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SATURDAY, MAY 6, 2006

PROGRAM 13

MAY 6 - 4:00 p.m. - Directors Guild of America, Theater 1

THE MISTRESS OF SPICES

(United Kingdom, 2005) Dir.: Paul Mayeda Berges

In a scented shop in the enchanted town of Oakland, California, the mistress works her magic. One of a secret clan of women, Tilo (Bollywood superstar Aishwarya Rai) deals in fenugreek, lotus root, chilies, cinnamon - roots, plants and powders from all over the world. Drawing on ancient wisdom, she measures out remedies to cure heartache, banish bad luck and rescue the wretched from life's wrong turns. Tilo opens her shop doors to the whole neighbourhood: Haroun (Nitin Ganatra), the taxi driver with a dark cloud over his future; Geeta (Padma Lakshmi), the woman in love with a forbidden man; and Jagjit (Sonny Gill Dulay), the adolescent drifting from his family into a thug life. Tilo has a remedy for each, so long as she abides by the rules of her craft: use her power for others, not herself; never leave the spice shop; never touch another's skin. All this seems simple, until she meets an American man (Dylan McDermott) who tempts her far beyond her boundaries. Adapting Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's acclaimed novel, director Paul Mayeda Berges and producer Gurinder Chadha (BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM) concoct a film in which spices not only excite the senses, but can heal the spirit.

35mm, 92 minutes, color, narrative

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