Shooting Water: A Memoir of Second Chances, Family, and Filmmaking

"Water" is a book about widows in India... including an eight year old child bride widowed soon after her marriage. The film topic was *highly* controversial in India - and this book chronicles the many challenges around making the film. Highly recommended - buy it right along with the DVD!!!

I received this book, a signed copy, from the author at a book fair last year. With my daughter doing field work in India for her Master's in Public Health, I finally picked it up. It was beautifully written and and evoked many of the same interesting tales of an exotic country. Devyani Saltzman writes of a difficult childhood and how the divorce of her parents scarred her. She chose to live with her father. Despite a strained relationship with her mother, she is asked by her mother to help make the film, Water. Deepa Mehta, the filmaker, is an interesting woman in her own right and her films are progressive and feminist and beautifully filmed. This insightful book unfolds as the film is pulled from shooting due to its feminist theme. Ms. Saltzman then explores India, goes to college and experiences a breakdown and finally gets to help make this film four years later, in Sri Lanka. The beautiful, ultimate reunion between mother and daughter help to make this book meaningful. If you love film, especially art house film, read this "behind the scenes" exploration. Amid the family turmoil, you will get an in depth education about making a movie.

In late 1999 when the author was almost twenty her filmmaker mother Deepa Mehta invited her to come to India to work as a third assistant cameraperson on her new controversial film Water. SHOOTING WATER: A MEMOIR OF SECOND CHANCES, FAMILY, AND FILMMAKING chronicles this season where mother and daughter worked to repair a strained relationship affected by divorce and separation. The fallout of such a relationship was to affect not just their relationship but Saltzman's own choice of religion (Hinduism and Judaism), culture (Indian and Canadian) and more. Anticipate a revealing story in SHOOTING WATER which covers not just the art of filmmaking in India, but how families are separated and come back together. Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch

Shooting Water by Devyani Saltzman is the touching story of the making of the film Water of which Ms. Salzman's mother, Deepa Mehta, is the writer/director. The film documents the deplorable life of widows in India in the 1930's. The shooting began in Benares, India's most holy city where many of these widows lived. However, within a couple of days dangerous demonstrations shut down the production and four years later the film was finished in Sri Lanka. The book documents the events surrounding the shooting while the mother and daughter team work out the stresses and pain of a lifetime between them, since Devyani chose to live with her father after her parents divorced. The struggle with the film-making parallels the struggle with their hearts, and as they resolved the production problems they also resolved their relationship pains. It is a touching book, timely, as the film is just being released in the U.S

I read this book straight through in a day and a half. A beautifully written account of the shooting of the film Water, the author's relationship with her family, and her life experiences, the narrative invokes powerful images, sounds, and emotions. The book recognizes the imperfections, the struggles, the injustices--in the world, in relationships--and is ultimately hopeful and uplifting.