Premiering at the Sudbury International Film Festival and featured at 2001 Sprockets, A PASSAGE TO OTTAWA is a charming, gem of a film that young and mature audiences have warmed to.

What do you look for when searching for a hero? Are the big and strong? Are they smarter than you are? Have the done things you haven't? Do they drink orange soda? Omi thinks so.

Omi is an eight-year-old boy who arrives in Ottawa from India to live with his cousin due to his mother's illness back home. Omi, without a father and unaware that his mother is likely to die, believes that he is on a mission to find a hero to take back to India to save her. Despite getting off to a rocky start, Omi connects emotionally with Roland, the captain of a local tour boat, who, in turn, begins a romance with the daughter of Omi's elder cousin, Safia.

Safia begins to sneak around behind her parents back, playing into Omi's "hero worship" in order to keep seeing Roland. She knows that her parents would not approve of Roland, for he is both much older than her and he is black. But is Roland the hero that Omi is looking for? And will Safia stand in his way when it comes time for Roland to come to India to save Omi's mother. Inspired by the short story by Russian writer Yuri Nagibin, Gaurav Seth's debut feature is a charming and heartfelt look at Canada's cultural mosaic, seen through the eyes of a young boy who is looking for a hero and ends up finding something much more meaningful -himself.