Trivia for
Water (2005/I) More at IMDbPro »

• Third film in Deepa Mehta's "elemental trilogy," which began with Fire (1996) and continued with Earth (1998).
  
  
• Shoot in Varanasi was stopped due to threats and demonstrations orchestrated by Hindu fundamentalist groups supported by the leadership of the state government in Uttar Pradesh.
  
  
• George Lucas took out a full-page ad in "Variety" to support Deepa Mehta in her struggle to make this film when Indian authorities made clear their intentions to shut the production down.
  
  
• Shooting was disrupted by extremist forces in 2000.
  
  
• Four years after production was shut down in India, filming resumed in Sri Lanka. The movie was shot under the fake title "Full Moon" to avoid attention.
  
  
• For the role of Chuyia, Mehta auditioned 50 girls.
  
  
• Famous Indian actors Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das, who were the initial choices for the roles of Shakuntala and Kalyani even shot some scenes for this movie. However, that footage was scrapped as the filming could not be finished due to altercations by Hindu Fundamentalists.
  
  
• Although Lisa Ray speaks Hindi, it is not her mother tongue. She worked on her diction to perfect the dialog.
  
  
• 'Sarala' was cast in Sri Lanka and did not speak a word of Hindi or English. She worked hard on the script to memorize the lines of a language very new to her.
  
  
• Deepa Mehta's mother saw John Abraham in the movie Jism (2003) and liked him so much that she asked Deepa to consider him for a role in this film.
  
  
• Was shot back to back in both Hindi and English. Only the Hindi Version was released in theaters, but the English version can be seen on the 2-Disc Special Edition DVD set.
  
  
• Canada's nomination for the 2007 Academy Award in the Best Foreign Language Filom category. A recent rule change allowing countries to nominate non-English films in a language not indigenous to the nominating country made this possible.
  
  

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