Dilip Mehta's documentary THE FORGOTTEN WOMAN begins where his older sister Deepa Mehta's WATER ended. While that film created a fictional story about the marginalization of widows in India, complete with professional actors and glossy sets, THE FORGOTTEN WOMAN turns instead to real stories, unvarnished settings and actual widows. No mere companion piece to WATER, this free-form portrait of real widows has more than enough visual beauty, graceful compassion and understated anger to stand on its own, as Nathan Lee of The New York Times wrote.

THE FORGOTTEN WOMAN begins in the city of widows, the Indian holy city of Vrindavan, with striking images of widows living in poverty. An older woman tells us, I was gifted to my husband when I was 5. He died and I became a widow. One by one my family died…I'm still here…there's nobody left to light the lamp. An activist asks, "Why is it that widows continue to come to Vrindavan despite the empowerment, the emancipation of woman?"

Director Dilip Mehta was a production designer on WATER, and was inspired by having heard many of the widow's heartbreaking stories there. Mehta's internationally acclaimed background as a photojournalist finds a true translation in film; he manages to capture beautiful, harsh moments that tell the story, yet remain respectful to the widows who bare their soul. For Susan Walker of Toronto Star, the film is a powerful reminder of the forgotten, while the HotDocs Film Festival writes, the stories and images raise a powerful call for change.