Director
Faisal Lutchmedial
Production
Josselyn Alvarado
Language
English
Year
2009
16 min, Fiction, Canada, 5.1
A dreamily crafted short about a second-generation immigrant who contemplates his unfamiliarity with his South Asian heritage and his disconnection with his parent’s experience while he empties the family home.
Shashin is a young Indian-Canadian man struggling to find his identity
following the loss of his parents. He contemplates his reasons for losing contact with them while he gets the family home ready for sale and empties it of all the seemingly worthless odds and ends packed inside. Replete with Hindu mythology, Useless Things is a dreamily crafted journey of forgiveness, enlightenment, and self-discovery.
Director and script writer : Faisal Lutchmedial
Camera : Osheen Harruthoonyan
Editing : Faisal Lutchmedial
Sound : Emory Murchison
With : Erica Smith (Agnis) et Faisal Lutchmedial (Shashin)
Producer : Josselyn Alvarado
Executive producer : Yanick Létourneau
Faisal Lutchmedial
Faisal Lutchmedial is a Montreal filmmaker of both east and west Indian decent. His work has explored his place as a Canadian with a mixed cultural background beginning with My Cultural Divide (2006, documentary, 75 min). This film explores heritage, culture, and the 2nd generation immigrant experience – as well as tackling labour rights in the garment industry in his mother’s native Bangladesh. Lutchmedial also made the short Going Through The Motions (2007) which is a hybrid fiction / documentary about his father’s native land of Trinidad and Montreal’s Expo ’67. Previous to this, Lutchmedial made a diverse array of work, including the experimental film Do Not Ruin Your Credit (2000, experimental video, 6 min), codirected with Paul Kell, which uses multiple layers of image and sound to paint a picture of the relations between religion, good credit, and the afterlife, Perspective (2000, experimental, 3 minutes ) Zack’s Fight (2000, drama, 4 minutes ), and The High Dials: My Heart is Black (2004, music video, 4 minutes). Lutchmedial has also directed other television shorts about the garment industry in Bangladesh and
has been producing for UrbanHanded Works and Rail City Media. Lutchmedial has a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Distinction from Concordia University, where he attended the Cinema program.
Useless Thing, 16min, Fiction, 2009
My Cultural Divide, 75 min, Documentary, 2006
Going Through The Motions, Short film, Docu-fiction, 2007
The High Dials: My Heart is Black, 4 min, Music video, 2004
Do Not Ruin Your Credit, 6 min, Experimental, 2000
Perspective, 3 min, Experimental, 2000
Zack’s Fight, 4 min, Fiction, 2000