Umrika

In nineteen-eighties India, America is close to a fairy tale for a family living in a mountain village. The elder son went there years ago and sends letters regularly; the whole village imagines America by listening to them. One day the younger son, Ramakant, learns that the letters are not real and that his brother disappeared long ago. To keep his mother from breaking, he starts writing the letters himself, and at the same time sets out to find his brother. Prashant Nair's film is a search story, but its real subject is not America itself so much as what a distant country becomes in people's minds. The village knows everything about America without ever having seen it, and the narrative holds that belief in a place both affectionate and painful. Suraj Sharma and Tony Revolori take the leads. The film won the world cinema dramatic audience award at Sundance in 2015. What it arrives at is as much about those who stay as those who want to leave.