Sam & Me

Directed by Deepa Mehta

Canada, 1990 (fiction, 91 minutes, colour, English)

Also known as "Sam and Me", "Sam y yo"

Film Description [in French] :
"Sam Cohen est un vieil inadapté excentrique. Nikhil Parikh est un jeune et naïf Indien. L'oncle de Parikh travaille pour le fis de Cohen. Comme premier emploi, Parikh se voit confier la garde du grincheux Cohen. Au début, ils se détestent, mais, peu à peu, ils apprennent à surmonter leur méfiance mutuelle et parviennent à vivre une vie plus exubérante et plus gratifiante."
-- Noah Cowan (source)

Film Description:
"Mehta's touching and finely observed debut feature follows a young Indian man who immigrates to Canada and is given a job looking after an elderly Jewish man. Their growing friendship isn't considered appropriate by their families."
-- Steve Gravestock (source)

Film Credits (partial):
Written by:	Ranjit Chowdhry
Produced by:	Steve Levitan, Allan Magee, Deepa Mehta, Paul Saltzman, Robert Wertheimer
Principal Cast:	Ranjit Chowdhry, Peter Boretski, Om Puri, Heath Lamberts, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Javid Jafri, Jolly Bader, Leonard Chow, Marcia Diamond, Gina Wilkinson, Howard Jerome, Lance Koyata
Cinematography:	Guy Dufaux
Film Editing:	Boyd Bonitzke
Music:	Mark Korven
Production Company:	Sunrise Films, ITC Distribution, Film Four International, Astral Film Enterprises

(sources)

Quote by the Director

"[Sam & Me] reflected the darkness I was feeling. I could explore what I was going through personally, try to understand what it meant to be an immigrant. It was frustrating to be a citizen of a country that doesn't accept you, to be an alien in a country that is supposed to be yours, to always be stopped and interrogated by customs officers."
-- Deepa Mehta (source)

Quotes about Sam & Me

"Signifying the promise and the perils of cross-cultural dialogue, Sam and Me both validates and negates the multiculturalist utopian myth of interethnic cooperation."
-- Kass Banning (source)

"In her feature debut, director Deepa Mehta has made one of those fascinating, frustrating films where the sub-plot outshines the plot, where everything on the periphery of the frame is infinitely better than the nominal focal point. Because there, at the edges, we're treated to ethnic humour worthy of the label—well-observed moments that explode some stereotypes and confirm others, moments that are wry and sharp and poignant."
-- Rick Groen (source)

Bibliography for Sam & Me

Book Chapters

Banning, Kass. "Playing in the Light: Canadianizing Race and Nation." In Gendering the Nation: Canadian Women's Cinema, edited by Kay Armatage, Kass Banning, Brenda Longfellow, and Janine Marchessault, 291-310. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999.

Brief Sections of Books

Monk, Katherine. Weird Sex and Snowshoes: And Other Canadian Film Phenomena. Vancouver: Raincoast Books, 2001. (p. 333)

Journal Articles

Pospísil, Tomás. "Sam and Me, Masala and Double Happiness: Multicultural Experience in Canadian Film of the Early 1990s." Brno Studies in English 33 (2007): 185-198.

Articles from Newspapers, Magazines, or News Websites

Francke, Lizzie. "Sam and Me." Review of Sam & Me. Sight & Sound, December 1993.
Groen, Rick. "Movie review: Sam and Me." Review of Sam & Me. Globe and Mail, September 20, 1991.
Ruet, E. "Sam and Me / Deepa Mehta, réalisatrice couleur." Cinéma 72, June 1991. [in French]
Variety. "Sam & Me." Review of Sam & Me. Variety, June 10, 1991.

Web Sites about Sam & Me

"IMDb: Sam & Me." Internet Movie Database, Inc. http://imdb.com/title/tt0102831/combined.