(New York, NY – November 18, 2010)  Five days of sold-out feature, shorts, and documentary screenings, “Bhumika: The Roles of Smita Patil,” a retrospective of the late actress’ films, in partnership with the Film Society at Lincoln Center, nightly red-carpet events, film industry panels, and celebrity-packed after parties all came to a close on Sunday, November 14 with a prestigious awards ceremony at the SVA Theater in Manhattan, following the closing night film “Cooking with Stella.” The longest-running, most prestigious Indian film festival in the country, the Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council (MIAAC) Film Festival, recognized noteworthy directing, writing, and acting in the following categories:

• Best Picture – “The Well (Vihir)”
• Best Actor – Ajay Naidu, “Ashes”
• Best Actress – Seema Biswas, “Cooking with Stella”
• Best Director – Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK, “Shor”
• Best Screenplay – Rituparno Ghosh, “Memories in March”
• Best Documentary – “Ganesh, Boy Wonder,” Director Srinivas Krishna
• Best Short Film – “Charulata…A Sequel…of the Life Untold!” Director Sangeeta Padmanabhan
• NYU @ MIAAC: Mobile Bollywood – Directors: Anna South, Casey Knight, and Raymond Wei
• Special Achievement Award for Significant Contribution to the Globalization of Indian Music – presented to Oscar and Grammy-award winning composer A.R. Rahman and accepted by director Mani Ratnam

The jury comprised of some of the most well-known critics, actors, directors, and academics in world cinema including:  Claus Mueller, Kathleen Carroll, Jerry Carlson, Madhur Jaffrey, Parag Amladi, Ashish Avikunthak, Vinay Chowdhry, Udayan Gupta, Poorna Jagannathan, Kavery Kaul, Joseph Mathew-Varghese, Zenobia Shroff, Ingrid Scheib-Rothbart, Parvez Sharma, Rahul Bose, Wayne Sharpe, and Nilita Vachani. 
Celebrities who attended the 10th annual festival included:  Mani Ratnam, Suhasini Maniratnam, Mira Nair,  Dilip Mehta, Seema Biswas, Sendhil Ramamurthy, Madhur Jaffrey, Ekta Kapoor, Tusshar Kapoor, Padma Lakshmi, Rahul Bose, Salman Rushdie, Aasif Mandvi, Samrat Chakrabarti, Manu Narayan, Tannishtha Chatterjeee, Seema Biswas, Ajay Naidu, Arun Vaidyanathan, Sarita Choudhry, Sanjoy Nag, Srijit Mukherjee, and many others.

About the Indo-American Arts Council: The Indo-American Arts Council is a registered not-for-profit arts organization passionately dedicated to showcasing, building awareness, and celebrating artists of Indian origin in the performing, visual and literary arts. Annual festivals of art, dance, play writing and film are scheduled through the year, with several special events and book launches. For further information please visit . The IAAC Film Festival was born in the aftermath of 9/11 in response to Mayor Giuliani’s call to New Yorkers to help rebuild a limping city. The First Annual film Festival opened its doors with Film Diaspora Godfather Ismail Merchant and closed with New York’s favorite Indian filmmaker Mira Nair. Four years ago, Mahindra & Mahindra joined forces with the IAAC Film Festival by becoming the lead sponsor, changing the name of the festival to The MIAAC Film Festival. For further information please visit www.miaacfilmfest.org. 

About The Mahindra Group:  Mahindra embarked on its journey in 1945 by assembling the Willys Jeep in India and is now a $7.1 billion Indian multi-national company. It employs more than 100,000 people across the globe and enjoys a leadership position in utility vehicles, tractors, and information technology, with a significant and growing presence in financial services, tourism, infrastructure development, and trade and logistics. Today, The Mahindra Group is an embodiment of global experience and enjoys a strong corporate brand image.

Mahindra is the only Indian company among the top tractor brands in the world. It is today a full-range player with a presence in almost every segment of the automobile industry, from two-wheelers to CVs, UVs, SUVs, and sedans. Mahindra recently acquired majority stake in REVA Electric Car Co. Ltd. (now called Mahindra REVA), strengthening its position in the Electric Vehicles domain.

The Mahindra Group expanded its IT portfolio when Tech Mahindra acquired the leading global business and information technology services company, Satyam Computer Services. The company is now known as Mahindra Satyam. Mahindra is also one of the few Indian companies to receive an A+ GRI checked rating for its first Sustainability Report for the year 2007-08 and has also received the A+ GRI rating for the year 2008-09.

About The Film Society at Lincoln Center: The Film Society of Lincoln Center was founded in 1969 to celebrate American and international cinema, to recognize and support new directors, and to enhance the awareness, accessibility and understanding of film. Advancing this mandate today, the Film Society hosts two distinguished festivals. The New York Film Festival annually premieres films from around the world and has introduced the likes of François Truffaut, R.W. Fassbinder, Jean-Luc Godard, Pedro Almodóvar, Martin Scorsese, and Wong Kar-Wai to the United States. New Directors/New Films, co-presented by the Museum of Modern Art, focuses on emerging film talents. Since 1972, when the Film Society honored Charles Chaplin, its annual Gala Tribute celebrates an actor or filmmaker who has helped distinguish cinema as an art form. Additionally, the Film Society presents a year-round calendar of programming at its Walter Reade Theater and offers insightful film writing to a worldwide audience through Film Comment magazine. For more information, visit: www.filmlinc.com