Ottawa Asian Heritage Month welcomes Calgary filmmaker, Punam Kumar Gill

Ottawa Asian Heritage Month welcomes Calgary filmmaker, Punam Kumar Gill, to present her film, THE LESSON, and discuss the role of her South Asian roots in her artistic journey. The event will take place on Monday, May 6th, 2013 at the Ottawa Public Main Library Auditorium (Laurier & Metcalfe) at 7:30-8:45 pm. The self-taught, award-winning filmmaker was born in Ottawa, and considers returning to her birthplace for Asian Heritage Month a wonderful full-circle moment. "Ottawa gave me the best start with a bilingual education, but was equally a place where I could be proud of my Indian roots. This Canadian-Indian duality has played out all my life, and shows up in all my films." To date, Punam's films have profiled her own dad, Ramesh Kumar – a monk-like man who taught a neighborhood of immigrants in Edmonton how to drive, Vikram Vij – an iconic Indian fusion chef in Vancouver, Amrita Singh – an acclaimed Indian jewelry designer in New York, and most recently, JUNO-winning Indian-Canadian folk musician, Kiran Ahluwalia, and her husband, Rez Abbasi- a celebrated Pakistani-American Jazz artist. Her films have received official selection from film festivals in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Edmonton, Calgary, Kerala and Delhi, India, as well as numerous awards, including a recent nomination for a 2013 AMPIA Award for her film on Ahluwalia & Abbasi. THE LESSON won the Ming Film Festival, was a finalist in the Radio-Canada International Migrations Competition and was nominated for Best Short Film by AMPIA. Along with screening her film THE LESSON (12 minutes, Punjabi with English subtitles), Punam will be sharing her powerful personal experience of capturing her father's life story in a short film, and the effect of the film on their relationship. Admission to the event is free, but you are encouraged to reserve your seat by emailing: punam@punamarts.ca www.punamarts.ca