East Is East
Date:
May 5, 2022
Date:
Saturday, June 11, 2022Time:
18:15 (Doors open from 18:00)Venue:
ODEON Luxe Birmingham Broadway Plaza, B16 8LPDirector:
Damien O’DonnellCast:
Om Puri, Linda Bassett, Jimi Mistry, Emil Marwa, Raji James, Archie James, Jordan Routledge, Chris BissonDuration:
96 MinutesLanguage:
EnglishCertified:
15 - Suitable for age 15 years and overSynopsis
George Khan, a proud Pakistani and chip shop owner – ‘Ghengis’ to his kids – rules his family with a rod of iron. He thinks he’s raising his seven children to be respectable Pakistanis. But this is Salford in the North of England, in 1971. Much as George’s English wife, Ella, loves and tries to honour her husband, she also wants her kids to be happy. The children, caught between bell-bottoms and arranged marriages, simply want to be citizens of the modern world.
DIRECTOR BIO
Damien emerged as a talent to watch with his sharply observed short film Thirty Five Aside, which follows an awkward schoolboy’s misadventures when he starts at a new school. The film has won more than 30 awards worldwide.
Talking about the script of this film he says: “I realised that it was a film dealing with an immigrant’s experience, about moving acros s the world and coming up against different ways I was struck by how widespread an experience this was, how pertinent
today, when so many people are forced to move to find a better life. It was then that I understood that it wasn’t a film about Pakistanis in Salford, it was a film about family tradition versus progress, about the values of the old ver sus those of the young, themes everyone can relate to, so I said I’d give it a go!”
POST-SCREENING Q&A
Leslee Udwin (Producer: East is East), Neila Butt (Creative Diversity Lead, Nations and Regions, Channel 4) will attend a post-screening Q&A discussion.
