While I For India is billed as Sandhya Suri’s first feature length documentary, the reality is that its makers are her whole extended family.
Suri’s father moved from India to the UK in 1965 to train and work as a doctor. In the days before cheap phone calls and the Internet, he found communicating with his family back in India difficult. His solution was ingenious: he bought two Super 8 cameras, two projectors, and two reel to reel recorders. He sent one set back to his family in India and for the next 40 years swapped images and stories of his new life for the one he had left behind – Britain’s miniskirts, snow, and parties were exchanged for stories of traditional weddings, festivals and family.
So film-making was in Suri’s blood. Suri herself contributed to the family correspondence and went on to study maths and German, before receiving a scholarship to study documentary at The National Film and Television School. Her graduation film, Safar, received several awards.
She says “Like so many families, lacing up our ancient projector and replaying our favourite Super 8 home movies was something we used to do with routine nostalgia. Only years later, as an adult, when I came across a box of audio reels, did I realise that the films were part of a much bigger story.” Alongside the silent films, her father had recorded his intimate thoughts on tape.
Suri says her father’s films and recordings are the “greatest gift I could have wished for as a documentary maker – real, long-term development”. I For India intersperses these with Suri’s own documentary of her parents’ interactions with their neighbours, friends and family, showing the difficulties, blessings, ups and downs of an immigrant life, and capturing the long-term consequences of the family’s move to the UK.
Far from being nostalgic, or a diatribe, Suri’s film softly and subtly explores the gaps between India and England, and the dynamics of families. In one scene she films her father receiving gardening advice over the fence from the next door neighbour.
It’s easy to think that the empire lies in the past. But Suri’s film shows it’s a relatively fresh experience for many and it hasn’t been an easy journey. Suri’s documentary unmasks the personal and social difficulties of this relationship: From homesickness, to misunderstandings, to out-and-out racism. How does it feel when someone can’t say your name? How does it feel to be the one who stands out in a crowd when all you want to do is fit in? And how do you choose between a family begging you to come home to India, and a career and new life in England.
The film begins with the cringe-worthy newsreels of TV education programmes teaching immigrants how to switch on and off a light. But, as the family finally return “home” after a decade in the UK, their alienation is made clear. Where exactly is “home”, when you no longer fit into the home you left, and are perhaps not yet fully part of the one you’ve settled in?
Perhaps the most poignant scene is when Suri’s sister leaves the UK for Australia, only to replicate, perhaps, their parent’s journey from India to England. We watch her as she broadcasts her own video chat with her parents over the Internet.
The press release describes it as a “bitter-sweet time capsule of alienation, discovery, racism and belonging”. In reality it is this, but much more – a family history with wider social commentary about one of the biggest journeys you can make, and the difficulty of leaving home. It is certainly well-deserving of the many awards its picked up at festivals that include Best Documentary at Karachi International Film Festival, Best Documentary at the Asian Festival of First Films, and the Silver Award at Film South Asia.
Not one to miss – see it while you can.
I For India is showing at the ICA, The Mall, London, from today until 31 August to coincide with a wider celebration of all things Indian in the UK: The Mayor’s India Now programme.