Brick Lane (2007)

Director:

Sarah Gavron

Writers:

Monica Ali (novel)
Laura Jones (writer)
(more)

Release Date:

16 November 2007 (UK)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A young Bangladeshi woman, Nazneem, arrives in 1980s London, leaving behind her beloved sister and home...

Plot Keywords:

Arranged Marriage | Bangladesh | September 11 2001 | Pond | Dysfunctional Marriage

Awards:

3 wins & 4 nominations

Cast

Tannishtha Chatterjee	...	Nazneen Ahmed
Satish Kaushik	...	Chanu Ahmed
Christopher Simpson	...	Karim
Naeema Begum	...	Rukshana 'Shahna' Ahmed
Lana Rahman	...	Bibi Ahmed
Lalita Ahmed	...	Mrs. Islam
Harvey Virdi	...	Razia
Zafreen	...	Hasina
Harsh Nayyar	...	Dr. Azad
Abdul Nlephaz Ali	...	Tariq
Bijal Chandaria	...	Shefali
Mohammed Ahsan	...	Meeting Chairman
Josh Ali	...	Meeting Secretary
Raha Ahmed	...	First Speaker at Meeting
Abed Hakim	...	Second Speaker at Meeting
Ebow Graham	...	Additional Meeting Man
Khalid Miah	...	Additional Meeting Man
Andrew Eduardo Godini Reid	...	Additional Meeting Man
Jean Carnell	...	Tattooed Woman
Debjani Deb	...	Young Nazneen
Kusumika Nagar	...	Young Hasina
Bidyut Das	...	Abba - Nazneen's dad
Dola Chakraborty	...	Amma - Nazneen's mom
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Barry Newton	...	Comentator
Bernard Holley	...	News Reporter (uncredited)

Directed by
Sarah Gavron

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Monica Ali		novel
Laura Jones		writer
Abi Morgan		writer

Produced by
Ameenah Ayub	....	assistant producer
Katherine Butler	....	associate producer
Chris Collins	....	producer
Paula Jalfon	....	executive producer
Alison Owen	....	producer
Duncan Reid	....	executive producer
Tessa Ross	....	executive producer
Andy Stebbing	....	line producer
Paul Trijbits	....	executive producer
Faye Ward	....	associate producer

Original Music by
Jocelyn Pook

Cinematography by
Robbie Ryan

Film Editing by
Melanie Oliver

Casting by
Shaheen Baig
Loveleen Tandan

Production Design by
Simon Elliott

Art Direction by
Suzanne Austin

Costume Design by
Michael O'Connor

Makeup Department
Kirstin Chalmers	....	makeup designer
Tinks Reding	....	makeup supervisor: additional photography

Production Management
Scott Bassett	....	production manager: re-shoots
Linda Deacy	....	post-production supervisor
Vinnie Jassal	....	location unit manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Chris Croucher	....	third assistant director
Jack Ravenscroft	....	first assistant director
Harriet Worth	....	second assistant director

Art Department
Harry Cable	....	standby props
Annie Gilhooly	....	production buyer
Peter Hallam	....	property master

Sound Department
Stuart Bagshaw	....	adr recordist
Thom Berryman	....	adr assistant
Chinna Boapeah	....	boom operator
Ricky Butt	....	foley artist
Simon Gershon	....	supervising sound editor
Dan Green	....	supervising sound editor
Gareth Llewellyn	....	adr recordist
Ben Meechan	....	sound effects editor
Emma Pegram	....	additional sound re-recording mixer
James Perry	....	adr recordist
Andy Shelley	....	sound
Barnaby Smyth	....	foley supervisor
Jack Stew	....	foley artist
Andrew Stirk	....	sound re-recording mixer
Chris Sturmer	....	sound consultant: dolby
David Turner	....	sound technical coordinator

Special Effects by
Bernard Newton	....	special effects

Visual Effects by
Michael Deming	....	digital film bureau
John Palmer	....	digital film bureau manager: Scanning and Laser record
Rob Pizzey	....	digital colourist

Camera and Electrical Department
Ossian Bacon	....	second assistant camera: "b" camera
Paddy Blake	....	focus puller: second unit
Andy Cole	....	best boy
John Colley	....	gaffer
Sara Deane	....	clapper loader
Jaime Feliu-Torres	....	focus puller
Holly Horner	....	still photographer
David Katznelson	....	director of photography: second unit
Malcolm McGilchrist	....	crane grip
Rupert Power	....	Steadicam operator
Christopher Raphael	....	still photographer
Terry Robb	....	electrician
Carolina Schmidtholstein	....	electrician
John Watters	....	focus puller: India
Naresh Kaushal	....	camera trainee (uncredited)

Casting Department
Benjamin Till	....	casting assistant

Costume and Wardrobe Department
Anne T. Delaney	....	costumer
Shane Kingdon	....	costume assistant
Poli Kyriacou	....	costume trainee
Luan Placks	....	assistant costume designer
John Usher	....	costume assistant

Editorial Department
Chris Andrews	....	negative cutter
Kerri Aungle	....	negative cutter
Julian Currin	....	assistant editor
Rob Gordon	....	supervising digital film editor
Emily Greenwood	....	supervising digital on-line editor
Kate Higham	....	assistant editor
Kate Mackenzie	....	assistant editor
Sabine McDonald	....	negative cutter
Laurent Treherne	....	digital intermediate technical director

Music Department
James Bellamy	....	music editor
Terry Davies	....	conductor
Steve Parr	....	music recordist
Hilary Skewes	....	musician contractor
David Walter	....	music editor

Transportation Department
Guy Bostock	....	vehicle coordinator

Other crew
Andy Brunskill	....	assistant to producer
Sandra Butterworth	....	dialogue coach
Neil Calder	....	completion guarantor: Film Finances Inc.
Jo Cameron Brown	....	dialect coach
Jon Duncan	....	production accountant
Thomas Elgood	....	location manager
Penny Frost	....	floor runner
Emily Gardner	....	runner
Uzma Iqbal	....	assistant to director
Timothy P. Jones	....	digital imaging
Christina Jules	....	accountant: Ruby Films
Claudia Kalindjian	....	unit publicist
Helene Lenszner	....	location finder
Sylvia Parker	....	script supervisor
Mona Qureshi	....	head of development
Andy Scott	....	production assistant
Claire Warnes	....	senior business affairs executive
Rebecca Wolf	....	assistant accountant

Thanks
Dinesh Anchan	....	special thanks

Production Companies

• Film4
• Ingenious Film Partners
• Ruby Films
• Seven Seas Productions
• UK Film Council

Distributors

• Golden Village Entertainment (2008) (Singapore) (theatrical)
• Optimum Releasing (2007) (UK) (theatrical)
• Sony Pictures Classics (2007) (USA) (theatrical)
• Diaphana Films (2008) (France) (all media)
• Madman Entertainment (2007) (Australia) (all media)
• Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (2009) (Brazil) (DVD)
• Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (2009) (USA) (DVD)

Other Companies

• Audiolink Radio Communications  walkie talkies/mobiles
• Compuhire  computer playback
• Film4  development
• Fuji Photo Film  motion picture film supplied by
• Hothouse Music  music supervisor
• Media Services  stationery supplier
• One Post  digital intermediate
• Sapex Scripts  post-production services
• UK Computamatch  negative cutting

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for some sexuality and brief strong language.

Runtime:

102 min | Canada:101 min (Toronto International Film Festival)

Country:

UK | India

Language:

English | Bengali

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Canada:14A | Ireland:15A | USA:PG-13 | Singapore:NC-16 | Australia:M | UK:15 | Mexico:B

Filming Locations:

Brick Lane, Shoreditch, London, England, UK

Company:

Film4

Quotes:

Nazneen Ahmed: No one told me there are different kinds of love. The kind that starts deep and slowly wears away; that seems you will never use it up and then one day it is finished. Then there is the kind you do not notice at first but which adds a little bit to itself every day like an oyster makes a pearl, grain by grain, a jewel from the sand. That is the kind I have come to know.

Movie Connections:

Features Brief Encounter (1945)

Soundtrack:

Omar Sonar Bangla

The best thing of its kind since Pather Panchali

This is a masterpiece of the first rank, as if Satyajit Ray had come back from the dead to do one final great work, and yet the director is a young English girl named Sarah Gavron, who will obviously go from triumph to triumph in the future. The film, the director, the script writer, the cinematographer, the editor, and the superb musical score all deserve Oscars. But most of all, so do Tannishtha Chatterjee as Best Actress and Satish Kaushik who plays her husband as Best Actor. This is one of the most devastatingly tragic and emotional films in years. My wife and I saw it in a private screening tonight, and most people were in tears. Sarah Gavron and Monica Ali the novelist both spoke about the crazy media coverage. The film has been covered by the papers in a dishonest fashion, so alarming that Prince Charles pulled out of attending the premiere. This film is the story of a woman trapped in her life, trapped in her culture, and trapped in an arranged marriage. In the beginning her husband seems to be something of monster, but by the end of the film we see that despite all of his failings, he is a truly noble character. The incredible irony is that Tannishtha Chatterjee, who by her astonishing ability and delicate sensitivity has done more to explain Muslim women to us than anyone I can think of, is herself a Hindu from West Bengal. When I told Monica Ali afterwards that this film would do more for cross-cultural understanding than anything else, she was pleased but looked doubtful. After all, the lives of the people making the film were threatened by a small minority of fanatics ('five men in a sweet shop in Brick Lane' was how it started, growing to seventy malcontents) when they were filming on location in London, and there is a false and hypocritical media storm raging around the film at the moment. It makes a good cheap headline. But we need to forget about all of that and concentrate on what this film really is: a human document of such raw honesty and true feeling that it is like a cry from the hearts of all who have suffered at any time and in any place in our troubled world. People talk about 'understanding', but how are we to achieve it? By making and viewing such films as this, I would suggest. And then there is the endless problem of women being oppressed. If you are not a woman and want to know what that is like, just watch this. The saddest thing of all is the collapse of dreams, and the story is about how the different characters bear the respective collapses of their most cherished ones and try to go on, and do.