The New York Indian Film Festival (NYIFF) announced the full lineup last night for their 14th year of celebrating independent, art house, alternate, and Diaspora films from/about/connected to the Indian subcontinent (May 5 – 10) at the SoHo Tiffin Junction. Dedicated to bringing these films to a New York audience, the festival will feature 34 screenings (23 narrative, 11 documentary) –all seen for the first time in New York City.
The festival highlights various cinemas of India’s different regions – Marathi, Bengali and two films from the Northeast. In addition the festival covers cinemas from the neighboring South Asian countries – four films by Pakistani filmmakers, two from Sri Lanka – a feature and a documentary, and one from Nepal.
The festival’s Marathi films include POSTCARD and multiple-award winning films ASTU and FANDRY. Directed by Nagraj Manjule, FANDRY received rave reviews in India, winning the grand jury prize at the Mumbai Film Festival in October 2013. The film revolves around an ‘untouchable’ or Dalit boy and his love for a girl from a higher caste. Hollywood Reporter calls FANDRY “a film made with anger and indignation at India’s caste system,” and names Manjule “an explosive new filmmaking talent.”
“We are thrilled to be able to share this film with New York audiences,” states Aseem Chhabra, NYIFF festival director. “FANDRY is, in my book, perhaps the best film made in India in 2013.”
Among the Pakistani entrants, Meenu Gaur and Farjad Nabi’s ZINDA BHAAG is notable for being Pakistan’s very first submission for the foreign language Oscar race. Set in Lahore, the film follows three young men desperate to get on the fast track to success in an eye-opening glimpse of modern Pakistan. The film features the acting talents of veteran performer Naseeruddin Shah, whose credits include Western crossover hits such as MONSOON WEDDING and THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN.
ACCEPTANCE, by Ryan Matthew Chan (World Premiere), tells the true story of an underprivileged scholar from India (played by newcomer Vinesh Nagrani) who lies about being accepted into Harvard to gain access to the opulent life of his peers. Chan is somewhat of a filmmaking prodigy well acquainted with the pressures of Ivy League culture, as he is still working on his undergraduate Yale degree while touring ACCEPTANCE on the festival circuit.
AN AMERICAN IN MADRAS a documentary by Karan Bali traces American-born filmmaker Ellis R. Dungan’s years in India. Born in 1909 and hailing from Barton, Ohio, Dungan reached the shores of India on February 25th, 1935 intending to stay for 6 months but ended up staying for 15 years! During this period, he brought many technical innovations to the developing Tamil Film Industry of the 1930s and ‘40s, and infused a sense of professionalism into its filmmaking. All this, without understanding a word of the language!
The documentary SONGS OF THE BLUE HILLS, directed by Utpal Borpujari, will also be a NYIFF 2014 World Premiere and is one of the two films from the Northeast. This wide-sweeping exploration of the Nagas, a series of ethnic communities spanning from Northeast India to Northwest Myanmar, examines the link between Naga folk songs and their tradition of oral history, and is the first-ever film to present such a wide range of Naga music and musicians.
“The 2014 festival features a wide array of films from all over the South Asian diaspora,” states IAAC founder Aroon Shivdasani. “This is exemplified by Borpujari’s fascinating work highlighting Naga culture, and also through the inclusion of three Bengali films, four films by Pakistani filmmakers, the Sri Lankan film WITH YOU, WITHOUT YOU, the film from Nepal WAITING FOR MAMU and 3 Marathi films, as well as NYIFF’s first Assamese film AS THE RIVER FLOWS.”
Mahesh Pailoor’s BRAHMIN BULLS, a character study about the reunion of a disillusioned architect and his distant father, is another film sure to delight for its star-studded cast. The film features the estimable Roshan Seth as the father (GANDHI, MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE, MISSISSIPPI MASALA, and MONSOON WEDDING) opposite Sendhil Ramamurthy as the architect (HEROES), in addition to Justin Bartha (THE HANGOVER).
This year’s festival will feature a SPOTLIGHT on British filmmaker GURINDER CHADHA (“BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM”). Ms Chadha will be in attendance to celebrate the 20 year anniversary of her acclaimed film “BHAJI ON THE BEACH”, which is about a group of women of Indian descent take a trip together from their home in Birmingham, England to the beach resort of Blackpool. The women vary in ages from mid-teens to old, and initially have little in common. But the events of the day lead them to better mutual understanding and solidarity. NYIFF will also feature a retrospective of Ms Chadha’s documentaries, co-presented by Third World Newsreel.
The 2014 festival will also feature a film that even those in India might not have gotten the chance to see. Nagesh Kukunoor’s LAKSHMI missed its January 17th Indian premiere date due to censorship issues, because of its daring subject matter of child prostitution and human trafficking. Instead the film premiered at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award for Best narrative feature and received much critical acclaim.
Festival Passes and Individual Tickets can be purchased at the festival’s website: www.iaac.us/NYIFF2014.
Full line up Schedule with films synopsis: http://www.iaac.us/NYIFF2014/schedule.htm
The 14th Annual NYIFF’s features selections include:
OPENING NIGHT SELECTION: UGLY
Directed by Anurag Kashyap
India 2014, Feature Film, 128 minutes, Hindi (with English subtitles)
Cast – Rahul Bhatt, Abir Goswami, Sandesh Jhadev, Siddhant Kapoor.
CLOSING NIGHT SELECTION: GOYNAR BAKSHO
Directed by Aparna Sen
India, 2013, Feature Film, 141 minutes, Bengali (with English subtitles)
Cast – Konkona Sen Sharma, Moushumi Chatterjee, Saswata Chaterjee, Paran Banerjee
CENTERPIECE SELECTION: LIAR’S DICE
Directed by Geethu Mohandas
India 2014, Feature Film, 104 minutes, Hindi (with English subtitles)
Cast – Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Geetanjali Thapa, Manya Gupta
Acceptance
Directed by Ryan Matthew Chan
Feature Film, 51 minutes, English
Cast- Vinesh Nagrani, Ethan Song, Ann Mayo-Smith, Nathan Hartono, Pierre Cassini and Clay Burell
WORLD PREMIERE AT NYIFF 2014
Art=(Love)2
Directed by Mumtaz Hussein
2012, Feature Film, 90 minutes, English
Amka and The Three Golden Rules
Directed by Babar Ahmed
USA, 2014, Feature Film, 80 minutes, Mongolian (with English Subtitles)
Cast – Genzorig Telmen, Dashnyam Maralgua, Hereltogoo Chuluunbaatar
An American In Madras
Directed by Karan Bali
2013, Documentary, 80 minutes, English, Tamil, Hindi (with English subtitles)
Anwar Ka Ajab Kissa (Sniffer)
Directed by Budhadeb Dasgupta
India, 2013, Feature, 132 Mins, Hindi (with English Subtitles)
Cast – Nawazuddin Siddique, Pankaj Tripathy, Niharika Singh
Apur Panchali
Directed by Kaushik Gnguly
India, 2014, Feature Film, 97 minutes, Bengali (with English subtitles)
Cast- Ardhendu Banerjee, Parambrata Chattopadhyay, Gaurav Chakraborty
As the River Flows (Ekhon Nodir Xipare)
Directed by Bidyut Kokoty
India, 2013, Feature Film, 97 minutes, Assamese (with English subtitles)
Cast – Victor Banerjee, Sanjay Suri, Raj Zutshi, Nakul Vaid, Naved Aslam and Ms. Bidita Bag
Astu
Directed by Sumitra Bhave and Sunil Sukthankar India, 2013, Feature Film, 123 minutes, Marathi (with English subtitles)
Cast – Dr. Mohan Agashe, Iravati Harshe, Milind Soman, Amruta Subhash, Devika Daftardar
Auctions House
Directed by Ed Owles
United Kingdom, 2013, Documentary, 85 minutes, Bengali, Hindi, Bhojpuri and English (with English Subtitles)
Cast- Anwer, Arshad
Bhaji on the Beach
Directed by Gurinder Chadha
United Kingdom, 1994, Feature Film, 101 minutes, Hindi, English & Punjabi (with English subtitles)
Cast: Kim Vithana, Jimmi Harkishin , Sarita Khuraja, Akbar Kurtha, Zohra Segal
Brahmin Bulls
Directed by Mahesh Pailoor
U.S.A, 2013, Feature Film, 115 minutes, English
Cast – Sendhil Ramamurthy, Roshan Seth, Cassidy Freeman, Justin Bartha
Faith Connections
Directed by Pan Nalin
India/France 2013, Documentary, 117 minutes, Hindi (with English Subtitles)
Cast- Kishan Tiwari, Hatha Yogi Baba, Vivekanandji, Umeshji, Mamta Devi
Fandry
Directed by Nagraj Manjule
India 2014, Feature Film, 103 minutes, Marathi (with English subtitles)
Cast– Kishor Kadam, Chhaya Kadam, Somnath Avghade, Suraj Pawar Payeshari
Gulabi Gang
Directed by Nishtha Jain
India/Norway/Denmark, 2012, Documentary Feature Film, 96 minutes, Hindi (with English subtitles)
Cast – Sampat Devi Pal, Suman Singh, Chuhan Hemlata, Patel
Jaiprakash
I Am Offended
Directed by Jaideep Varma
India, 2014, Documentary, 99 minutes, English and some Hindi (with English subtitles)
Lakshmi
Directed by Nagesh Kukunoor
India, 2014, Feature Film, 115 minutes, Hindi (with English subtitles)
Cast – Monali Thakur, Shifaali Shah, Ram Kapoor
Mrs. Scooter
Directed by Shiladitya Moulik India, 2014, Feature Film, 96 minutes, Language Hindi with English Subtitles Cast – Anjali Patil, Satyakam Anand
Oba Nathuwa Oba Ekka (With You, Without You)
Directed by Prasanna Vithanage
Sri Lanka/India, 2014, Feature Film, 90 minutes, Sinhala/Tamil (with English subtitles)
Cast – Shyam Fernando , Anjali Patil, Wasantha Moragoda, Maheshwarie Ratnam
Post Card
Directed by Gajjendra Ahirey
India, 2013, Feature Film, 125 minutes, Marathi (with English subtitles)
Cast – Dilip Prabhawalkar, Girish Kulkarni, Kishor Kadam, Subodh Bhave, Vaibhav Mangale
Rangbhoomi
Directed by Kamal Swaroop India, 2013, Documentary Feature Film, 80 minutes, Hindi (with English subtites)
Cast – Dada Saheb Phalke, Kamal Swarrop
Shesher Kobita
Directed by Suman Mukhopadhyay
India, 2013, Feature Film, 123 minutes, Bengali with (English Subtitles)
Cast – Rahul Bose , Konkona Sen Sharma, Swastika Mukherjee, Debdut Ghosh, Tulika Basu
Songs of the Blue Hills
Directed by Utpal Borpujari
India, Documentary, 96 minutes, English and Nagamese (with English subtitles)
Cast –Guru Sademmeren Longkumer, Lipokmar Tzudir, Lamtsala Sangtam
WORLD PREMIERE AT NYIFF 2014
Sound Check
Directed by Neela Venkatraman
India, 2011, Documentary Feature Film, 52 minutes, English
Cast – Dhruv Ghanekar, members of the bands Advaita, Agam, Indian Ocean, MotherJane
Sulemani Keeda
Directed by Amit V Masurkar
India, USA 2013, Feature Film, 89 minutes, Hindi (with English subtitles)
Cast- Naveen Kasturia, Mayank Tewari, Aditi Vasudev, Karan Mirchandani, Krishna Bisht, Rukshana Tabassum
The Coffin Maker
Directed by Veena Bakshi,
India 2013, Feature Film, 120 minutes, English
Cast- Naseeruddin Shah, Ratna Pathak Shah, Randeep Hooda, Mahabanoo Mody Kotwal, Anand Tiwari, Benjamin Gilani, DenzilSmith, Yadu Sankalia, Amit Sial, Shilpa Shukla
The Unseen Sequence
Directed by Sumantra Ghosal
India, 2013, Documentary Feature Film, 98 minutes, Language English
Cast – Malavika Sarukkai
Tropical Amsterdam
Directed by Alexa Oona Schulz Sri Lanka/Germany, 2013, Documentary Feature Film, 52 minutes, Language English
Cast – Deloraine Brohier, Jean Arasanayagam
with
Waiting for Manu
Directed by Francois Caillaud, Dan Chen, Thomas A. Morgan USA/Nepal. 2013, Documentary, 40 minutes, Language English
Cast: Pushpa Basnet
Virgin Talkies
Directed by K.R Manoj
India, 2013, Feature Film, 1 hour 55 minutes, Malyalam (with English Subtitles)
Cast – Murali Gopy, Lena Kumar, Alencier Ley, Indrans
Zinda Bhag
Directed by Farjad Nabi and Meenu Gaur
Pakistan 2013, Feature Film, 115 minutes, Hindi/Punjabi/Urdu (with English Subtitles)
Cast: Amna Ilyas, Naseeruddin Shah
