November 17, 2009, NYC: MIAAC, the Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council, New York City’s Indian film festival wrapped up five days of screenings and events on Sunday night, November 15th at the Walter Reade Theatre with the US premiere of Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury’s The Endless Wait (Antaheen). Stars Rahul Bose and Kalyan Roy attended the premiere along with actors and filmmakers including Shabana Azmi, Sarita Choudhury, Shyam Benegal, Javed Ahktar, Mira Nair, Rahul Bose, Manisha Koirala, Rajit Kapur, and Aasif Mandvi. The MIAAC Film Festival which ran from Nov 11-15 screened 47 films which spotlighted the established and emerging Indian independent filmmakers.

The Executive Director of the Indo-American Arts Council, Aroon Shivdasani gave closing night remarks and introduced the closing night film. The post-screening discussion with the filmmaker and talent was moderated by Program Director of The Film Society of Lincoln Center, Richard Peña, who also expressed enthusiasm for further collaboration with the MIAAC Film Festival in the future. 

The evening concluded with the awards ceremony, with the winners receiving awards in seven categories. Several celebrated actors and filmmakers presented the awards including Amitav Ghosh, Javed Akhtar, and Mira Nair. Festival winners were chosen by a jury comprised of ten members specializing in film, and the jury process was monitored by KPMG. Awards were also presented to three student NYU filmmakers from Professor Karl Bardosh’s Cell Phone Cinema Class, with each filmmaker making a one- minute film entitled My MIAAC on their cell phone cameras.

Overall, this year’s festival premiered 44 Indian and Diaspora films and held special events, with a sidebar on Kashmir in Film, and discussion panels presented with the NYU Department of Cinema Studies at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts focusing on themes like Queer Bollywood and the changing landscape of Indian film business. The festival also held a daylong series about Indian film in cooperation with KPMG and SAMMA and with collaboration of Saavn and TiE.

Other festival highlights included an evening with Mira Nair, an evening with Sharmila Tagore at NMAI and a celebration of contemporary Bengali cinema. 

The 2009 MIAAC Award Winners are:

Best Short Film Award: Good Night directed by Geetika Narang. Award presented by Manisha Koirala and Rajit Kapur. The other two nominees were Medicine Man directed by Himkar Tak and It Rises from the East directed by Sudeep Kanwal.

Best Documentary Film Award: The Salt Stories directed by Lalit Vachani. Award presented by Madhur Jaffrey and Sanjay Suri. The other two nominees were Air India by Sturla Gunnarsson and Lucky Ducks by Tracey Jackson.

Best Actor Award: Aasif Mandvi for Today’s Special. Award presented by Sarita Choudhury and Shyam Benegal. The other two nominees were Naseeruddin Shah (Shortchanged) and Rahul Bose (Endless Wait).

Best Actress Award: Tannishtha Chatterjee for Bombay Summer. Award presented by Shabana Azmi and Rahul Bose. The other two nominees were Sarita Choudhury (For Real) and Manisha Koirala (Two Paise for Sunshine).

Best Screenplay Award: Two Paise for Sunshine, Four Annas for Rain by Deepti Naval. Award presented by Javed Ahktar and Amitav Kaul. The other two nominees were Endless Wait by Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury and Shortchanged by Raja Menon.

Best Director Award: Joseph Mathew-Varghese for Bombay Summer. Award presented by Mira Nair and Anurag Kashyap. The other two nominees were Raja Menon (Shortchanged) and Deepti Naval (Two Paise).

Best Film Award: Bombay Summer directed by Joseph Mathew-Varghese. Award presented by Tracey Jackson and Aasif Mandvi. The other two nominees were Shortchanged and Two Paise.

www.miaacfilmfest.org