Director, Shonali Bose

AMU, an award-winning feature film, set against the backdrop of 1984 massacre of the Sikhs, premiered to packed audiences at this years Toronto International Film Festival. Despite the cultural diversity visually apparent in the audience, everyone enjoyed the roller coaster ride of emotions, right from suspense to frustration to anger to despair and sadness.

Amu is the story of Kaju, a twenty-one-year-old Indian American woman who returns to India to visit her family. The film takes a dramatic turn as Kaju stumbles against secrets and lies from her past. The horrifying carnage in Delhi that took place twenty-one years ago appears to hold the key to her mysterious origins.

What did happen twenty-one years ago, and what is happening now? Has justice been served? What role did Kaju's family play in the killings? Will she have the courage to pursue the truth no matter the cost? Will it destroy her relationship with her mother? Will it affect her burgeoning romance? Where will her journey take her?

An award-winning film like AMU, that has already won the hearts and minds of a broad spectrum of audience from all over India, can go a long way in bringing out the infamy of 1984 in the international mainstream. Recent political developments in India have only enhanced the relevance of this film.

Biography of the Filmmaker

Shonali Bose was born in 1965 and grew up in Calcutta, Bombay and Delhi. She has been an activist since her student days at Miranda House College, Delhi University (BA History Honours) and Columbia University, New York (MA Political Science). Bose was also passionately involved in theater throughout school and college. In 1984 she co-wrote and acted in a street play on the Delhi Riots which was performed in relief camps, riot-affected areas, markets, schools, and colleges across Delhi.

Shonali worked for a year as an organizer at the National Lawyer's Guild, and directed live community television in Manhattan before embarking on the MFA Directing Program at UCLA's School of Theater, Film, and Television. Her short narrative films (The Gendarme Is Here and Undocumented) and her feature-length documentary (Lifting the Veil) have screened throughout the world.

Bose lives in Los Angeles with her family, where she produces and hosts a monthly radio show about South Asia on KPFK. Amu is her feature film debut and is written, produced and directed by her.