Foreign affairs

East is East, starring Om Puri, is the touching story of a mixed-race family attempting to come to terms with their cultural identity in 1970s Salford. Adapted from Ayub Khan-Din’s autobiographical play and directed by Damien O’Donnell, it took the British film industry by storm when it was released late in 1999. FilmFour, who oversaw the distribution of the film, were so confident of its appeal that 200 prints, as opposed to the usual arthouse average of 15, were put in circulation around the country, making it the biggest ever deal struck over any film with a British Asian subject. Indeed so phenomenal was its success that Miramax picked the movie up for distribution in America before they’d even seen it. At the Cannes Film Festival it received a ten minute standing ovation, at the Evening Standard British Film Awards it picked up Best Film and at the Edinburgh Festival it narrowly missed the Michael Powell Audience award.

Beatrice Gibson