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Finding Preet: A true story
Its a romantic comedy based on the life of the writer, producer, and lead actress of the film, Priti Chowdhury.
An Indian American physician has turned her experience in looking for an arranged match into a movie.
Finding Preet will be released on the American independent film circuit next month. The seeds for the movie were sown when the parents of Priti Chowdhury, 36, sought a suitable spouse for her through Indian ethnic newspapers and matrimonial sites.
Chowdhury, a paediatric anaesthesiologist in Chicago, was profiled by a Chicago magazine as one of the city's most eligible women.
The film is mostly autobiographical. It took Priti over a year to develop the script. In addition, she plays the female lead and is also the executive producer.
"This is a very personal story but one that occurs more and more these days," she said.
"With women being motivated to excel professionally, they sometimes let their personal goals fall to the wayside only to panic when they realise they are not getting any younger."
Priti's father, Laxmi Shankar, a nuclear power plant engineer, and her mother, Kanti, play themselves in the film.
The film goes through the rituals of traditional Indian match making, with her parents recommending one boy, who is considered a good catch because both his parents are physicians, or another who is in the IT industry with its enticing promise of economic prosperity.
"This is an East meets West story set in the modern day. You have two cultures trying to find love in each other," said Alex Skuby, who plays Priti's boyfriend in the film.
It is also about two contrasting approaches to marriage.
"In India," says Priti's father, Laxmi Shankar, "they get married, they compromise and they fall in love. Here (in the US) it is the opposite. They fall in love, they get married and then there is no compromise."
Billed as a romantic comedy, Finding Preet, was shot in Chicago, Michigan and Indiana. The shooting was over in 19 days, Priti said. The film will be released, to begin with, in the US.
"But, I would like it to go internationally, " she said. "I would certainly like it to go to India."
The film had a crew of 35 Chicago-based professionals with director Adrian Fulle, a Chicago native, now based in Los Angeles, for whom this is the third feature film.
"We used the vibrant colour palette of Indian movies, which added warmth to the film," Priti said.
In addition to a 60-hour workday at the hospital, Priti owns a Mediterranean restaurant, which she revamped herself, right down to the paint job.
Her interest in acting goes back to her school days. "Growing up I did a lot of summer theatre," she said. "Later, I enrolled in night theatre classes as a kind of stress release, after spending several hours in surgery."
Priti decided to give the film a happy ending by having love conquer all. In real life, she has not been so lucky.
"This part is fiction," she said, "but making this movie has enabled me to relate to people in a more personal way. I have gained emotional growth from this experience, which I feel has made me a better physician."
Finding Preet has also given her the movie bug, so to speak. "I have a couple of scripts ready, one of them is a medical suspense mystery. I am looking for the finance," she said.
