The New York Indian Film Festival (NYIFF) announced the full lineup at the Launch event for their 19th year of celebrating Independent, art house, alternate, and diaspora films from the Indian subcontinent (May 7– May 12) at the Village East Cinemas in the Lower East Side of Manhattan (181-189 2nd Avenue, New York, NY 10003). Dedicated to bringing these films to a New York audience, the festival will feature 32 screenings (29 narrative, 3 documentary and 32 short films). NYIFF will be featuring 7 World Premieres along with an International Premiere and 5 US premieres and the rest of the films being NY premieres. NYIFF has been the go-to festival to see South Asian diaspora films that have not been seen in New York City and is continuing with this mission for the nineteenth year.
This year NYIFF has the largest number of regional (non-Hindi) language films – 20 in total. The languages focused on are Assamese, Bengali, Tamil, Malayalam, Marathi, Kannada, Ladakhi, Punjabi, and Harayanavi and all the films will have English subtitles.
NYIFF Festival Director Aseem Chhabra said, “We are thrilled to share our lineup for this year. The NYIFF programming team has spent a number of months watching, tracking films and we now present to the audience the best of Indian cinema.”
Returning to NYIFF is award-winning filmmaker, Gurinder Chadha with her new film. The festival will be hosting a Special Spotlight of Chadha’s Blinded by the Light, which will be making its New York debut after its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. The film is inspired by the true story of journalist Sarfraz Manzoor and his lifelong love of Bruce Springsteen.
Bengali Master Buddhadev Dasgupta’s Urojahaj (The Flight) will be a part of the special focus on Bengali cinema that NYIFF will be presenting this year. Seven features will be a part of this presentation, many by first time filmmakers, putting a spotlight on a resurgence of films from West Bengal.
Arijit Singh, a widely popular Bollywood singer will be highlighted at the festival with his second directorial venture Sa– a tribute to Satyajit Ray and Ravi Shankar. Anoushka Shankar plays sitar for the film.
Other highlights of the festival include Assamese filmmaker, Rima Das whose last film Village Rockstars was India’s official entry for the 2019 Oscars. Rima’s new film Bulbul Can Sing will have its NY premiere at NYIFF along with Assamese master and National Film Award Winner Jahnu Barua’s World premiere of his new film Bhoga Khirikee (Broken Window).
Short Filmmakers Ashuman Sharma (Jalebi) and Vick Krishna (Mokshi) were in attendance at the NYIFF Launch event on Thursday, April 18 at the Consulate General of India, New York. They are a part of NYIFF’s four short programs that includes a total of 32 short films.
Also announced at the NYIFF Launch, Celebrity Chef and filmmaker Vikas Khanna was named the Brand Ambassador of the Indo-American Arts Council (IAAC). Khanna is a Michelin-star chef as well as a cookbook author, humanitarian, filmmaker and was once voted New York City’s hottest chef. Khanna’s The Last Color starring Neena Guptawill be the prestigious Closing Night film for the festival and will be honoring mothers around the world on Mother’s Day.
Said Sunil Hali, Executive Director and President, IAAC,”We have received tremendous support from Ambassador Sandeep Chakravorty and Consulate General India, New York. Corporate sponsors such as AIR INDIA, State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, ICICI Bank amongst others have come forward with significant contributions. The PIERRE from Taj Group continues to expand the relationship with IAAC. Local regional and community associations such as “Sadhu Vaswani Centers” continue to help in supporting our expanded mandate to promote regional films. Film schools have joined hands and now the leading broadcaster, IndiaCast with Viacom18 has confirmed as our exclusive broadcast partner for NYIFF2019 in USA in “powered by” category. A special 30-minute curtain raiser and a 90-minute special on NYIFF2019 will be produced by IndiaCast and aired on “Aapka Colors” and “Colors Rishtey”. We look forward to building such relationship to make NYIFF2019 a great success”.
TICKET INFO:
Regular tickets $20, Student (w/ID) $10
Opening Night and Closing Night tickets $35
Day Passes are also available
More info here: https://www.iaac.us/nyiff2019/schedule.htm
FILMS
Bhonsle
Hindi
Director: Devashish Makhija
NY premiere
Yours Truly
Hindi
Director: Sanjoy Nag
NY premiere
Sir (Opening Night film)
Hindi
Director: Rohena Gera
NY premiere
Photograph (Centerpiece film)
Hindi
Director: Ritesh Batra
NY premiere
The Last Color (Closing Night film)
Hindi
Director: Vikas Khanna
NY premiere
Sidhustan (doc)
English
Director: Sapna Bhawnani
World premiere
The Sound Man: Mangesh Desai
English/ Hindi
Director: Subash Sahoo
NY premiere
Midnight Delhi
Hindi
Director: Rakesh Rawat
US premiere
Hamid
Hindi
Director: Aijaz Khan
NY premiere
Bulbul Can Sing
Assamese
Director: Rima Das
NY premiere
Aamis
Assamese
Director: Bhaskar Hazarika
Bhoga Khirikee
Assamese
Director: Jahnu Barua
World premiere
Chegu
Bengali
Director: Nabamita Ghosh
US premiere
The Flight
Bengali
Director: Buddhadev Dasgupta
US premiere
The Bose Family
Bengali
Director: Suman Ghosh
International premiere
Chippa
Bengali
Director: Syed Safdar Rahman
NY premiere
Kia and Cosmos
Bengali
Director: Sudipto Roy
NY premiere
Sa
Bengali
Director: Arijit Singh
International premiere
Cat Sticks
Bengali/ Hindi
Director: Ronny Sen
NY premiere
Baggage
Kannada
Director: Roopa Rao
World premiere
Good Guy, Bad Guy (doc)
Kannada, English
Director: Indu Krishnan
NY premiere
Chuskit
Ladakhi
Director: Priya Ramasubban
NY premiere
Abode
Malayalam
Director: Jaya Jose Raj
World premiere
Paani
Marathi
Director: Adinath Kothare
World premiere
Roots
Tamil
Director: Anand Ravichandaran
World premiere
Kattumaram
Tamil
Director: Swarnavel Eswaran
World premiere
Shivaranjani and Two Other Women
Tamil
Director: Vasanth Sai
NY premiere
K.D. (a) Karuppa Durai
Tamil
Director: Madhumita Sundararaman
US premiere
Draupadi Unleashed
English
Director: Tony Stopperan
NY premiere
Salute
Punjabi
Director: Harish Arora
NY premiere
