News & Gossip: BEEBA BOYS AL TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2015

Deepa Mehta, nata in India ma residente in Canada dal 1973 (attualmente vive a Toronto), dopo aver diretto la trasposizione cinematografica de I figli della mezzanotte di Salman Rushdie, torna alla regia con un gangster movie ambientato nella comunità indiana di Vancouver e ispirato a fatti di cronaca. Beeba Boys, produzione canadese, a giudicare dal trailer, dai commenti in rete e dall'interesse suscitato al Toronto International Film Festival 2015 (dove è stato proiettato in prima mondiale, nel corso di un evento di gala), sembra un'opera del tutto apprezzabile.

L'atmosfera della pellicola è stilosissima. E la promozione si è adeguata: il glamour di Beeba Boys ha impregnato mode e modi per giorni, generando un certo scalpore. Le immagini di Deepa Mehta, scortata da uno stuolo di attori fighi da togliere il respiro, hanno fatto il giro del mondo. H&M ha commissionato una campagna pubblicitaria ispirata a Beeba Boys. Il periodico Fashion ha dedicato un corposo servizio fotografico al cast.

Beeba Boys sarà proiettato in diverse altre rassegne canadesi, e inaugurerà l'International Indian Film Festival Toronto 2015, alla presenza del primo ministro dell'Ontario, del luogotenente governatore dell'Ontario e del sindaco di Toronto. La prima europea è programmata a Londra, l'8 ottobre 2015, nell'ambito del British Film Institute London Film Festival; Deepa Mehta e Randeep Hooda parteciperanno all'evento (clicca qui).

Ma chi sono questi Beeba Boys?

Il tenebroso Randeep Hooda è Jeet, il protagonista. Randeep è l'attore indiano che tutti noi amiamo. Il fatto che sia stato scritturato in una produzione internazionale mi rende felice, nonché speranzosa di poterlo ammirare sul grande schermo anche in Italia. Di sicuro la star merita un pubblico e un riconoscimento più ampi di quelli guadagnati sino ad ora in India. A suo credito, non solo un letale sex appeal, ma anche un talento cesellato negli anni con applicazione, tanto teatro, determinazione, il tutto sotto la preziosa guida del leggendario Naseeruddin Shah (e si vede).

Waris Ahluwalia è Manny. Waris è nato in India ma risiede negli Stati Uniti dal 1979. Attualmente vive a New York. Di professione designer e attore, viene spesso a Roma per lavoro. Ha collaborato con Luca Guadagnino per il film Io sono l'amore e per lo spot Here, commissionato dalla Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide.

Ali Kazmi è Guri. Figlio di due noti attori pachistani, risiede in Canada.

Gabe Grey (Fuad Ahmed) è Lovely. Nato in Pakistan, vive in Canada, ed è un attore principalmente televisivo.

Ali Momen è Nep. Momen vive a Toronto, ed è un apprezzato attore teatrale.

Steve Dhillon è Harry. Canadese di origini punjabi, alla professione di attore alterna quella di ingegnere.

Jag Bal è Jazz.

Nel cast anche Kulbhushan Kharbanda. Una curiosità: l'attore canadese Paul Gross, che ricopre il ruolo di Jamie, aveva coprodotto Breakaway (titolo versione hindi: Speedy Singhs) insieme ad Akshay Kumar.

RASSEGNA STAMPA/VIDEO (aggiornata all'11 novembre 2015)

- Video ScreenSlam: Randeep Hooda alla prima

- Video ScreenSlam: il cast alla prima

- Video: il cast incontra il pubblico in sala

- Video Ontario Creates: Randeep Hooda, Ali Kazmi e Ali Momen - evento OMDC

- Video FilmiCafé: intervista concessa da Randeep Hooda

- Video Smart Entertainment Group: intervista concessa da Randeep Hooda. Al settimo minuto, l'attore rivela di essere stato in passato sequestrato per due giorni a Roma da una (fortunatissima) ragazza romana...

- Video Urban Asian: intervista concessa da Randeep Hooda

- Video Tribute: intervista concessa da Randeep Hooda

- Video Cineplex: interviste concesse da Deepa, Randeep, Ali Momen e Waris Ahluwalia

- Video ufficiale: Behind the scenes

Randeep Hooda e Kulbhushan Kharbanda in Beeba Boys

- Recensione, Andrew Barker, Variety, 14 settembre 2015:

'Deepa Mehta’s “Beeba Boys” deserves recognition for being the first hyperviolent, Tarantino-inspired comedy to take place entirely within the Canadian Sikh criminal underworld. But as intriguing as it is to see the respected arthouse auteur cut loose with this deliriously unserious, highly stylized gangland blowout, the tone never quite gels, leaving the film an eye-catching but weightless mishmash of hit-and-miss one-liners and bloody yet non-visceral firefights. The premise and cultural specificity will surely draw some attention - Sikhs hardly ever get to see themselves in Western cinema at all, much less cast as sexy, snappily dressed criminal supermen - but niche business likely beckons. (...) Mehta doesn’t waste much time on the intricacies of their black-market dealings, focusing instead on the group’s vulgar yet decidedly Punjabi-flavored banter, and their unhesitant willingness to kill anyone who inconveniences them. (...) The film’s most distinctive humor involves the strange intersections of business and family within this criminal subculture, as rival Sikh gang bosses’ mothers all see one another socially, and kvetch long-sufferingly about why their gunslinging scions can’t just get along. Though an opening credits sequence set to ear-splitting Bhangra introduces each of the Boys with their old-timey gangster nicknames, only one of them manages to really register: Manny (Wes Anderson regular Waris Ahluwalia), the gang’s bearded, turbaned getaway driver who tells long, off-color jokes with the serene gravity of parables. (...) Punctuated by brisk exchanges of dialogue and gunfire, this is a film that lives or dies on the quality of its acting and its pacing, and both are a bit too uneven to fully work. The veteran Hooda knows exactly how to frame his character, playing up Jeet’s steely-eyed magnetism and his brutality in a way that wouldn’t be out of place in a more serious action pic, making it all the funnier when he does lighten up. As Jeet’s young protege and potential betrayer, however, Momen is too stilted to really sell his character’s careful duplicity, making the whole double-agent thrust of the plot seem like an afterthought. With a big enough budget to allow for plenty of helicopter shots and lavish interiors, Mehta clearly appears to be having fun conducting this bouncy, garishly hued farce, though one wishes she’d tightened some of the structural screws a bit more carefully. Punchlines often arrive a few beats too late, or linger too long. And in the closing third, when the film starts to kill off its major characters one by one, the violence never quickens the pulse nor tugs on the emotions, leaving us unsure what we’re supposed to be feeling about any of this. Too intellectual and empathetic a filmmaker to simply treat the whole story as junk food, Mehta includes some interesting asides that try to explain the Beeba Boys’ posturing within the larger context of the South Asian immigrant experience. In the film’s most genuinely affecting yet out-of-place scene, Jeet’s elderly, alcoholic father (Kulbhushan Kharbanda), talks about his early life as a young immigrant toiling in freezing cold cranberry bogs. With his flashy threads and nihilistic glare, it’s clear that Jeet is determined to overcompensate for the previous generation’s exploitation, though these delicate touches risk getting lost in all the film’s shouting and shooting'.

Randeep Hooda - Toronto, 2015

Il cast di Beeba Boys - Toronto, 2015

- Gangs of Vancouver: Projecting ‘bad boy’ reality on silver screen, Anirudh Bhattacharyya, Hindustan Times, 20 settembre 2015:

'The gangs that prowl Vancouver and suburbs like Surrey and Abbotsford, with their large Indo-Canadian populations, aren’t quite known of outside that metropolitan region of Western Canada. (...) “Everybody, when you go East of the Rockies, has a collective amnesia of what happens in Vancouver. It’s insane when you think about it as a Canadian, an Indo-Canadian, a Punjabi-Canadian. I had no clue this goes on,” [Deepa] Mehta said in an interview. (...) Her ‘primary source’ of material on this conflict was veteran Vancouver Sun reporter Kim Bolan who has tracked the phenomenon for nearly two decades. “Right now in Surrey, there’s another explosion in gang violence. Young men are attracted to the outlaw life, they think it’s cool,” Bolan pointed out. In that region, they have sometimes been described as the Punjabi mafia, though Bolan and the police repeatedly point out that the gangs are often multi-ethnic in nature. The predominance of Indo-Canadians in those controlling crime like drug running in places like Surrey is due to the high percentage of the population form and that’s reflected in the gang composition. Of the 160 gang-related killings in British Columbia between January 2006 and March 2014, over 21% were of South Asian origin. As Bolan reported: “Violent crime is up by 36% in Surrey this year, due in large part to a gang turf war that led to an unprecedented number of public shootings.” Canadian broadcaster CBC described Abbotsford-Mission in BC’s Fraser Valley as the ‘gangland murder capital of Canada’. Gang members have a life expectancy of 29.7 years. (...) Randeep Hooda, who plays the lead role of don Jeet Johar in Beeba Boys, recalls that he first became familiar with the story eight or nine years back when a photographer from Vancouver approached him to make a film on the topic. “But then he came back after a year or so and said we can’t make it, they’re going to shoot me. That’s when I realised, ‘Hey! this problem exists,” Hooda said. (...) The gang culture ‘exploded’ in the early 1990s with the arrival of the flashy Bindy Johal, who sometimes sensationally took to the media to threaten his enemies, mainly the Dosanjh brothers. As the Dosanjhs were gunned down in 1994, Johal was charged but acquitted. In December 1998, he was executed gangland style in a Vancouver nightclub. But his early death created an aura that has resulted in him being a legend among some of the community’s youth. (...) “I didn’t expect getting a gangster flick from Deepa,” Hooda said. But Mehta (...) doesn’t feel she’s ventured into alien territory: “I did a film called Earth, about sectarian violence. That was also really violent in its own way. Violence is a part of life. For me, it’s a dramatic film about gangsters. I don’t feel it’s a genre film”.'

Deepa Mehta e Samir Amarshi - Toronto, 2015

- Gritty crime drama Beeba Boys debuts with a bang at TIFF, Matthew Currie, Anokhi, 12 ottobre 2015:

'It’s not [Deepa] Mehta’s usual thing. But, as she told ANOKHI in a private sit-down at TIFF, she’s always been a fan of gangster flicks and clearly relished the idea of putting her stamp on the genre. “The way I approached the film was, it had to be like a gunshot almost,” she explains. “You know, you pull the trigger and then before you know it, it’s over. That kind of energy.” What’s more, she adds: “I haven’t seen any gangster films about brown people set in North America; that’s different. And they’re a really interesting-looking bunch.” That’s putting it mildly. Decked out in sleek, explosively coloured suits, Jeet’s gang of Beeba Boys (...) are a sight to behold, trading barbs and bullets alike with kinetic, cartoonish glee. (...) Naturally, casting the right actors, finding just that right mix of wisecrackers, tough guys and femme fatales was key. But according to Mehta, it all really hinged on her leading man - the “quintessential good man who is a bad man,” a “near-psychopath” who’s also a loving father and son. “It’s like finding the most important piece of the jigsaw puzzle,” she explains. “And once I found Randeep [Hooda], it’s like the other pieces just fell into place. Then you realize, 'OK, what are the kind of boys that this character would have?' Rehearsals and workshops are very important to me,” she adds, “and that’s what really helped bond these disparate men and actors into a cohesive brotherhood of the Beeba Boys.” (...) Even though, as mentioned, this foray into the crime thriller genre may seem like something of a departure for Mehta, the director herself doesn’t see it that way. While her stories may change, she says, her areas of interest as an artist really haven’t. “I feel very strongly that this film thematically reflects all my concerns and what I’m intrigued by in all my films,” she says, “which is about identity, about assimilation, about immigration, about being visible in a society that relegates you to be invisible.” Indeed, the film is an amalgamation of several true, perhaps underpublicized stories of Indo-Canadian crime figures; but beyond the bullets and banter, what clearly interests Mehta is the complex relationships that these men - who often still live in the same household as their parents - have with their family. That is a big part of what separates Beeba Boys from your typical entry in the genre, and one could say, it's what marks Beeba Boys as a distinctly Deepa Mehta gangster flick. “I think all gangster films - whether they’re Italian or Irish or the Triads - they’re the same, about a band of near-psychopaths who go through this journey, and they generally don’t end well. Mostly they end in body bags,” Mehta says. “That’s the genre. But it's the way it's rooted so deeply into a culture: that was the challenge - just to keep that honest.”'

Randeep Hooda e Sarah Allen - Toronto, 2015

- Thornhill’s Ali Momen stars in Beeba Boys, opening this weekend, Steve Fisher, Streets of Toronto (Post Thornhill), 15 ottobre 2015:

'“I got an email from my agent asking for a demo reel. I sent it, and Deepa [Mehta] emailed me personally, asking to meet for coffee,” Momen says. “I still didn’t know why, but of course I’d meet with her. I’ve always been a fan. (...) She told me about Beeba Boys and that she couldn’t find the co-lead.” Momen continues: “[Mehta] said to me, ‘I know you’re not Indian, but I think you can pull it off. Films shot in Canada are usually American, so Canadians are mostly hired as tertiary characters for small roles. And when you’re an actor of colour, there are even less opportunities to play leading roles. After the first audition, which I didn’t think went well, [Mehta] told me: ‘Come back for another - and I want you to change your clothes and hair, grow a goatee and learn a Chinese rap song,’” Momen says. “I’ve never had to prep for an audition like that, but after that second one, I knew I had it.” Before filming began, Momen was involved in much preparation, both as an individual and in a group. “Because I’m not Indian - not Punjabi, not Sikh - I had to immerse myself in the culture, a beautiful, beautiful culture,” he says. “Prior to the shoot, the cast did a five-day theatrical workshop, doing emotional and text work.” The rationale behind this was so that, when the actors arrived on set, connections between them would already have been forged. Learning about the organized crime stories that informed the script also demanded a lot of work. “In the Surrey (...) area there is a lot of gang warfare within the Punjabi community,” Momen says. “That’s just a fact. So there are some very dirty and dangerous things in the script. (...) The gala was a really exciting experience. Twenty-four hundred people watching the movie you’re in,” he says, “feeling them respond to it, seeing how they react to plot twists, was all amazing”.'

- In-depth with Deepa Mehta, Matthew Currie, Anokhi, 19 ottobre 2015:

'“My father was a film distributor in India,” [Deepa Mehta] explains. “So I grew up with film and realized that I really wanted to have nothing to do with them. Because it’s such a volatile business, and it’s not consistent. [I’m not talking] about the paychecks, which are non-existent - I’m talking about people’s tastes; our concerns might remain the same, but our tastes change. It’s so fickle. I wanted to do something that was really steady,” she continues. “So I [went] to do my masters in philosophy; and I just sort of fell into [filmmaking], helping a friend out, did a documentary and said, ‘Hmm, this is interesting.’” Around this time, she met her first husband, Canadian documentarian Paul Saltzman, with whom she immigrated to Toronto in 1973. It was here, a couple decades later, that Mehta first broke through with the auspiciously received Sam & Me - a tender, nuanced tale about the unlikely friendship between an elderly Jewish man and the young Indo-Canadian immigrant who serves as his caretaker. Despite the fact that Mehta spent her formative years in New Delhi, Canada played, and still plays, a crucial part in shaping her identity as an artist. “I feel like both [Indian and Canadian], and I think many people do in Canada. We’re all hyphenated,” Mehta chuckles. “India is very organic in many things I do. I’ve said this often: Indians inspire me to [tell] the stories I do; Canada gives me the freedom to express them.”

The latest product of that inspiration and opportunity is Beeba Boys, an alternately stylish, silly and brutal crime thriller following Jeet Johar (...) and his gang of quirky, colourfully dressed criminals as they battle for control of the Vancouver underworld. “I love gangster films,” the director enthuses. “It’s fascinating; it’s about the ascent of a minority group and the descent... the easy way into power and money.” (...) While she based Beeba Boys on several true stories of Indo-Canadian crime lords, Mehta is quick to note that, despite a message in the end credits which asserts that “This maelstrom actually happened” - the maelstrom itself is not, by any means, a biopic. “There are so many gangsters that people know about, but I think it’s an amalgamation of a lot of events and characters,” she explains. “Otherwise, I would’ve bought the rights to one of their stories; it would’ve been much easier. But those didn’t interest me. What interested me, for example, would be that a lot of them live [with the parents], so that’s based in reality, but how they live at home is something I had to invent... It does happen [in the film], but how it happens is my doing, so I take responsibility for that.” The primary point of interest for the director is clearly her main character, kingpin Jeet Johar, a walking contradiction of a man who mercilessly floods the streets with blood and drugs, but is also a devout Sikh and doting single father - in Mehta’s eyes, a tragic antihero of “wasted potential.” I wonder aloud if it’s a difficult trick for a filmmaker to pull off - wrapping the loving family man and the merciless killer up into one believable package. But Mehta is quick to note, she’s dealt with this conundrum before. “I did a film called Heaven on Earth that dealt with a domestic violence situation,” she says, (...) “and I had to find the same [humanity] in the husband who abused. You can’t say, ‘No, there can be no humanity in a man who beats up a woman.’ There is very little, but that doesn’t mean there’s none... You have to find it. It’s that complexity.” (...)

I can’t help but ask if she still feels like the same filmmaker who arrived here at TIFF 24 years ago. “Oh, I hope not!” Mehta laughs. “But I think my concerns haven’t changed. My first film was Sam & Me, which was about a bunch of guys; there were no female characters in it, really... I feel very strongly that [Beeba Boys] thematically reflects what I’m intrigued by in all my films, which is about identity, about assimilation, about immigration, about being visible in a society that relegates you to be invisible... So the concerns haven’t changed. Stories change, of course.” Something else that hasn’t changed all that much, she confides, is the fact that her technical mastery of the craft doesn’t quite match up to her lauded storytelling vision. “[On Sam & Me], the cinematographer was a wonderful French-Canadian cinematographer called Guy Dufaux,” she recalls, “and I came on set and was given a viewfinder; so I was sort of adjusting the lens, and he said, ‘Deepa, what are you doing?’ I said, ‘Trying to figure out which lens to use.’ He said, ‘You’ve got it on wrong.’ I said, ‘Oh really?’ He said, ‘Don’t worry about this; this is a close-up, this is a medium shot, this is a full shot. All you have to do is say that to me; communicate what you want to see.’ [That] was something that really for the rest of my life alleviated me from the fact that I don’t have intense technical knowledge.” Nonetheless, throughout the years, being on-set has remained her favourite part of the process. “Writing is... you know, I do it on my kitchen table. It’s very personal, but it’s very quiet. I don’t use the computer; I write long-hand. And it’s isolating in many ways, as it should be. But suddenly coming to life with actors... I love working with actors.” So when can we expect her to be back at that kitchen table, crafting her next rich, singularly realized film world? Not for a while - Beeba Boys has taken its toll. “Oh my God, I want to sleep for the next 10 months!” she laughs. “I do have a project; it’s called sleeping.”'

- Deepa Mehta. Everything is, Sara Harowitz, Montecristo, autunno 2015:

'Beeba Boys is the first gangster film directed by a woman in nearly 40 years. It is unarguably a male-dominated genre, but that was hardly a deterrent for [Deepa] Mehta; she has never been one to conform. (...) “All films are hard. What excites me is when I can do a film that I don’t know much about; so I go into a genre like horror or gangster and it’s exciting. You’re learning. I don’t know why more women haven’t done it.” (...) Beeba Boys is certainly the work of Mehta, and her hand is felt throughout. “You can’t go against what your commitment is to the film,” she says. “It has to be my vision. Whether it sinks or swims, I have to take responsibility.” Aside from being visually stunning, as is characteristic of her work, this is a film that is fiercely politically charged (“all art is political,” she declares without prompt). Lurking beneath the money and guns is a story of identity, of a group of ostracized people unsure where they fit in Canadian society. “There are identity problems,” she says. “Most Indo-Canadian gangsters live at home, so they aren’t disenfranchised; they’re not sons of broken homes or from families that have no money. That became very interesting. So it became about immigration. Identity and immigration are big concerns of mine. I think the film has a lot to do with: what is one’s identity?” (...) Mehta is feisty when she needs to be, thoughtful and sincere but also blunt; she doesn’t like to waste time, but her presence is warm, and her laugh is deep and round. (...) “Yes, it’s very specific, yes, it’s set in Vancouver, yes, it’s about Indian gangsters - but it’s also about everybody. All of us feel disenfranchised. The characters are antiheros, they’re people you’re not supposed to like, but you can’t help feeling something for them. It’s a specific film, but it’s also universal because the concerns are universal: How do you fit in?” For the Beeba Boys, though, it’s also about standing out. These characters are young men who were born in Canada, who grew up in the cultural clash of their parents’ country and their own. When one’s ethnic identity is muddled, it becomes about making a name. They wear flashy suits and drive fancy cars because they want to be seen, to prove themselves, to show that they deserve to be here, too, that they have a presence. This confidence is not accidental; in fact, it is integral. “They’re sort of cool and they’re brown, and I like that,” Mehta says of the characters. “Indian men haven’t been portrayed like that. Brown actors are cast as cab drivers, clerks in the corner store; all of these actors have been offered roles as terrorists. If they get really lucky they get to be a doctor in the emergency room. There’s amazing talent that Canada has. This is a step towards saying, ‘Hello, we’ve got a lot of talent that’s not just white.’ (...) I’m thrilled for the film, I’m thrilled for the actors,” says Mehta. (...) She talks about her cast with great admiration, a testament to her humility. Mehta’s films come from within, but they don’t belong to her. She doesn’t purposefully go for the glory, though it does seem to end up in her path.

She is committed to telling untold stories, no matter how controversial or taboo. Mehta does heaps of research before writing a script, and in the case of Beeba Boys, visited the homes of some Indo-Canadian gangsters in Vancouver, even having lunch with one of their mothers. “I asked her, ‘Do you know what your son does?’ She said, ‘Of course I know what he does,’” Mehta recalls. “And I said, ‘What does he do?’ She said, ‘He’s in import/export.’ I started laughing, because obviously he exports marijuana and imports cocaine.” A similar line makes it into the film, which for an uninformed viewer, could seem sensational, but in reality, is startlingly accurate. “I’m intrigued by the good-bad guy, or the antihero, or the negative role model. I think that’s fascinating, because they exist, they really do. To explore that in the film with [gang leader] Jeet was fantastic: how do you balance the fact that he’s a ruthless killer without glamorizing him? Because there’s nothing glamorous about crime, as the boys found out,” says Mehta. “It’s about lives lost. It’s about the futility of the choices we make. And this choice in particular is so futile because it can only end in one way, and that’s in a body bag.” This is resonant in the name of the film, as well: beeba means good in Punjabi. Even criminals aren’t cut so simply. Mehta’s films are layered and complex, her characters well rounded and messy; she propels the conversation forward, asks the tough questions and is unapologetic about it. Mehta is a resolute artist. She’s the wood and the fire, the yell and the echo'.

- Il 23 ottobre 2015, in occasione della distribuzione di Beeba Boys in Canada, Ali Momen ha organizzato una live chat in Twitter. Di seguito le risposte alle mie domande:

(CH) Sir, is it true you're coming to Florence for #BeebaBoys screening?

(AM) That sadly got taken out of context in an interview [vedi l'intervista concessa a Streets of Toronto]. Let’s put that under ‘I wish’ and ‘I’d love to’. ;)

(CH) As per your info, are the producers planning a distribution of #BeebaBoys in Europe (no UK) and when?

(AM) We are definitely planning it but I sadly don’t have the details yet. Team Beeba will let you know. ;)

(CH) What about the young actor Samir Amarshi surrounded by so many #BeebaBoys? Did you all behave properly with him?

(AM) Samir is the coolest kid who will one day be taking all our parts!

(CH) Many talented Indian actors/actresses are conquering Western fans. In your opinion, why does Indian cinema attract the West?

(AM) We are all essentially the same. So feeling empathy for a culture you think is far from you is intoxicating.

(AM) Thanks everyone! If you’ve seen the film, thank you! If you haven’t? What’s wrong with you?!

(CH) Ahem, for example do we live in the wrong Country? #BeebaBoys not distributed here #unfair #sigh

(AM) Well you get a pass on that . ;)

[Ali Momen è un amore! Garbato, arguto, gentile. Uomo da sposare. Dov'è la fila? Il modulo da compilare?]

Randeep Hooda e Sarah Allen in Beeba Boys

- Deepa Mehta on the worlds of crime and assimilation, Catherine Tsalikis, OpenCanada, 11 novembre 2015:

'You’re the first woman to direct a gangster film in 40 years. Why that genre, and why did you choose - out of all the stories in the world - this particularly Canadian story?

For me, as a filmmaker, everything starts with a story. If there’s a story that interests me, that I know that while I’m doing it or re-telling it I’m going to learn something more, then it’s exciting. (...) All my films thematically have something to do with identity, assimilation, immigration - how we fit in. I was intrigued by the whole sociological idea that crime is a sort of step towards assimilation.

Throughout the film the ‘Beeba Boys’ have this constant need to be seen, whether that comes out in the colourful clothes they wear or the over-the-top confidence they try and project - does this speak to the immigrant experience in Canada? Despite being second, third generation - is this a way of trying to fit in as Canadians?

They are Canadians! I personally really don’t like the hyphenated - I’m really tired of being an Indo-Canadian. I’m a Canadian who happens to be Indian. That’s about it. So first of all they’re Canadians. There’s the character of the cop in the film who says, ‘they aren’t immigrants, will you stop calling anybody who’s coloured an immigrant!’ What is assimilation? It’s much easier in the United States because everybody becomes an American. I like the fact that in Canada we are given an opportunity to hold on to where we come from. But there’s a limit to it - how do we prevent ghettoization, and when does multiculturalism stop being [about] stereotypes that the white dominant society imposes on its communities that are not white. To break that stereotype for me was imperative. We have to rethink what we mean by visible minority, what do we mean by multiculturalism, how long does somebody have to be an immigrant before they become a Canadian? That is the question.

The real people you spoke with who inspired these stories, they were searching for something more - a sense of belonging. Why is it that they, and the characters in the film, turned to gangs and crime instead of, say, team sports, community theatre, or something on the less violent end of the spectrum?

I think it’s about easy access to power. If you’re marginalized as a community, it’s much easier to take out a gun and put the fear of death in somebody rather than go and do your PhD and become a doctor that everyone admires. The character Jeet Johar, who’s the head of the gang, says that before Bruce Lee came on the scene the Chinese were really marginalized, and now [people are] petrified [of them]. Jeet brags, ‘Nobody messes with the Indos since we came on the scene!’ So it’s bravado - and it’s also brotherhood. Those are the foundations of gangs, so it’s not any different than say an Irish gang or a Greek gang or whatever. That’s the reality.

How do you hope the Indo-Canadian - apologies for the hyphen! - community in Vancouver and across the country will react to this film? Are you worried you’ll be criticized for shining a negative light on a hitherto mostly hidden problem? (...)

It’s a section of our community, and I think as people who come into a country and want to assimilate, it’s really important for us to be accepted. In order to be accepted, we do what is the first natural thing that anyone does when they come to a new country: we don’t want to create waves, we do not want anything that is negative about our community to be talked about, in case people look at that and say that’s the whole community. Beeba Boys is [about] a troublesome section of our community, and we have to do something about it, instead of sweeping it under the carpet. I feel we should start a dialogue, take responsibility, and as the outer community, the larger community that is looking at us, they should also take responsibility because we are all together as being Canadians.

Are the stories of Sikh gangs widely reported or are they better known in B.C. [British Columbia] than in the rest of Canada?

It’s a serious problem; (...) you don’t even hear about the Triads, forget this. These are - compared to the Mafia - very small gangs. I think that Canada is really divided by the Rockies, it’s like when news passes the Rockies everybody gets collective amnesia. [There] are many things that are strange about Vancouver, it’s a fascinating city, it’s beautiful. The people on one level are so-called lotus-eaters and are into granola and yogurt, but on another level there’s a real underlying racism that hasn’t been resolved.

When looking at other countries and their experience with immigration, I’ve always looked at Canada as doing something right, relatively speaking. From this story, do you gather that there’s more to be done on that front?

It all has to stem from politics, and a cultural history, a recognition that something has not been done as it should be. I think comparatively, Canada’s amazing. But I feel that just because we’re amazing, doesn’t mean we can’t be more amazing. We can’t stop. (...) We have to understand that if people want to come to our country, whether it’s Canada, whether it’s Germany, whether it’s any country in the world, that they’re going to enrich it. We aren’t doing them a favour. We’re a good country, but I think we are capable of much more. (...) And how do you explain that we don’t know what’s happening in the West Coast? And also that we have no idea of different cultures. We keep talking about how we’re multicultural - it’s all about happy ethnics being trotted out to do our little folk dances. (...) We’re either that or we’re terrorists, there’s nothing in between. If we really do want to understand the cultures we come from, what’s happening within those communities, then we have to be aware. (...)

Is this what you hoped for while making the film - that it will reach across the divide and be universal even though it’s about a very particular set?

I keep on quoting my favourite director, Luis Buñuel, and I keep on saying the minute you’re particular is the minute you become universal. I think it’s a very particular story, but it is a universal story. So as a filmmaker, I would love all communities, not just ours, but all communities, to find themselves in it.(...) And I feel that the way people are reacting to Beeba Boys is that, my god, I’ve never seen this, and that’s great.

What’s the message you’d like viewers to take from Beeba Boys?

Crime doesn’t pay. That’s what the film is about, you know. They might be kick-ass gangsters, and you can start off by wanting what their mantra is, which is ‘money, respect, power’ (and style, let’s not forget,) but it doesn’t end well'.