Born Hungry tells the remarkable story of Sash Simpson, a street kid from India who became a Canadian top chef

Cutaways is a personal essay series where Canadian filmmakers tell the story of how their film was made. This Hot Docs 2024 edition by director Barry Avrich focuses on his film Born Hungry.

I am a documentary filmmaker with an insatiable craving for great stories. Thankfully, some 50 documentaries later, I am blessed that there is no shortage of wonderful true stories to tell and audiences that love meeting wonderful new characters. 

What I love about Canada is that there are so many hidden gems, heroes and unknown superstars that have yet to be discovered. Sash Simpson is one of those people. 

I had never heard of him before I was introduced to the restaurateur/chef by my producing partner, Jay Hennick, who co-produced the film Made You Look (CBC/Netflix) with me in 2019. Although not in the film industry, Jay has a great eye for film and untold stories. 

I was immediately seduced by Sash, his story, his food and his charm. When we met to talk about making a film about his life, his new namesake restaurant was closed in light of COVID-19, but that didn't stop Sash from cooking lunch for us. Although his restaurant is upscale, he is the least pretentious person I know. He made me a cheeseburger and chopped chicken salad (the best in Toronto), and I ate while he told me his story. 

I will let the film tell the full story, but the quick take is that Sash was abandoned in rural India as a young child and lived on the streets, begging for food, until he was rescued by a Canadian woman who ran an orphanage in India and later adopted him, after previously adopting 31 other youth at risk, many from contentious hot spots around the world. His journey from street kid to top chef is emotional and astounding. 

I told Sash to pack his bags; we were leaving for India in two weeks to retrace his steps when he was lost, visit the orphanage where he lived before coming to Canada, and try and find his birth family. His jaw dropped. 

Cut to our plane landing in Chennai, India, at 4 a.m. The streets were already bustling and alive with indescribable cacophony and the sweet smell of street food being cooked everywhere. I had not been back to India in 20 years, and I was already in love with the organized madness and powerful colours and smiles everywhere. 

My producer Mark Selby and lead cinematographer, Ken Ng, had lined up a fabulous local crew, and our seven-day manic odyssey of filming all over India, from sunrise to sunset, began. We had Sash train-jumping to show us the trains and locales he lived in, the theatre he slept in and the markets where he begged for rotten fruit to survive. 

The trip was also designed as a culinary safari, where Sash could discover not only new spices and recipes but reconnect to his Indian heritage. After all, it had been over 40 years since he had returned for a major visit. We paired Sash with a few of the best chefs in India, and he cooked with them — goat brains on the street with chef Thomas Zacharias, chicken biryani with chef Shipra Khanna, winner of MasterChef India. Sash loved immersing himself in his lost culture and reclaiming his identity. 

And then came the moment none of us, including Sash, could prepare for: the return to the orphanage that saved him one hot sunny day when he nearly perished on a train station bench. 

As Sash walked into the orphanage, home to dozens of children and adults that have nowhere to go, he dropped to his knees and wept. His mind flashed back to when he lived there. It was he who got out, but so many of the kids and the adults that had spent their lives there would not be as fortunate. His tears swept over all of us, covering us in a powerful and yet transformative moment. 

Sash cooked and fed everyone in the orphanage that day, and we watched, knowing that he was doing such good work — he was showing them that a future was possible. He was rescued. 

It is fair to say that I have never been the same since that day. Life is precious in a very unstable world. Sash always knew that and has never forgotten. It is the rest of us that can learn from him. 

The film is his story and the heroic story of his mother, Sandra Simpson. I hope you love the film as much as we loved making it. 

Born Hungry screens at Hot Docs 2024 on May 2nd and 5th. More information is available by clicking here.