Taglines: This holiday weekend, America is heading ‘East’!
East Is East movie storyline. George Khan is a Pakistani Muslim who has lived in Britain since 1937. He has a wife in Pakistan. He and his second wife Ella, a British Roman Catholic woman of Irish descent, have been married for 25 years and have 7 children together; Nazir, Abdul, Tariq, Maneer, Saleem, Meenah and Sajid. George and Ella run a popular fish and chips shop in the neighbourhood.
While George is obsessed with the 1971 war between East and West Pakistan and arranging marriages for his children, the children themselves, who were born and brought up in Britain, increasingly see themselves as British and reject Pakistani customs of dress, food, religion and living. This leads to a rise in tensions and conflicts within the family unit.
East Is East is a 1999 British comedy-drama film written by Ayub Khan-Din and directed by Damien O’Donnell. It is set in Salford, Lancashire, in 1971, in a mixed-ethnicity British household headed by Pakistani father George (Om Puri) and an English mother, Ella (Linda Bassett).
East Is East is based on the play of the same name by Ayub Khan-Din, which opened at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in October 1996 and Royal Court Theatre in November 1996. The title derives from the Rudyard Kipling poem The Ballad of East and West, of which the opening line reads: “Oh East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet”.
East Is East (1999)
Directed by: Damien O’Donnell
Starring: Om Puri, Linda Bassett, Jordan Routledge, Archie Panjabi, Emil Marwa, Chris Bisson, Jimi Mistry, Raji James, Ian Aspinall, Ruth Jones, Lesley Nicol
Screenplay by: Ayub Khan-Din
Production Design by: Tom Conroy
Cinematography by: Brian Tufano
Film Editing by: Michael Parker
Costume Design by: Lorna Marie Mugan
Set Decoration by: Eliza Solesbury
Art Direction by: Henry Harris
Music by: Deborah Mollison
Distributed by: Miramax Films
Release Date: November 5, 1999
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