Deepa Mehta

The Republic of Love -- Tom is a charismatic talk show host who is a little too quick to fall in love. Fay is an academic whose expectations are impossibly high. Their romance is a series of near misses as they connect in a maze of malls, condos and family homes, underpinning the idea that 'geography is destiny' and that each of us has our own 'republic of love.' Canada. English. Official Selection - Toronto Int'l FF.

Fire -- A detective's last stand against an undefeatable demon.

The story of Water begins in 1938 India as an 8 year old girl, who barely even remembers her wedding and has little comprehension of her marriage, has just been widowed. Required by ancient Hindu laws to now leave society, she is brought to a dilapidated widow house or ashram where, according to custom, her hair will be shorn, her clothes exchanged for white robes and the rest of her life, until her death, will be spent in renunciation. But the feisty, precocious, disbelieving Chuyia (Sarala) soon turns the house upside down with her rebellious spark. She begins to have a profound affect on the other women who live there, in particular the devout Shakuntala (Seema Biswas) and the beautiful Kalyani (Lisa Ray) who has been forced into prostitution by the domineering head widow, Madhumati (Manorama). It is Chuyia who leads Kalyani to meet the alluring law student and Gandhi nationalist Narayan (John Abraham), with whom Kalyani falls in love, despite the taboos. What happens next - an attempt at escape fueled by passion and bravery -- will change Chuyia forever and bring both tragedy and an unexpected ray of hope to the widow house.

Set in colonial India against Mahatma Gandhi's rise to power, the film tells the story of 8-year-old Chuyia, who is widowed and sent to a home to live in penitence; once there, Chuyia's feisty presence deeply affects the lives of the other residents.