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For first-time feature producer Leslee Udwin, the absolute cer- tainty of eventual film success arrived very early. “When,” she recalls, “I saw the first night of East is East at the Royal Court in 1996, fell completely, wildly head-over-heels in love with it.
“The extraordinary thing was how it unified the audience. I’m a Jewish woman with no Pakistani or even English antecedents yet the man [chip shop owner George ‘Genghis’ Khan, played by Om Puri in the film] I was watching was my father.
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markets (including France where the film has been cheerfully retitled Fish And Chips).
By the time you read this, it will have also opened via Miramax in the States where, according to Udwin, the test screening results in New York were even higher than in London S.W.19. Any transatlantic changes? “There have been at most 52 lines of ADR, of those in some ten cases, perhaps, we changed a word. Like ‘bin’, as in ‘put that coat in the bin!’’ apparently they didn’t understand bin,” says Udwin.
threw all the old cliches in my face – from its ‘difficult’ Asian background to the need for big star names. I was always totally convinced it was a ‘cross-over’, and that that was the phrase I kept using.
“Even though Film Four came in with full funding, they still set, I believe, a low price on it. There is a lesson to be carried forward from this. It’s not about ‘let’s back an outsider’ or ‘fully fund a film which others might say is of limited value.’ It’s to do
“What immediately resonated,” Udwin adds, “was its universality, a rebellion against parental authority which speaks to everyone. I knew instantly that it would be a terrific film and that I wanted to make it. That evening I said to Ayub [Khan Din, the play’s author and eventual screen- writer], ‘I’m on to your agent first thing in the morning ...”
According to Udwin, Paul Webster, head of East Is East’s financier, Film Four, didn’t properly gauge its full potential “until he sat at a test screen- ing in March 1999 at the Wimbledon Odeon where the audience went up like a bonfire.” As for Pete Buckingham, Film Four’s canny director of UK Distribution, he admits he only became fully convinced the day the film finally opened to the public “and the first fig- ures came in.” Talking of bonfires, that explosive first run began on – you’ve guessed it – November 5 last.
East Is East cost £2,518,000 to make and has, to date, grossed more than £10.3 million domestically. Which makes it – and everyone has been scouring data bases for others’ financ-
ing “parentage” – the second most successful
(just behind Trainspotting) fully UK-financed film ever at the British box-office.
Happily, the ticket wickets continue to resound in all its current international
Add to this a veritable shoal of prizes, including BAFTA’s prestigious Alexander Korda Award for Outstanding British Film of the Year, and it’s clear that Udwin’s undiluted passion appears inspired. But was it instantly reciprocated? Not a bit of it, for the film’s development endured what she describes a “chequered histo- ry” – including an ultimately fruitless stopover at the BBC.
Says Udwin: “I had to take it away from the BBC because they weren’t able to put enough money on the table to make it happen. Clearly they didn’t deem it to be that special. At first it was a real uphill battle to get it financed because they
moves on next to a $15 million true-life drama called In Search Of The Assassin, it’s not unalloyed joy: “This is very upsetting and it so occupies me. Think of a film like Shallow Grave and all those people, then virtual unknowns, went on to become stars.
“ Now look at my kids. They’re bril- liant in praised performances in a major film. Yet only one now has a film job. There is a huge reluctance to cross-cast. Here, if someone has a dark- er skin – for whatever reason- we seem unable to cast against ‘type’.
“That’s really devastating. So in fact, East Is East hasn’t opened doors in the same way it would have
for young, pure white, actors and actresses,” sighs Udwin. ■
EASTISAFEAST
EASTISAFEAST
THE SELLING OF A BRITISH ‘CROSSOVER’ COMEDY CLASSIC QUENTIN FALK EXAMINES THE MUTT’S NUTS AND BOLTS
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Academy Profile
Photos this page main: Producer of East Is East Leslee Udwin; inset left: Director Damien O’Donnell and Writer Ayub Khan Din; inset above: Jimi Mistry and Emma Rydal in East Is East
with going all
the way – whether you’re a financier or a distributor – with your gut instinct. You must never run the risk of strangling an extraordi- nary child at birth.
“For all the brilliance of the distribution cam- paign – from the teasers with the dog to the big posters emphasising its youthful appeal – we musn’t forget this was very much a word-of- mouth film. What has ultimately made all the difference is that word- of-mouth. If you have a piece of work that’s uni- versal, just make sure you go the whole way with it; it will take care of itself.”
However for mother- of-two Udwin, who