Nina's Heavenly Delights

I just viewed this film at the MGLFF in Miami Beach, Florida. The audience very much loved the film. It was shown at the Regal Cinema on Lincoln Road. I like great cinema.I also liked the internation feel of the film. Great detail to light and framing make this film unique. I so enjoyed the beautiful truth that unfolded. We are fortunate to have such great filmmakers who celebrate relationships like this one. Pratibha(Director) takes the viewer on a journey that uses all of their senses. I loved the story. Here are some words to describe it. ENLIGHTENED! EVOLVED! BEAUTIFUL! I look forward to seeing more of this young directors work. I know that she will be doing more and more great projects....

This film does not tick the 'right' buttons for white expectations of an Asian British film or a queer film and so people may be wrong footed. So there is no culture clash with parents who are living an 'Asian' read outdated culture with westernised children, no arranged marriage, no white person learning and being surprised by 'Asian' culture. No belly laughs ensuing from said conflicts. Instead we have a film about being true to yourself and learning to follow your passions for whatever - cooking, dance, love. I wait for the day that Black filmmakers can make work without having to conform to the prescribed script written for them to fulfil and they can just follow their passions.

Knowing the struggles that a lot Asians go through with coming out and their acceptance by their families, this movie is a breeze of fresh air. It is OK for parents to have preconceived ideas and hopes for their kids but a little bit of open mindedness can make everyone so happy!

I watched this movie at the GLBT Festival at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where this movie was selected to be screened on the closing night. Its a movie I can comfortably watch with my parents without making them uncomfortable also.

I also got an opportunity to hang out with Ms. Parmar, the director of the movie, who I interviewed for a magazine. A very down-to-earth, real person, who has kinda lived the story.

Kudos to Pratibha Parmar for giving me 2 hours of smiles and happiness through her movie!!

This film was at the International Lesbian & Gay Film Festival in Turin, and it was a real pleasure to see it and to meet the film-maker afterward. Parmar is a well known documentarist, and she brought in this feature film the richness of her past experience. It's a fresh, delicate comedy, with very sensuous details about food. But what I appreciated most it's the multicultural view, the idea of multi-layered identities (Indian-Scottish, Indian-Lesbian, etc...). It makes you feel it's possible to combine successfully the ingredients of your personality, like in a good recipe, instead of having them at war with each other. The actress who plays Nina's mother is wonderful. I'd like to see her more on the screen.

I hate the way this film has been criticized in the press. By insisting, as the BBC does in their review of her film, that any treatment of Asian queerness needs to be portrayed as brutish and gritty, and that any story of an Asian family coping with a queer member must be shown through the lens of a "multicultural family and their troubled psyches", the press is putting the same straight-jacket on Asian filmmakers, as they do on black filmmakers, when they insist that the only stories that can come of out the black community are stories of gun violence and rat-infested squats.

The critics demand that queer Asians aren't allowed to do "Kissing Jessica Stein", that domain is reserved for whites only. Reading the reviews, you get the clear picture that the crime they want to charge Pratibha with, is not "making a bad film" but for "not telling an Asian queer story in the appropriate manner", as set out by films like East is East and My Beautiful Laundrette. That bloody sucks. More power to her for daring to challenge the stereotypes.