibb's early draft of Dear Frankie and really liked her characterizations and attention to detail and her acting background gave her an edge in writing sparkling dialogue. I commissioned her through my company, Kali Films to write the first draft. Over the years our process was very collaborative and it was great that Andrea was so open to working closely with me. She hadn't worked on a screenplay, which she hadn't originated before so this was new for both of us.  

The director, John Boorman, once said that 'all serious directors write … you can't separate the shaping of the script from the writing of it." And after going through the process of working on NHD, I agree with him. I think it's an essential part of directing to sit down with the writer and shape the script in detail and give it structure, especially when it's such a personal story. I was fortunate to have Andrea as my collaborator.

And you know the writing continues even when you are editing. The opening title sequence was a pick up we did while in post. It became clear that what we needed was a sense of the magic for the relationship between Nina and her father, so I wrote in this back-story with Little Nina and her father and shot it while we were editing. And sometimes it is only when you are shaping the film during the edit that you discover which emotional beats are needed or what tone you need to emphasize.

Why did you come to choose Simon Dennis as your DOP?

From the get go I wanted NHD to look lush, sensual, sexy and vibrant. I wanted to work with a DOP who would be able to create this lush look, but at the same time understand that this was an ensemble piece with many big set pieces, and work at a fast pace. Simon's experience of shooting features on HD was a definite plus. He understands how to light for digital film and from his show reel I could see that he had an eye for the poetic  – both in terms of framing and movement of camera. I am a big fan of the moving camera as a visual story telling device. Even in my documentaries I would end up using steadicam and tracks. Simon and I did a comprehensive shot list for the film before we started the shoot and watched and discussed many films.  In the end Simon's lighting design is stunning and far surpasses my original vision.

How difficult or easy was it to direct Shelley Conn and Laura Fraser's kissing scenes?

I think I was more nervous about this then they were. The first kissing scene that we shot was actually the one at the finale when they win the trophy. I had a closed set but they didn't seem at all nervous. They even volunteered further takes and asked, "Do you want us to snog again, we don't mind." I suspect they rather enjoyed it!

But the kissing scene in the kitchen halfway through the film is an absolute stunner. This kiss is their first time and I had wanted to shoot it on the rooftop with the moonlight falling on them. Make it very romantic and lush. But of course it always rained on the days we had scheduled this. In the end the scene was shot in the kitchen, which felt right, as this is where they had fallen in love. I have to thank Simon for his breathtaking lighting of this scene – it's so simple but incredibly beautiful. My only direction to Shelley and Laura was "I want full on passion, I want to see tongues and it has to be bold and robust." That was it. They certainly don't disappoint!
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THE STORY OF FINANCING NHD

NHD has had a long and difficult history, which saw the film collapse twice. The film's financing story began when Scott Meek and I started to raise the production finance after we had developed the script for 2 years. Scottish Screen had supported the development of the script from 2nd draft stage onwards and was the first to come in with production funding. Scott also had received strong interest from Fortissimo Films who liked the project from the start.

Scott and I were moving along optimistically with the financing when disaster struck on 10th February 2004 when we lost 40% of our production funding. Now known as Black Tuesday, over 150 British films were affected by the overnight removal of a particular tax benefit by the Chancellor of Exchequer. It seemed at the time we would never recover from this loss. There was talk of giving up but I was determined that having got this far I would not let my film perish.

In the ensuing months, I lost Scott Meek to Sydney, Australia; and new producers, Priority Pictures and Bard Entertainment came on board. I spent 9 months with Priority and Bard developing the script further while they tried to raise production finance. In July 2005, the outlook was ‘gloomy’ for the remaining finance to be found. The UK film industry was in a state of fluctuation and the unstable climate wasn't making many distributors willing to ‘take a risk’ on a film about a Scottish Asian family, food and love!

It was make or break time. I took a hard and creative decision - the only way my film could get made was to shoot it on HD with a much lower budget. Dogma filmmakers in Denmark and many American US indie directors were getting on with making their films on lower budgets, so why couldn't we do that here in the UK?

I made many phone calls and sent numerous emails resulting in an introduction to Chris Atkins, who had previous experience of shooting HD features in Scotland. This proved to be a big asset. I had often evoked Spike Lee’s borrowed motto,’ ‘By Any Means Necessary’ so Chris's ‘can do’ attitude was on the same wavelength as mine. 

With Chris on board, we all worked together as a team propelling the film into production. Marion Pilowsky’s business acumen helped secure funding from Scion and Sky Movies, which almost completed our finance. There was still a small hole to fill. This was plugged with private equity funding.

So it was that I found myself on set in Port Glasgow, Scotland directing Nina’s Heavenly Delights in October 2006, 7 years after I first wrote the story.


Pratibha Parmar