Caught between the pulse of NYC and the pull of home, Rtusha Kulkarni’s journey unfolds, navigating love, independence, and missed call from home.
Amma is a paradoxical love letter to New York. Every day, we choose to stay despite knowing it would be fine without us—a fact it’s never shy to remind us.
Director’s Vision for ‘Amma’
Amma was born out of the constant paradox that is loving New York. Every day, we choose to stay despite knowing it would be fine without us—a fact it’s never shy to remind us. We love it because it’s where we’ve grown into ourselves, giving us a new start to do so and making us work so hard to get there. We love it because it’s the home we’ve made, even though ‘home home’ never ceases to call, and those calls never seem to lose their pull. This film celebrates that choice, or whatever choice someone is making about New York today.
When Rtusha Kulkarni, a dear friend, shared the difficult conversations she was having with her parents about returning home, I felt a pit of recognition in my stomach. It was a conversation I had had a million times with my friends, my family, and my own head. I recognized a feeling I knew any person living away from home would know: there are days when the choice to stay is unequivocal, and others when it’s not so clear at all.
I wanted to use Rtusha’s parents’ real voices to express the real conversations they were having, through calls she would have chosen not to answer. Although the voicemails weren’t scripted, they were recorded specifically for the film, by Rtusha’s generous parents, whose love for their daughter comes through in every word. Everybody who worked on this film has made New York their home, choosing every day to either stay or pick up the call from home.
