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Producer Peter Shepherd whose earlier encounters with Sri Lanka included the recent Second Jungle Book, is here again. His new venture "Mother Teresa In the Name of God's Poor" stars Geraldine Chaplin. A host of local stars including Ravindra Randeniya, Veena Jayakody, Yashodha Wimaladharma and Sangeetha Weerarathne too act in this documentary. Reunka Sadanandan writes:
Madampitiya: Here in a playground now turned into a dirty, desolate slum with ramshackle huts and ragged men and women, some broken down rickshaws and piles of garbage sweltering under the fierce morning sun, a film crew is working their own kind of magic.
Recreating Calcutta is what all this is about. And Calcutta, we all know, has no lily white reputation as a city of particular aesthetic beauty. It is better known for its teeming multitudes and depressing poverty. Yet in such squalid surroundings did one of the greatest stories of human love and sacrifice spring, the story of Mother Teresa, now being recreated in Colombo.
"Mother Teresa, In the name of God's Poor" is the somewhat weighty title of the documentary film that last week was being shot in Madampitiya.
The film
which aims to bring the life of the Albanian nun onto the miniscreen, is
being handled by Film Location Services headed by the indefatigable Chandran
Rutnam who has been instrumental in getting the filming done here, instead
of in Calcutta. Produced by Peter Shepherd whose earlier encounters with
Sri Lanka included the recent Second Jungle Book, it stars Geraldine Chaplin
and a host of local stars including Ravindra Randeniya, Veena Jayakody,
Yashoda Wimaladharma and Sangeetha Weerarathne. A one and a half hour film
made for television, it will be distributed by Hallmark Entertainment,
New York.
Filming began on April 12 and Chaplin and the rest of the cast have been here since then working on a tight schedule that winds up next week.
Just one and a half months of shooting in places as varied as the Archbishop's House in Colombo, St Lucia's Cathedral, the Mayor's House, Layards, Broadway and some busy Colombo streets. This Sunday, they board a train to Kandy, which Chaplin confesses she is looking forward to, after weeks of shooting in Colombo.
Not that she is complaining. When we manage to grab a moment between scenes, the daughter of screen legend Charlie Chaplin is in Mother Teresa garb. Hair hidden by the white sari bordered in blue she has a delicate air and a warmth of manner, one would not associate with a Hollywood star. Working here has been a pleasure and she even thrives on the heat, "my favourite kind of weather." She says she welcomed the opportunity to come here so much that she brought her husband and ten year old daughter along.
"She missed a few days of school, all right, but where would she get such a chance to see a country like this?"
The role of Mother Teresa is a challenging one for any actress and Chaplin says she has done her homework, watching videos of the nun in her room every day. She worries a little about whether she has got the accent right, Albanian with just the right trace of Bengali to it. Incidentally, she is trilingual being equally at home in English, French and Spanish.
Chaplin's co-stars are quite ecstatic about working with her. "She's a great actress....she plays the part perfectly," said Veena Jayakody, who plays the role of Charuma, a woman from the slums who helps Mother Teresa when she first comes into contact with the despairing face of poverty. "The first time I saw her acting, tears actually came into my eyes, I was so moved." Adds Ravindra Randeniya, that it has been a privilege to work with her. Ravindra, debonair in khaki uniform had just completed a scene that morning with Chaplin where as Calcutta Police Commissioner, the Establishment figure he angrily confronts the fragile nun and demands that she stop stirring up trouble in the slums. "It's a very well written script," comments Randeniya. "I ask her on whose authority she is doing all this work in the slums and she replies 'give me the forms I'll fill them out.'
"It's a low budget film" says producer Peter Shepherd in a whispered interview. We speak in hushed tones, because filming is going on in front of us. This is his fourth film here in ten years, he explains and he is delighted to be in the country again. "It gets better every time," he
says and comments on how co-operative and easy to work with the Lankans are. In his book, this film ranks high, despite its subject matter being hardly blockbuster material. Approval was obtained for the documentary from Mother Teresa herself and he says they will make a large donation to the City of Joy charity, once filming is complete.
Some 350 Sri Lankans worked as 'extras,' including a group of schoolgirls from Holy Family Convent, Bambalapitiya.
The girls acted in their own school uniform, sans the distingushing tie and monogram and for the most part enjoyed the thrill of being on the sets.
Said one, "The best scene was when we had to scream and run away when a mob entered the convent. That was fun!"
For the Madampitiya scenes, people of the area had been hired and two young mothers cradling children in their arms said they had no difficulty being part of the crowd scenes.
They were all provided meals from one of the many lorries parked alongside the site, some carrying equipment, food , costumes, etc. " We earn more here than we would doing odd jobs," they said.
Preparations for the film started barely three months ago when Film Location Services began scouting out possible locations, approaching local stars and wading through the red tape of officialdom and obtaining permission to shoot in various places. The task of turning the Madampitiya playground, a somewhat bare expanse of land into a Calcutta slum fell to the film's production designer Errol Kelly. Kelly flew to Calcutta to see the reality, before commencing work with around 20 carpenters, painters and labourers. "The difficulty was not to create these buildings within about four weeks but to age them," said Kelly, who has worked on major productions such as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indochine.
He even imported rickshaws from Calcutta, not being able to find them anymore in Colombo.
Ainsley de Silva, production manager has some words to add on the Madampitiya set, the 'hygienic slum'.
Obviously, rotting garbage would have been hardly conducive to the atmosphere, so the heaped up mounds of rubbish are actually a wooden box-like frame, masked with fibre and then covered with waste cloth and remnants." Authentic certainly, not to mention ingenious, considering the absence of stench.
Mother Teresa was born in Albania and went to India as a young Catholic nun. Sister Teresa as she was then known worked in a Calcutta convent. The film traces her life from 1946, during the last days of the British Raj when refugees thronged the streets. It was a time of riots and upheavals when the nuns were forced to forage in the streets for food to feed the starving. She was transferred as headmistress to Loreto, a school in the hills. It is at this point, when leaving Calcutta, that Mother Teresa hearing the voice of a beggar crying for water, decides that God's calling for her is on the streets of the city, helping the destitute.
Seeking permission to leave the convent, she is at first refused, but she perseveres in her mission to help the poor, despite opposition from the establishment who resent her ministering efforts and suspect her of trying to convert the poor to Christianity.
Finally the Pope grants her dispensation to form her own order "The Missionaries of Charity' to continue her work.
The film also documents Mother Teresa receiving the Nobel Prize and this scene which will be supplemented with original footage from the Oslo auditorium, was filmed here in a warehouse. Dark curtains and a ramp were sufficient. Chaplin however, had to age some 25 years for this scene and wryly recalls that the make-up people were hard at work.
Associate producer of the film Chandran Rutnam reflects that ventures such as this, also help in showcasing the talents of local actors, particularly at a time when the film industry here is in the doldrums.
"I just wish more people would be aware of this and support us," he adds. Perhaps that wish will be fulfilled when 'Mother Teresa' is screened.
says and comments on how co-operative and easy to work with the Lankans are. In his book, this film ranks high, despite its subject matter being hardly blockbuster material. Approval was obtained for the documentary from Mother Teresa herself and he says they will make a large donation to the City of Joy charity, once filming is complete.
Some 350 Sri Lankans worked as 'extras,' including a group of schoolgirls from Bamabalapitiya Holy Family Convent. For the Madampitiya scenes, people of the area had been hired and two young mothers cradling children in their arms said they had no difficulty being part of the crowd scenes. They were all provided meals from one of the many lorries parked alongside the site, some carrying equipment, food , costumes, etc. " We earn more here than we would doing odd jobs," they say.
Preparations for the film started barely three months ago when Film Location Services began scouting out possible locations, approaching local stars and wading through the red tape of officialdom and obtaining permission to shoot in various places. The task of turning the Madampitiya playground, a somewhat bare expanse of land into a Calcutta slum fell to the film's production designer Errol Kelly. Kelly flew to Calcutta to see the reality, before commencing work with around 20 carpenters, painters and labourers. "The difficulty was not to create these buildings within about four weeks but to age them," said Kelly, who has worked on major productions such as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indochine. He even imported rickshaws from Calcutta, not being able to find them anymore in Colombo.
Ainsley de Silva, production manager has some words to add on the Madampitiya set, the 'hygienic slum'. Obviously, rotting garbage would have been hardly conducive to the atmosphere, so the heaped up mounds of rubbish are actually a wooden box-like frame, masked with fibre and then covered with waste cloth and remnants. Authentic certainly, not to mention ingenious, considering the absence of stench.
Mother Teresa was born in Albania and went to India as a young Catholic nun. Sister Teresa as she was then known worked in a Calcutta convent. The film traces her life from 1946, during the last days of the British Raj when refugees throng the streets. It is a time of riots and upheaval where the nuns are forced to forage in the streets for food to feed the starving. She is transferred as headmistress to Loreto, a school in the hills. It is at this point, when leaving Calcutta, that Mother Teresa hearing the voice of a beggar crying for water, decides that God's calling for her is on the streets of the city, helping the destitute. Seeking permission to leave the convent, she is at first refused, but she perseveres in her mission to help the poor, despite opposition from the establishment who resent her ministering efforts and suspect her of trying to convert the poor to Christianity. Finally the Pope grants her dispensation to form her own order "The Missionaries of Charity' to continue her work.
The film also documents Mother Teresa receiving the Nobel Prize and this scene which will be supplemented with original footage from the Oslo auditorium, was filmed here in a warehouse. Dark curtains and a ramp were sufficient. Chaplin however, had to age some 25 years for this scene and wryly recalls that the make-up people were hard at work.
Associate producer of the film Chandran Rutnam reflects that ventures such as this, also help in showcasing the talents of local actors, particularly at a time when the film industry here is in the doldrums. "I just wish more people would be aware of this and support us," he adds. Perhaps that wish will be fulfilled when 'Mother Teresa' is screened.
Of all the celebrity offspring in the film world, the Fondas, the Houstons and the Douglases, Geraldine Chaplin must surely be the most famous. And she doesn't deny it. "As long as there are movies, people will talk of Charlie Chaplin," she says, a smile breaking through. And as Chaplin's daughter, she was loved, protected and welcomed into the film world, every door, she says, opening to her.
"I was surrounded really by a lot of love, because people loved my father so much."
This warmth has extended to Sri Lanka and she is delighted when people ask her, "Are you really Charlie Chaplin's daughter?". "This means that his memory is still alive," she says.
Here to star in a television documentary on the life of Mother Teresa, Calcutta's living saint of the gutters, the 53 year-old actress, a petite figure with a fragile beauty quite at ease in a white sari is very much an actress in her own right. She sees this role as an important one. "It's the nicest part I've ever had." Asked if she would like to meet Mother Teresa in person once the film is over, she says she would be too embarrassed, "but I'd love to be a fly on the wall and watch her at work.'
Chaplin's film career, she describes, as strange and varied, alternating between good and bad periods. She has worked in the U.S, South America, and Europe in English, in Spanish and French and says her ability to speak these three languages without an accent was a distinct advantage. She has done 'big' movies, like Dr Zhivago, and marginal ones, has worked for a spell with the likes of Robert Altman, 'playing crazy, funny, loopy women' and lesser known names as well. But her biggest ambition now is to be a 'working actress' and be it editing, or playing a minor role as she did in a recent film with Jessica Lange, she feels fulfilment lies in her sheer joy of being involved with films. "Ideally, I 'd love to do one big film, one TV film, one marginal film, every one in a different language, in a different continent each year."
Chaplin is married to a Spanish director of photography, who's also a writer and a painter, with whom she has a 10 year old daughter. At one point she says, one of them had to give up movies or they would have been separated all the while. They divide their time between Spain and Switzerland, and at home, she is very much the housewife, cooking, cleaning, entertaining, looking after her 85-year-old mother-in-law, daughter and husband's grandchild by an earlier marriage. " I'm busy, busy, busy" she laughs, but evidently hers is a very 'cherished' relationship with her husband. "He flew back a few days ago, but today I received a sapphire ring he'd left for me. The occasion that warranted this romantic gesture was the 18th anniversary of their life together.
Her daughter, she says, doesn't like her leaving to go on location and hence their decision to bring her along for a short while this time. "She went back having learnt more about Sri Lanka than I have and has already taught her teachers how to wear the sarong."
At first glance, Geraldine Chaplin is not easy to spot on the set, as unassuming as the person whose life she is portraying. But she has touched her co-stars and crew and in a sense brought to them some feeling of the unbounded love and compassion that Mother Teresa imparts to the poor and destitute in Calcutta.
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