A Special Exclusive MEMBERS ONLY NYIFF 2013 Kickoff Screening of
MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN
There will be a post-screening discussion with Author Salman Rushdie, Director Deepa Mehta, Producer David Hamilton, Actor Sarita Chaudhury and Actor Samrat Chakrabarti. Please do not rsvp if you cannot stay for the Q&A.
April 10, 2013 at 7 pm
The Academy Theatre,
@ The Lighthouse,
111 E 59th Street, (between Lexington Ave & Park Ave),
New York, NY 10022
Please note: Seating is limited and on a first-come, first-served basis. Please arrive at least 30 minutes early. Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. RSVPs do not guarantee seating, and no one will be admitted once the film has started.
About Midnight's Children: "Born in the hour of India's freedom. Handcuffed to history." Midnight's Children is an epic film from Oscar-nominated director Deepa Mehta, based on the Booker Prize winning novel by Salman Rushdie. At the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, as India proclaims independence from Great Britain, two newborn babies are switched by a nurse in a Bombay hospital. Saleem Sinai, the illegitimate son of a poor woman, and Shiva, the offspring of a wealthy couple, are fated to live the destiny meant for each other. Their lives become mysteriously intertwined and are inextricably linked to India's whirlwind journey of triumphs and disasters.
From the unlikely romance of Saleem's grandparents to the birth of his own son, Midnight's Children is a journey at once sweeping in scope and yet intimate in tone. Hopeful, comic and magical – the film conjures images and characters as rich and unforgettable as India herself.
Cast:
Satya Bhabha, Shabana Azmi, Seema Biswas, Rahul Bose, Samrat Chakrabarti, Sarita Choudhury, Charles Dance, Shahana Goswami, Rajat Kapoor, Soha Ali Khan, Kulbushan Kharbanda, Anupam Kher, Anita Majumdar, Ronit Roy, Shriya Saran, Darsheel Safary, Zaib Shaikh, Siddharth, Shikha Talsania
Director Deepa Mehta:
Deepa Mehta is a filmmaker who has been described as a "transnational artist". Her movies are known for telling universally meaningful stories and have played at every major film festival; receiving awards and recognition, and have been distributed around the world. Deepa was born in India and received a degree in philosophy from the University of New Delhi. Before immigrating to Canada, she began her career making documentaries in India.
Author Salman Rushdie:
SALMAN RUSHDIE, Author, Film Screenwriter, Executive Producer
Salman Rushdie was born in Bombay, and is from a family background similar to "Saleem Sinai" - his lead character in Midnight's Children. Salman was educated in England and lived for many years in London; he now lives in New York. He is a critically acclaimed, enormously popular author, a famously generous mentor and teacher, and an energetic, fearless advocate for civil liberties and free speech.
His eleven novels: Grimus, Midnight's Children, Shame, The Satanic Verses, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, The Moor's Last Sigh, The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Fury, Shalimar the Clown, The Enchantress of Florence, and Luka and the Fire of Life have reinvented and rejuvenated fiction writing worldwide.
Salman's avidly anticipated memoir Joseph Anton is being published on September 18, 2012. "Joseph Anton" is the alias he used when living in hiding (1989-98) during the Iranian backed fatwa that sentenced him to death. This alias comes from the names of two of his favourite writers: Anton Chekhov and Joseph Conrad.
He is a former president of American PEN and continues to work as chairman of the PEN World Voices International Literary Festival, and is a Fellow of the British Royal Society of Literature. In 2007 he received a knighthood in the Queen's Birthday Honours List. In 2008 he became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Salman has received, among many honours, the Whitbread Prize for Best Novel (twice), the Writers Guild Award, the James Tait Black Prize, the European Union Prize for Literature, Author of the Year Prizes in both Britain and Germany, the Crossword Book Award in India, and the London International Writers' Award. He is an Honorary Professor in the Humanities at M.I.T., and Distinguished Writer in Residence at Emory University.
Midnight's Children is an international best seller, with a remarkable history, especially its three Bookers. It won the (regular, annual) Booker Prize in 1981. It went on to win the "Booker of Booker" prize in 1993 – in celebration of the Booker's 25th Anniversary, and then in 2008 as part of the Booker's 40th anniversary Midnight's Children won, in a public poll, the "Best of the Bookers". Midnight's Children is also on Time magazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels of the past century.
NYIFF 2013: The 13th Annual New York Indian Film Festival is North America's oldest and most prestigious destination for feature films, documentaries, and shorts from and about the Indian subcontinent. NYIFF is a once-a-year opportunity to experience the rich and diverse film cultures of the Indian subcontinent through a mix of film screenings, discussions, industry panels, nightly parties, an awards ceremony, and gala red carpet events.
