Goldfish, an English language feature film directed by Pushan Kripalani, starring Deepti Naval and Kalki Koechlin is making waves and lots of applause at many prestigious festivals. After its world premiere at the 27th Busan International Film Festival, the film will have its European Premiere at 30th Raindance Film Festival. A BAFTA and OSCAR qualifying festival this year it is running from 26th October – 5th November 2022 in London.
Apart from Deepti Naval and Kalki who play the lead roles of mother and daughter, the film, also stars the prolific actors Rajit Kapur, Gordon Warnecke (lead in ‘My Beautiful Laundrette), and Bharti Patel (Featured in BBC series Doctors) in pivotal roles.
Goldfish deals with memory and identity. Anamika, the child of a mixed marriage, returns home to her estranged mother Sadhana because she is suffering from the onset of dementia. Ana returns to a neighbourhood she barely remembers, to a woman who sometimes doesn’t remember her.
Anamika Fields is the daughter of an Englishman and an Indian, Sadhana Tripathi, who sacrificed a career as a classical singer of great promise to move to the UK. Her husband died when Ana was ten. Sadhana, who never wanted to be a parent, or live in the UK, brought up her only daughter. Twenty-five years later, Sadhana is suffering from the onset of dementia. Mother and daughter, strangers for over a decade, find themselves thrown together into their difficult, damaging relationship. Anamika becomes several things, all at once: she is daughter and mother, care-giver and secretary and detective, shield and scalpel. Around her, in the neighbourhood she escaped, Anamika begins to discover a woman she never knew at home, alive in memory, in anecdote, in music she doesn’t understand.
Director Pushan Kripalani expands on this story and the film, “Goldfish seeks to explore ideas of identity through two women. One unsure of who she is because she lives between two cultures, neither completely her own, and the other, stuck in a land not her own, now because of her disease, with her identity ephemeral. It examines these questions with the distance afforded by diaspora. It seeks to address the ideas of duty, love and painful history. And the idea that identity is also contained in trust and love within the people who know us. Even if we lose our own.”
Actor Deepti Naval said, “It is wonderful news and feels great that the movie is making the right kind of noise. This movie holds a special place for me as I’ve personally dealt with dementia. It is a very relatable story and so it’s good to know that there is a world audience for such stories at festivals such as Raindance”.
Actor Kalki Koechlin said, “Very thrilled that Goldfish is selected in competition for best UK film at Raindance Festival. this is a special one for most of the cast and crew who are from UK, it feels like the film has come full circle from last july when we shot it in London”.
Excited about the premiere, Director Pushan Kripalani said, “I’m delighted to learn about the film’s nomination at Raindance. It is very gratifying that the long journey and the efforts of the cast and crew are acknowledged and recognised. Hope to see everyone in person again, very soon. It is true we must look forward and on to other things, but moments like these help us pause for a minute and say to one another, look at what we did. It’s a wonderful feeling”.
The film, which is selected in the ‘Homegrown’ category, is nominated for the ‘Best UK Film’ in the festival. Set in London, Goldfish is a UK production and is produced by Amit Saxena’s Splendid Films (USA) and executive produced by Pooja Chauhan. Pooja Chauhan said, “Goldfish, from the offset, explores the concept to identify. So it is rather poetic that Raindance has nominated it for Best UK film. This film is a creation by people of many different ethnicities and from various walks of life – all brought together by one thing alone – their love to tell this story. We are really honoured to be in this category.”
Amit Saxena, Director of Splendid Films and Film Producer said, “I am overjoyed to make our UK premiere at the Raindance Film Festival. It’s been a beautiful journey collaborating with such wonderful talent and see it going places”.
Goldfish screens on November 4th!
Stay tuned; we will have a review of this special movie!
