AFS Essentials Presents: Earth (1998)

To kick off their third series of films from the Middle East and North Africa, "Children of Abraham/Ibrahim 3", the Austin Film Society is showing Earth, a 1998 film by Deepa Mehta, a female director who was born in India and immigrated to Canada in the '70s. Part of Mehta's trilogy of element films, which also includes Fire and the more recent Water, Earth focuses on the story of a young girl growing up in Lahore during the 1947 partition.

Lenny, who comes from a wealthy Parsi family, is somewhat sheltered from the violence that comes with the India/Pakistan split, but through her relationship with her pretty Hindu nanny and her nanny's diverse friends, eventually the effects of the partition hit home. Mehta's films tend to court controversy in her country of birth (the lesbian relationship in Fire and Water's depiction of widows sparked large protest from fundamentalist groups), but this film was India's Best Foreign Film contender for the Oscars (although it wasn't one of the final five nominees). Her Earth deals with the issues of gender, ethnicity, and identity while shedding light on a very harsh time in the histories of India and Pakistan.