| A Look at Nina’s Heavenly Delights |
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| November 2007 | |
By Sona Charaipotra
 Shelley Conn and Laura Frase in Nina's Heavenly Delights. The inspiration? “I did a documentary in A documentary filmmaker for the past 20 years, Parmar, who is known for tackling subjects such as AIDS, sexuality, race and gender, says, “My films focused on often very heavy social, cultural, political issues. So for my first narrative feature, I really wanted to come at it with a much lighter tone. This is one story that I really wanted to tell. It’s the story of many immigrant families—across the U.K. there are so many Indian restaurants run by ordinary Indian families. And chicken tikka masala is the staple food of the British now.”
The romantic comedy is based on Parmar’s own experiences coming out as a lesbian in the South Asian community. “I fell in love with my partner, Shaheen, while we were making a dinner for some friends,” she recalls, laughing. “It was nothing super-complicated—just aloo gobi, daal and chapattis. But she’s of Punjabi Pakistani origin—in fact, her family has their own Pakistani restaurant in South London—and my background is Gujarati. So we were arguing the whole time about the best way to make daal and aloo gobi. And Punjabi rotis are so big, but Gujarati rotis are so dinky and small. So in the course of that we just fell in love, really. I think it was the garam masala for us.”
 Director Pratibha Parmar Considering the film’s exploration of forbidden love—including several kisses between the two female leads—Parmar expected the film to court controversy, especially at screenings in more conservative areas. “The film went over really well in India,” says Parmar, who’s also shown the film at festivals like OutFest and the annual event from the Indian American Arts Council. “I was a bit surprised. At the end of one screening, a Sardarji stood up, looking really stern, and I thought, ‘Oh no! Here it comes.’ But he just started clapping and said, ‘Well done! I can’t believe this is your first film.’ So it was very positive.” And while she’s eating up the praise, Parmar is satisfied just having made her point. “It’s really bringing my passion for food, for love, for women, all together in this film and having fun with it,” says Parmar, who’s already hard at work on her next feature. “The difference for me is that I’ve lived this. But I wanted to tell the story in an interesting and very accessible way to try and reach out to as many audiences as possible—gay, straight, South Asian or not. I wanted to celebrate love in its many guises. And I hope this does that.” *Nina’s Heavenly Delights continues to open around the country. The film opened in Los Angeles on Nov. 21. For more dates and locations in your area, plus recipes from the film, visit http://www.ninasheavenlydelights-themovie.com Comments (0)
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Still, it wasn’t going to be all masala and no substance. The
film follows the travails of Nina, a Scottish-Indian lass who returns to her
Glasgow home after the death of her father to save the family business—an
Indian restaurant called the New Taj—from being gobbled up by a bigger
competitor, all while falling in love and coming out to her family. “The story
came to me more than seven years ago,” Parmar says. “And I’ve been working on
it since then. The financing fell through a few times because a lot of
financiers are wary of backing what they see as a gay film. We all know about
the response to Fire. But my film is completely different from Fire. It’s not specifically
a gay film, though there is a gay story line. It’s about family and it’s about
forbidden love. And I think that’s a pretty universal theme. So I decided to
never take no for an answer. Just stick to your vision, pick up that camera and
just do it.”
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