Drama,
13:33 minutes,
English,
QC,
2008
Synopsis
Vishwa is the new kid. He’s only been in Montreal for a few months and he is already in trouble for fighting at school.
As he waits outside the principal’s office he replays the events that led up to his current predicament. Is his uncle going to be proud of him or not?
Creative team
Writer/director/producer: Laura Turek
Producer: Valerie Shamash
Personal statement
Laura Turek says:
"We have all been “the new kid” at one point in our lives, whether it was at school, summer camp or even at work. And wherever we were, we all wanted to fit in and become part of the group. Imagine if you weren’t just the new kid but you also moved to a country where the culture, the language and the even the weather were radically different from your home.
Many of us have also had to adjust to changing family units, whether through divorce or death. Although it never gets easier as we grow up, young children are especially vulnerable when a father or a mother are suddenly no longer in the picture, since they are too young to understand. Like Uncle Kapil, we try to shield children from focusing on the pain of a missing loved one with “adult wisdom” and child psychology like when he tells Vishwa that he is “the man of the family now”.
Man of the Family is a film that looks at “the new kid” but with a twist. It is also a film about commitment to family and the fear of losing the most important person in your life, through the eyes of a child.
It is not his culture or the color of his skin that gets Vishwa into trouble with the other kids at school but his childlike naïveté and inexperience about the world around him. When Vishwa hears the doctor say that his mother will go to Heaven when all the leaves fall, he is not the least bit concerned since autumn, like we have every year in Canada, was something he never experienced in Southern India.
When he wakes up one morning after a strong windstorm and sees that most of the leaves have fallen off the trees, he panics and decides that he must look after his mother as he promised his uncle."