An Oscars’ Shortlisted Film on a TCK’s Long “Road Home”—Watch It Online

It’s not easy being shortlisted for the Academy Awards, but that’s what Rahul Gandotra did in 2011 with his live-action short film, The Road Home.

A Hidden-Immigrant Story

Gandotra was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and grew up in eight countries, spending time in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the US. He attended the University of Michigan and then got an MA in film directing from The London Film School. For his master’s thesis, he returned to Woodstock, a boarding school in the Himalayas, to shoot The Road Home. When Gandotra attended school there in the 10th grade, his class of 52 had students from 26 countries.

The Road Home tells the story of Pico, a Woodstock student who runs away from the school, hoping to get to the airport and return to London. Pico looks Indian on the outside, but on the inside, he is British. He doesn’t speak Hindi, and the culture is foreign to him. He is a “hidden immigrant” who desperately wants to escape this assault on his identity.

In an interview with Jedda Blog, Gandotra says that while he was filming in India, he was introduced to David Pollock and Ruth Van Reken’s book Third Culture Kids: Growing Up among Worlds. “That book described me really well,” he says.

I realized these are the type of people I am making the film for and that this film is for anyone who questions where they are from, at any time of their life. Any one who has had an outsider experience or has left their country can relate to this movie.

Later, when Van Reken previewed The Road Home, she wrote the following on the film’s IMDb site:

Just three weeks ago, I watched as two people watched this with tears of both joy and sadness streamed down their faces. Joy that what they had felt but been unable to articulate for their whole lives was finally given voice. Sadness as they identified so deeply with the pain Pico feels when others assume who he is by outward appearance rather than by his life experiences.

They also understood only too well how the frustration Pico felt of not being known by other [sic] as he knows himself to be and how that frustration comes out in a way others see as anger instead of pain. . . .

Best of all, The Road Home reminds us of one of the most fundamental truths for our globalizing world: until we know each person’s story, we cannot make judgments of who that person is regardless of skin color or apparent ethnicity. That’s why this film is so needed and important.

Watch The Road Home for Free

At the film’s website, you can enter your email address to receive a “sampler” packet of commentaries, interviews, web resources, and—best of all—a link to watch the entire 23-minute film online.

In Gandotra’s “Welcome” clip, he tells how Van Reken was instrumental in getting the packet put together. When he sent the video to her, he was, he says, “floored and shocked by what she said.” She wanted him to put the film on DVD so everyone could see it, and even though he was busy with the film-festival circuit she persisted. “She felt,” he says, “that she had the right to literally push and harass me into making this DVD. . . .”

He demurred, but it did no good. On her own, Van Reken recruited people from around the world who created a set of resources for the sampler packet. The final result is the full professional version of the DVD (available for purchase here).

One of the highlights of the packet is a 5-minute commentary on the film, with Van Reken, Gandotra, and Third Culture Kid expert Heidi Tunberg talking about TCKs. The professional DVD includes an additional 92 minutes of commentary.

Gandotra is currently working on a feature-lengh film based on the story of The Road Home, calling it a “a coming-of-age, adventure road movie.” In the new version, Pico runs away from Woodstock with Rachel, an American female classmate. The two come to the attention of a terrorist organization that wants to kidnap them. As they are pursued across India, Rachel discovers the nation, while Pico discovers his own identity.

Gandotra’s “Feature Preview” page says, “Although the feature script is faster paced than the short, it stays true to the ‘flavor’ and themes of the original film.” I look forward to hearing more about this longer version, and I hope to see it someday.

I also hope that amid the chase scenes it does, in fact, hold on to The Road Home‘s poignant insights. Because it is Pico’s inner journey—as he tries to reach the airport—that brings the most power to his search for home.

(Emily Rome, “Oscar Shorts: An Autobiographical Journey in ‘The Road Home,'” Los Angeles Times, January 14, 2012; Zareen Muzaffar, “The Road Home. An Exclusive Interview with Director and Film-maker Rahyl Gandotra,” Jedda Blog, October 2013; )

[photo courtesy of The Road Home / Rahul Gandotra]