NEW YORK — She could have finished "Water" seven years ago, but director Deepa Mehta was in no mood to do so.

The film, which finally arrived in 2006, recounts the ugly treatment of widows in India in the 1930s. In early 2000, while shooting in the Indian city of Varanasi, the production was met by anger and violence from extremist Hindu nationalists. Sets were destroyed, mobs rioted and Mehta's safety was threatened.

Still, she could have worked on. Officials in other parts of India offered their locations and promised protection. And she considered it, moving about the country — until one day she just stopped.

She told producer David Hamilton they couldn't continue. Not because of the anger directed at her from the hard-liners, but because of her anger at them.

"I was so upset by what had happened," Mehta said, sitting in a New York hotel. "I said if I impose it on the film, it'll be really detrimental."

So she waited. Then changed the cast and took the production to Sri Lanka. Mehta's thinking clearly paid off. "Water," the last of her elements series that includes "Fire" and "Earth," will vie for an Oscar on Feb. 25 as Canada's nominee for the best foreign-language film.

ABOUT 'WATER'

Mostly told in Hindi, the movie details how widows in India then were considered bad luck, ostracized and alienated. The group it focuses on struggles to decide whether to accept the widow's plight or go against societal norms and try for a normal life when one of them falls in love. The film's stars include the well-known Indian actors John Abraham, Lisa Ray and Seema Biswas.

When they protested in 2000, the Hindu nationalists blasted the movie, then starring Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das, as being anti-Hindu. The level of vitriol stunned the Indian-born filmmaker.

"It was very ugly the way we were shut down, the death threats, the burning of effigies, the destruction of sets, the feeling of being betrayed which I felt," Mehta said.

"I've never seen anything so angry," she said. "I'd never seen guns, let alone machine guns."

The movie has opened around the world, except for the country in which it is set. That is scheduled to change on March 9. The film's distributors have said they don't anticipate problems like those that shut down the production. It's been cleared by the Indian censors, and Mehta is scheduled to do a press junket there, but, she added ruefully, "I would never second-guess the politics of India."

It might seem odd that the Canadian nominee in the category is a movie in Hindi, and in the past "Water" wouldn't have been allowed as that country's nominee, despite Mehta being a Canadian national.

In previous years, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had required that a country's nominated film be in the official language of that country, so any Canadian entry would have had to be in French. The Academy changed that rule in July, deciding that a picture from any country may be in any language or combination of languages, as long as the main language isn't English.

A SMALLER WORLD

Mehta said the change, as well as an Oscar field that has a very international flavor, is reflective of what's happening in the world.

"It's become a much smaller world and national and geographic boundaries don't necessarily hold true any longer for many things," she said.

That's certainly a reality for Mehta, who considers herself both Canadian and Indian.

India "makes me very passionate because it gives me the ideas for my films," she said. "Canada gives me the freedom to express them."

Mehta said she had seen all of the other nominees in her category — "After the Wedding" from Denmark; "Days of Glory (Indigenes)" from Algeria; "The Lives of Others" from Germany, and "Pan's Labyrinth" from Mexico — and knows she has some tough competition.

"The good news is because they're so fabulous, I have nothing to worry about," she said. "I'm going to walk on the red carpet without any anxiety whatsoever because my expectations are zero."

On Oscar night she plans to wear a traditional Indian sari that belonged to her mother, and be accompanied by her daughter, Devyani Saltzman; her producer, Hamilton; and her stars, Abraham, Ray and Biswas. She swears she won't be coming with a prepared acceptance speech.

"When you do that, that's like admitting there are expectations," Mehta said. "If it happens, we'll deal with it then."