Faran Tahir in 'Ashes' directed by Ajay Naidu at the MIAAC Film Festival

MIAAC 2010

It’s that time of the year again when you get to see diverse and thought-provoking cinema from South Asia at the 2010 Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council Film Festival. This festival, under its Director Aroon Shivdasani and curator Somi Roy,  has been bringing an eclectic, surprising mix of South Asian based cinema from different parts of the world – and you never know which film will turn out to be the next big hit or major award-winner. After all, ‘Namesake’, ‘Water’ and even ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ first opened here, almost six months before their general release.

This year’s festival has a lot of  intriguing possibilities including Aparna Sen’s ‘The Japanese Wife’, an emotional love story across the oceans, starring Rahul Bose, Raima Sen and the Japanese actress Chigasu Takaku.

Aparna Sen with Rahul Bose & Chigasu Takaku on the sets of 'The Japanese Wife'

Then there are films which have a history behind them: ‘Noise’ (Shor) first saw the light of day as a short film and actually won the Best Short Film Award at the MIACC Festival. Created by NRIs Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK, the film has now evolved into a gritty feature about Mumbai starring Tusshar Kapoor, Sendhil Ramamurthy and Nikhil Dwivedi.

‘Memories in March’, directed by Sanjoy Nag and starring Rituparno Ghosh, Deepti Naval, Raima Sen and Pradeep Rai is a powerful story about relationships set in Kolkata.

For fans of the excellent Seema Biswas, there is a real treat in store with ‘Cooking with Stella’, in which she plays a wily cook working with Canadian expats in Delhi, and has quite an enrichment plan of her own. The film also stars Lisa Ray and is written by Deepa Mehta and directed by her brother Dilip Mehta.

Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata all seem covered and this time there is a special Chalo Chennai Section with a spotlight on the South with films like  Mani Ratnam’s ‘Raavanan’ starring Vikram, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, and Prithviraj. If you saw the Hindi version (and who didn’t?), then it should be fun to see the Tamil version and compare the two. ‘Achamundu!Achamundu!’ (I am Scared!) is a chilling thriller set in the US, directed by Arun Vaidyanathan.

There are also lots of small gems in the short films being shown at the festival. One of them is ‘The Poetics of color: Natvar Bhavsar’, a documentary about the noted artist made by the art historian and gallerist Sundaram Tagore.