Do Dooni Chaar
Directed by Habib Faisal
India, 2010, 120 Minutes , Hindi (with English subtitles), US Premiere
Cast -Rishi Kapoor, Neetu Singh, Archit Krishna, Aditi Vasudev

Life is tough for Mr. Duggal who works at school as a Math teacher, lives in a government allocated two room apartment in Delhi and is coping with double digit inflation rates and single digit increments in his salary. Add to that, a teenage daughter with high living ambitions, a fast-track son and a wife who loves the good life. The life in the Duggals household passes by in care of the basics and surviving from month to month. Until one day, they decide to dream to own a car and move up in life from a two –wheeler to a four-wheeler. A dream that’s not easy by any stretch of imagination for the single income family. Mr. Duggal however, has made up his mind - and his male ego will not let him change his promise to his family. What follows is a comic journey of chaos, realizations, calculations, confrontations and bonding. Join the journey that will drive them, and you, pretty much nuts.

Flip
Director - Sonika Mody
India 2010, 10mins, English
Cast - Salman Khan, Sara Bade, Sunny Tiku, Kaushik Sharma, Devendra Gandhi

At 26 years, Aanya has been through a lot in life. A bad childhood, mediocre student life, failed relationships, a poor job, you name it. She has been through thick & thin without complaints until one day she snaps. She is in a cab when she sees flashes of her life & is utterly disappointed with how things have gone so far. She gets off the cab & meets with a freak accident. And then her entire life and all that it has stood for does a complete about turn. It’s FLIP – time!

Uss Paar
Arati Kadav
India, 13Minutes, Hindi (with English subtitles)
Crew - Jackie Shroff, Ovi Dixit

Its Ganesh Festival time and Mukta wants her sculptor father to make another Ganesh idol for her. She has picked river side mud and she wants to fulfill her part of the custom by providing the sacred mud to her father. However the father has migrated to Mumbai as a taxi driver.

She meets an old railway TT (Kishen) who embarks on train journey to Mumbai every day. Kishen has his own demons and has stopped believing in happy endings. Between hope and despair, where would the balance tilt? What is the significance of that mud for Mukta, for her father and for Kishen? This the girl doesn't know. All she can do is hope and wait for her father - who lives on the other end of the tracks.

10ml love
Directed by Sharat Katariya
India, 2010, 89 Minutes, Hindi & English, World Premiere
Cast- Rajat Kapoor, Tisca Chopra, Purab Kohli, Tara Sharma, Koel Purie, Neel Bhoopalam, Manu Rishi

One wedding, three couples, a whole lot of love, lust and desire make for a heady mix, but add to that a dash of magic potion and an enthralling rendition of the Ramlila and you have a revelation on your hands! Mini loves Neel who loves Shweta who loves Peter. Enter the quintessential druid-Ghalib with a concoction that promises to solve all their problems. But what happens when Ghalib’s secret potion falls in to the wrong hands…

Set against the backdrop of your everyday world, ‘10ml love’ - a contemporary adaptation of William Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night's Dream,’ is a light hearted romantic comedy concerning the tribulations of a love quadrangle during a night of madness. Their various emotional, intellectual and sexual entanglements are brought to the surface by Ghalib's misguided meddling! ’10ml love’ attempts to put forth some honest and sincere expressions of love, dreams, and the stuff of both.
 
With: Words
Directed by: Anup Bhandari
USA, 2010, 14 minutes, New York Premiere

Words is a story about Juliet (Miriam Liora Ganz) and Owen (Russell Harvard), a deaf man, who meet at the iconic Bethesda Fountain in the snow covered Central Park. Their conversation begins awkwardly but over the next few days, she comes up with interesting ways to communicate with him. The friendship slowly appears to blossom into romance but the difference between silence and words may be more than it seems.

Bhopali (DOCUMENTARIES)
Directed by Max Carlson
USA, 2011, 89 minutes, English, New York Premiere
Cast- Noam Chomsky, Satinath Sarangi, Sanjay Verma, Rajan Sharma, Hazra Bee

In 1984 a Union Carbide factory gas leak contaminated and killed thousands in Bhopal, India. Their suffering continues today: a father battles to save his dying daughter; a school rehabilitates children with birth abnormalities; a 25-year-old whose 9 family members perished, copes with pain and death. Fueled by their suffering, the community fights against the American corporation responsible for the continued tragedy.

BHOPALI is a feature DOCUMENTARIES about the survivors of the world's worst industrial disaster. Today, the suffering continues, prompting victims to fight for justice against Union Carbide, the American corporation responsible.

• Winner Audience Award, Slamdance Film Festival, 2011
• Winner Grand Jury Best Documentay Award, Slamdance Film Festival, 2011

 
With: 136
Directed by Ajay Naidu
USA, 2004, 6 minutes, English, New York Premiere

A music video set to the music of the Midival Punditz.

Raakh Redux
Directed by Aditya Bhattacharya,
India, 2011, 114 Minutes, Hindi (with English subtitles), New York Premiere
Cast- Aamir Khan, Supriya Pathak, Pankaj Kapur, Jagdeep, Master Ahmed Khan, Naina Balsaver

One night in an unnamed Indian city, young Aamir Hussein(Aamir Khan) is forced to watch in impotent frustration as his girlfriend Neeta is brutally gang-raped in an assault led by the scion of the Karmali mafia family. Aamir’s inability to do anything about the crime sees him leave home and sink into the city’s underbelly where he encounters the flotsam and jetsam of the decaying metropolis, chief amongst who is taciturn ex-cop P.K., who, having his own axe to grind against the Karmali clan, helps the boy Aamir become a man and exact revenge. Writer/Director Aditya Bhattacharya’s dystopian vision of modern India made Raakh an instant cult classic when released in 1989 and immediately became a benchmark film for gangster noir from which celebrated directors like Sudhir Mishra, Ram Gopal Varma and Vinod Chopra drew inspiration. The film was one of Bollywood multi-hyphenate Aamir Khan’s first starring roles and won for him a Filmfare award Best Actor nomination and a jury mention at the Indian National Awards. Pankaj Kapur won the National Award for Best Supporting Actor. The film also marked the debut of Sreekar Prasad, who won the National Award for Best Editing and ace cinematographer Santosh Sivan.

The New York Indian Film Festival will be the first to see Raakh in a spanking digital copy, specially re-mastered at Reliance Media Works and struck to coincide with this 22th anniversary.

This version of Raakh was re-edited by filmmaker Chandan Arora, editor Ram Gopal Varma's Company.
 

Made In India- (DOCUMENTARIES)
Directed by Rebecca Haimowitz & Vaishali Sinha
USA/India, 2010, 97 Minutes, English and Hindi, New York Premiere

‘Made in India’ shows the physical, moral, and emotional risks that middle-class Westerners and poor Indian women take when they sign a surrogacy contract. Lisa and Brian Switzer of San Antonio are an infertile American couple who have exhausted all other expensive and painful options of getting pregnant. Still, Lisa is determined not to give up on her dream of having children. After considerable soul-searching, the Switzers contact a California-based reproductive outsourcing business. Meanwhile in Mumbai we meet Aalia, the cheerful young mother of three who is contracted to carry the Switzers’ baby for a price. The film’s two directors, American Rebecca Haimowitz and Indian Vaishali Sinha, go beyond sensationalist headlines to explore global issues of reproductive rights and social justice. Weaving together the Switzers’ and Aalia’s stories with interviews involving fertility experts and hospital administrators, they depict decisions made by families in crisis who look toward reproductive technology as a panacea. As might be expected when such divergent cultures converge, there are unforeseen complications.

• Winner Grand Jury Award for Best DOCUMENTARIES Feature, Florida Film Festival 2011
• Winner Jury Award for Best DOCUMENTARIES Feature Award, San Francisco Intl Asian American Film Festival, 2011
• Winner Jury Award for Best DOCUMENTARIES Feature at Magnolia Independent Film Festival, 2011

T. D. Dasan Std. VI B
Directed by Mohan Raghavan
India, 2010, 98 Minutes, Malayalam (with English subtitles) US Premiere
Cast- Biju Menon, Jagadish, Swetha Menon, Jagathy Sreekumar, Suresh Krishna

T D Dasan (Master Alexander) is a young boy who lives with his mother. His father had left them a few years back. Dasan gets his dad's address from his mother's old trunk box and writes him a letter. Dasan's father had moved out of that address and the letter reaches the current resident Nandakumar Poduval (Biju Menon), an ad film maker who lives with his thirteen year old daughter Ammu (Tina Rose) in Bangalore. Nandan requests Ammu's caretaker Madhavan (Jagadish) to find out the whereabouts of the person and deliver the letter to him. But Madhavan is not that enthusiastic and the letter ends up in the waste bin. Ammu sees this and feels bad about it. She starts writing replies to Dasan, as if they were written to him by his dad. The young boy is excited at the thought of having found his dad, and shares all his feelings and needs with his dad. Ammu prompty replies with pens and other gifts Dasan asked his father.

With: Zameer & Preeti: A Love Story
Directed by Rehana Mirza
USA, 2009, 7 minutes, World Premiere

In New Jersey, a Hindu bride about to wed her Muslim groom seems to get a case of cold feet. Will the wedding become just another case of religious conflict?

Iti Mrinalini
Directed by Aparna Sen
India, 2010, 125 Minutes , Bengali (with English subtitles), New York Premiere
Cast - Konkona Sen Sharma, Aparna Sen, Priyanshu Chatterjee, Rajat Kapoor, Koushik Sen

Mrinalini, an ageing actress, writes a suicide note. As a performer, the first lesson she had learnt was timing – the perfect moment for making an entrance or an exit from stage. On the stage of life, her entrance had been outside her control; but at least she wants to choose the moment of her exit.

However, before taking the pills, she decides to destroy all her memorabilia – letters, photographs, newspaper cuttings, knick-knacks pertaining to the past – lest they fall into the hands of the press. She has been a victim of media attention all her life and wishes to be spared that at her death.

As she looks through the old box that contains relics from her past, memories flood the night. Incidents that she had forgotten or had relinquished to the furthest corners of her mind now return to haunt her and, through these memories, an entire life is revealed – a life of loves lost and gained, friendships and betrayals, successes and failures, accidents and awards, agonies and ecstasies.

You Don’t Belong (DOCUMENTARIES)
Directed by Spandan Banerjee
India, 2011, 75 minutes, Bengali (with English subtitles), US Premiere
Cast- Arun Chakraborty

Paban Das is a baul singer living in France singing songs of wandering minstrels. Arun Chakraborty is a poet living a quietly content life in a hamlet of West Bengal. Bhoomi is a band from Kolkata, popular for their renditions of folk tunes. Prabuddha Banerjee is a musician with a history of protest music. Paraspathor is an erstwhile band left with memories of their popular songs and lost fame.

Disparate characters who are bound together by a filmmaker’s search for the elusive author of a song, popular in collective memory as a traditional folk song. What follows is a long self-reflexive journey into the world of folk, a journey, which nudges established ideas of home, nostalgia, belonging, and authorship as the film explores deeper into the song that serves for a metaphor of the contemporary fragmented times.

Travelling across remembered lands and forgotten histories following the unseen path of migration that music takes, You Don’t Belong asks some important questions about the encounter between art and mass production, creation and ownership in a country rich with myriad folk and oral traditions.

With: Poshak
Directed by Iram Parveen Bilal
Pakistan, 2010, 12 minutes, New York Premiere

Uninspired writer, Dua Tariq, realizes that the search for uninhibited creativity and her true self requires freedom from society's harsh judgments and facades. Her inner soul must be lured out to fulfill her manifestation.

Semshook
Directed By Siddhartha Anand Kumar
India, 2010, 116 Minutes, Hindi & Tibetan (with English Subtitles), New York Premere
Cast- Tenzin Youden, Tenzin Choeden

One man’s search for truth on a journey across the Himalayas.
Tenzin is a Tibetan born and raised in India. Yearning to explore his true homeland, he impulsively hops on his motorcycle and embarks on a personal quest: to find his identity and discover the indescribable beauty and wonders of his magnificent homeland. But Tibet is a nation under siege from a repressive regime. While Tenzin encounters friendship, camaraderie and even love along the way, he cannot escape the horrors of a political world he wants no part of. Looking only for the way to peace, both within himself and for the land he loves, Tenzin must find the courage to pursue the truth even if it means facing terrible dangers, to find his Semshook.

With: Notes of Silence
Directed by Mrinalini DS
India, 2010, 12 minutes, New York Premiere

‘Notes of Silence’ is the story of an 18 year old deaf mute girl whose dream is to play the guitar. Being differently able does not stop one from dreaming dreams that are any less beautiful, because that is the one place which embraces equality in the truest sense of the word. Sophie is determined to learn to play come what may, and ‘Notes of Silence’ is a peek into one of her life chapters. Why she wants to play and how she translates her dream into reality forms the basis for this 12 minute narrative

Geeta in Paradise
Directed by Benny Mathews,
USA, 2009, 100 Minutes, English, New York Premiere
Cast- Parul Bhatia, Purab Kohli, Ishaan Akhtar and Zeenat Aman

Geeta in Paradise is a comic meditation about Bollywood and the effect Indian cinema has on one particularly lonely and bored Waxahachie housewife name Geeta. When her muse (and fantasy lover), Karan Mohair – the hottest and most successful Indian Director in creation – comes to town, Geeta feels it is their destiny to be together. But, because of Karan’s rather snobby attitude towards his admirers, Geeta is forced to kidnap the unsuspecting and super-cute visionary just to get his attention. She decides to hold him prisoner in her garage until he realizes how much he loves and needs her. Karan, obviously, is not thrilled with the sudden (slightly Bollywood) turn of events. Strapped to a lawnmower and forced to pee into a bottle, Karan is determined to prevent Geeta from getting into his head –in spite of how passionate she feels about his movies.

Geeta is a feverish celebration of 80’s camp-nostalgia, the elegant film oeuvre of the beautiful Salma Agaha, bad taste, demented song and dance numbers, and the desire within regular people to have their own faces on movie posters. Geeta’s cast of bizarre dreamers, caught up in their own delirious desire for self-fulfillment, despite the hefty cost, will make audiences laugh uncontrollably, cry buckets, and afraid to go to their homes without a police escort. In the end, the viewers are left shocked and wondering; are some wishes are better left un-granted?

With: The Way It’s Played
Directed by Shripriya Mahesh
USA, 2011, 7 minutes, World Premiere

The card game is the highlight of the week for Georgia, Marilyn, Norma and Ruth. More than a social gathering, it's an exclusive refuge where they are on top of their game. The Way It's Played explores what happens when a highly-functional member of the group starts to falter

The Legend of Rama
Directed by Chetan Desai
India, 2010, 100 minutes, English, US Premiere
Cast (voice): Randeep Hooda, Nandana Sen, Gulshan Grover & Kabir Bedi

Rama, the handsome prince of Ayodhays, is in exhile with the beautiful Sita and his valiant brother Laxman. One day Sita is kidnapped by the mighty Ravana, the demon king. Rama and Laxman begin their search for Sita with the help of the monkey-god Hanuman. The Ramayana, the most beloved of all Indian stories, gets its first 3D computer animation retelling in this production from producer Ketan Mehta."

‘The Legend of Rama’ is the first 3D Computer animated retelling of the story of Rama in all its glory. Directed by Chetan Desai and created by a team of over 400 artists and technicians working over 2 years, the film is a land mark in Indian animation and designed for a global audience.

It’s a grand vision of the glorious Indian past and an adventure story of the original Indian superhero. Using cutting edge computer animation and visual effects techniques, modern story telling methods and futuristic designs ‘The Legend of Rama’ presents a bold new vision of India’s past glory.

Holy Kitchen (DOCUMENTARIES)
Directed by Vikas Khanna
USA, 2011, 43 Minutes, English, World Premiere


The Holy Kitchens film series is an attempt to tie together the meaning of food in religion with the real world experience of sharing food in a spiritual context. At any given time somewhere on Earth, people are gathering to share food in the name of God. This is spiritual sustenance, meant to bring us closer together and closer to the Creator. It brings the community together into a sense of shared identity and purpose. This is the story of the Holy Kitchens. Karma to Nirvana is the second Film in the Holy Kitchen Series - it explores the food sharing traditions of Hinduism. The life and stories of Lord Krishna, - who is recognized as the eighth avatar of Vishnu or as the Supreme Being, is the starting point for the exploration of the ties between sharing food and spiritual bonds. However one sees or defines Lord Krishna, the sharing of food and the concept of service to one’s fellow man is tightly woven into the principles of karma as he set them forth in the Bhagavad-Gita. This is also where he set forth his belief in nonviolence and the importance of restraining the destructive passions which would be adopted so famously by the world’s greatest civil rights leaders, Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In the film Chef Vikas Khanna takes us on a journey to Kerela – to the ashram of Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, as well as ISKCON – Food relief foundation in India and the UK headquarters to learn more about the present day food sharing practices and rituals. Everyday devotees distribute hundreds of thousands of meals free of charge in the name of God as an offering, - as a way of sharing God’s Love with others. ISKCON’s Mid-day meal program provides free meals to children in schools in India thereby helping them get an education and ensuring a brighter future for them as well as for India. According to the Bhagavad-Gita – “Sharing food is the highest form of Karma”. It is this selfless service to others that eventually leads us to the path to higher spirituality and thus to Nirvana.

With: Kosu
Directed by Saro Varjabedia
USA/ India, 2009, 22 minutes, New York Premiere

An American, who volunteers with an Indian orphanage, disrupts the status quo, provoking the couple running it to work through their emotional scars.

and

Autumn Meanderings
Directed by: Archana Vallabhaneni
USA, 2011, 22 minutes, New York Premiere

‘Autumn Meanderings’ is a story about three teenage siblings, who take off on a camping trip, and discover life's complexities and in a way, each other too, in the process. Floyd, Mason and Emory are the siblings who have a history of getting along well with each other, go on an annual camping trip. As this is a turning point in each of their lives, each one of them has an urgent need to be camping or be far away from the trip altogether. The youngest one, Emory, gets lost in the woods - causing even more unrest.

The Way Home - (Veettilekulla Vazhi)
Directed by Dr Biju Kumar
India, 2010, 95 minutes, Malayalam (with English subtitles) US Premiere
Cast- Prithviraj, Indrajith, Govardhan

The plot for ‘The Way Home’ revolves around a doctor with a haunting past. He witnessed his wife and five year old son die in an explosion at a market in Delhi. Now working at a Prison Hospital, the Doctor is assigned the case of a woman in critical condition, a surviving member from a suicide squad of the Indian Jihadi the notorious terrorist group. Despite the doctor’s best efforts, the woman dies. But before dying she entrusts him to find her five-year-old son and unite him with his father. The father is revealed to be Abdul Zuban Tariq, head of the terrorist group. Finding the boy in Kerala, the Doctor and child set out on a journey to find his father. The journey is happening through the contemporary and mysterious path of the terrorist network in the vast country through various Indian states and with many unexpected incidents. ‘The Way Home’ is a film about survival, innocence and humanity, exploring a bloodstained facet of contemporary terrorism in India. The film is a travelogue through the most beautiful landscapes of India.

With: Just That Sort Of A Day
Directed by Abhay Kumar
India, 2011, 14 minutes, English
 
Disconnected characters each have one of those days that you really can't put a finger on.

Meherjaan
Directed by Rubaiyat Hossain
Bangladesh, 2011, 120 minutes, Bengali, Urdu, English, US Premiere
Cast- Jaya Bhaduri, Victor Banerjee, Omar Rahim, Humayun Faridi

During the war in 1971, Meher falls in love with a soldier from the enemy side. When her love is discovered, she is shamed and silenced by her family and society. Today 38 years after the war, Meher has a visitor she cannot turn down. Sarah—a ‘war-child,’ Meher’s cousin Neela’s daughter, who was given away for adoption has come back to piece together her past. Together, these two women must re-tell history through their stories in order to cut through the stigmas and walk into light.

Meherjaan is a film about loving the Other. Meherjaan gives away with the unitary masculine narrative in order to usher in emotional multiplicity of feminine emotion and sensibility. This film critiques certain pitfalls of nationalism that create conditions to justify war, killing and violence. Finally, Meherjaan attempts to offer an aesthetic solution to war and violence by taking refuge in love and spiritual submission.

Chintu Ji
Directed by Ranjit Kapoor
India, 2009, Hindi (English Subtitles), US Premiere
Cast – Rishi Kapoor, Priyanshu Chatterjee, Kulraj Randhawa, Saurabh Shukla
With an introduction by Rishi Kapoor

Special thanks to Eros Entertainment and Kaleidoscope Entertainment

Hadbahedi, a small but beautiful town, is forward looking but honest. It competes for resources and recognition with a neighboring corrupt town, Triphala. Hadbahedians believe that they have been totally neglected by the state and seek an identity. They are lead in this endeavor, by Arun, the local newspaper’s proprietor. Things brighten when they discover that Rishi/Chintu Kapoor was actually born in their village 55 years back. A grand welcome follows.

Chintu arrives with Devika Malhotra, his young and dynamic PR agent.  He is a nuisance at Hadbahedi and treats the innocent people of Hadbahedi with contempt.  The brattish and obnoxious behavior of Chintuji is in stark contrast to the genial, innocent nature of the townies. Arun and Devika get along well, their romance blossoming, while ruthless Chintu is falling prey to the tempting monetary and political offer made by Triphala. The town by now has started getting the media and government’s attention due to Chintu’s stay in Hadbahedi. However, he continues to play havoc with the lives of the people. Chintu with the tempting offer from Triphala, on one side, and Arun-Devika with the townsfolk on the other, are at the middle of a see-saw climax, while concurrently, Arun’s past unfolds for the audience.

Does ChintuJi really deserve the ‘Ji’? Are the townies disillusioned in their love for their superstar Chintu Ji?

With: Fatakra
Directed by Soham Mehta
USA, 2010, 19 minutes, English

Naveen left India to chase his dreams in America. Three years and a recession later, his wife and son finally join him. ‘Fatakra’ (‘Firecracker’) tells the story of the sparks that fly on their first day together as dreams collide with reality.

Yeh Saali Zindagi
Directed by Sudhir Mishra
India, 2011, 134 Minutes, Hindi(with English Subtitles), US Premiere
Cast- Irrfan Khan, Arunoday Singh, Chitrangda Singh, Aditi Rao, Saurabh Shukla, Sushant Singh, Yashpal Sharma, Prashant Narayanan

Arun (Irrfan Khan) has to save Priti (Chitrangda Singh) the woman he loves, but for that he first has to save the man Priti loves- Shyam, the future son in law of a powerful Minister. Meanwhile, time is running out for Kuldeep (Arunoday Singh), the young gangster who is on his last job as his wife is threatening to walk out on him completely, and he begins to suspect she is leaving him to go into the arms of another man. The job has gone haywire for it is still unknown to Kuldeep that the Ministers daughter’s engagement with Shyam is off and now she doesn’t care whether Shyam lives or dies and more importantly neither does the Minister who Kuldeep hoped would pay the ransom! Priti finds herself inextricably caught in this mess and Arun has to save her life. But for that he has to risk everything, and put his own life at stake, he wonders why he should do it at all, if she still loves another man. He’s torn, but love knows no reason. Meanwhile Shyam is trying to make deals in captivity, and his goodness only seems superficial and as Kuldeep tries desperately to save his situation, there are dons coming from Bangkok, who have their own plans.
 
With: Cell Phone Cinema (NYU @ NYIFF)
6 minutes

Selected shorts of Indo-American Cell Phone Cinema from New York University students under the supervision of Prof. Karl Bardosh.

Harud (Autumn)
Directed by Aamir Bashir
India, 2010, 99 minutes, Hindi (with English subtitles), New York Premiere
Cast-Reza Naji , Shanawaz Bhat, Shamim Basharat, Salma Ashai

Rafiq and his family are struggling to come to terms with the loss of his older brother Tauqir, a tourist photographer, who is one of the thousands of young men who have disappeared, since the onset of the militant insurgency in Kashmir. After an unsuccessful attempt to cross the border into Pakistan, to become a militant, Rafiq returns home to an aimless existence. Until one day when he accidentally finds his brother's old camera.

With: Raju
Directed by Shiva Shankar Bajpai
USA/ India, 2010, 13 minutes, New York Premiere

In this timely and profound film, an undocumented immigrant who works for a debt relief agency must choose between the girl he’s falling for and his work visa.

The Bengali Detective (DOCUMENTARIES)
Directed by Phil Cox
UK, 2011, 75 minutes, English, Hindi Bengali (with English subtitles) New York Premiere
Cast- Rajesh Ji, Minnie, Gaurav, Dibindu, Ramesh, Deepti

Co-produced with award-winning filmmaker Annie Sundberg from Break Thru Films (Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, The Devil Came on Horseback), this originally styled DOCUMENTARIES provides an entertaining yet poignant look at modern India. What happens when people lose trust in the authorities? In India – a new wave of private detective agencies are answering the call. Poisonings, adultery, fraud, bridal purity, and the occasional murder – such are the day-to-day investigations of Kolkata’s Bengali Detective - Rajesh Ji. The Bengali Detective follows the intrepid, dance-obsessed gumshoe and his motley band of helpers on unpredictable raids and corkscrew investigations, exposing the secrets, fears, and covert lives of today's middle-class Indian society with a cheeky mix of fly-on-the-wall surveillance and Bangla-pop wiggle.

With: The Professionals
Directed by Oniket Alam
Bangladesh, 2010, 13 minutes, New York Premiere

What happens when Joshim (Aref Syed), a simple mill worker, comes face to face with the doctor whose negligence crippled him for life?

and

Topi
Directed by Arjun Rihan
India, 2009, 6 minutes, New York Premiere

Amidst the turbulent partition of India circa 1947, a young Hindu boy has a chance encounter with a stranger

Metropolis@Kolkata
Directed by Suman Mukhopadhyay
India, 2010, 95 Minutes, Bengali (with English Subtitles), US Premiere
Cast- Arun Mukhopadhyay, Anjan Dutt, Biplab Chatterjee, Rituparna Sengupta, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Sreelekha Mitra, Kabir Suma

Megacity Kolkata hides many worlds inside it. This film explores several facets of life in the city, through three intertwining stories, documenting the loves, fears, joys, sorrows, insecurities, and confidences of people who, despite vast differences, seem to merge in one great long flow of humanity. Manmatha belongs to the upper echelons of the new, burgeoning middle class. He is spending an entire night at the emergency ward of a state hospital. It is in the hospital that Manmatha meets Jagadish, a lower middle class man, whose son, a soccer goalkeeper, is fighting a deadly stomach injury. Manmatha is completely baffled by Jagadish’s unruffled, serene attitude. A violent street gang conflict near the hospital prompts Manmatha and Jagadish to retreat to Manmatha's car, where they see the outside world …… Biren is jobless and lives in the borders of the city. Bombs are exploded and bullets fired near a construction site in the neighborhood when there is gang dispute over extortions. Biren begins to ask all and sundry: “I have nothing to fear. Do I?” He gets the same answer: “What do you have to fear?” And yet Biren cannot get over his fear. An unknown terror grips him. But, unfortunately, Biren’s worst fears come true. In the tumult of the city, it is impossible to discern when and from what source a bullet might arrive and pick a head from the crowd.
 
Rohit and Rongili are currently separated. Rohit is a US-returned MBA who works for a multinational and makes loads of money. It was a dazzlingly packaged life that was empty at the core. But something strange happened to Rohit on the day of the lunar eclipse.
 
With: My Lad
Directed by Sami Khan
UK, 2010, 13 minutes, New York Premiere
 
Abdul has been hiding out in his launderette for days, unable to deal with the world outside. Despite pleas from his brother to face his demons, Abdul is determined to run from the one thing he has to accept-fate.

Sound Of Heaven: The Story of Bal Gandharva
Directed by Ravi Jadhav
India, 2011, 130 Minutes, Marathi (with English Subtitles), World Premiere
Cast- Subodh Bhave, Vibhavari Deshpande, Kishor Kadam, Avinash Narkar, Abhijit Kelkar
 
Post-screening discussion with Director & cast moderated by Mohan Agashe.

Bal Gandharva (Sound of Heaven: The Story of Bal Gandharva) is a richly mounted, Indian musical, period film on the incredible actor-singer-female impersonator Bal Gandharva (1888-1967), set in the early years of Indian theatre. The film has historic resonances and gives remarkable insights into how today’s Indian cinema and Bollywood musicals derived their song routines, lavish spectacles and melodrama from Indian musical theatre and epics—entirely independent of Hollywood. It is an inspiring portrait of Bal Gandharva, a cross-dressing, singing icon of the sangeet natak (musical theatre) tradition. Women were not allowed to perform onstage then, and Bal Gandharva’s singing and female impersonations in beautiful saris, jewellery and mannerisms were all the rage, and his songs are sung in India even today. Born Narayan Shripad Rajhans, he was given the title ‘Bal Gandharva’ (‘Little Singer from Heaven’).

Bal Gandharva led a tumultuous life that saw India’s struggle for independence from the British, his affair with a Muslim singer (he was Hindu) and fluctuating patronage from the maharajahs. Inevitably, as cinema became popular, women who played women’s roles edged him out of the business: onstage, he was little use as a man! He grew increasingly spiritual and believed, like Shakespeare, that all the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players—that life itself was one more role to play with verve.

A Decent Arrangement
Directed by Sarovar Banka
India/USA, 2011, 97 minutes, English, World Premiere
Cast-Shabana Azmi, Adam Laupus, Lethia Nall, Diksha Basu,

‘A Decent Arrangement’ is the story of Ashok Khosla, an Indian-American copywriter, who journeys to India seeking an arranged marriage. After he encounters an American woman traveling through India and is set up with an Indian woman who unexpectedly captivates him, Ashok must navigate the complexity of cultural traditions and the leanings of his own heart. With subtle comedy and true-to-life drama, ‘A Decent Arrangement’ shows us a side of India not commonly seen by western audiences and delivers an affecting story that resonates with those of us in search of our place in a changing world.
 
With: Wedding Night
Directed by Sabina England
USA, 2010, 21 minutes, New York Premiere

A bride arrives in the United States from Pakistan to meet her new husband on their wedding night for the first time. They both have high expectations, only to end up with major disappointment.

Daayen Ya Baayen
Directed by Bela Negi
India, 2010, 115 Minutes, Hindi (with English Subtitles) US Premiere
Cast- Deepak Dobriyal, Aditi Beri, Bharti Bhatt, Jeetendra Bisht

After an unsuccessful stint as an actor in Mumbai, Ramesh Majila returns to his small Himalayan village fresh with hope and the desire to make a new start. Seeing himself as the artistic voice of the village, he boasts of a proposal to start an Arts' Academy in the village. However to his dismay his ostentatious city manner and quirky traits compounded with a penchant for catalyzing disaster reduce him to a joke amongst the villagers. Adding to his discomposure is a wife pestering him to go back to the city, a young son who is looking desperately for a role model in him and a nagging financial situation.

In a dramatic turn of events, Ramesh shoots to heroic status overnight when a chance entry into a television contest wins him a luxury car. Now desired by women, envied and grudgingly admired by men, Ramesh becomes the focal point of the village, giving career advice, gracing functions, playing host to new found friends and relatives. But soon Ramesh finds that this new spot in the sun is treacherously tenuous. The car is completely incongruous in its surroundings and for Ramesh, who is trying to match his aspirations to it, the slide downhill begins again. When the car is stolen, he sets out on a bizarre journey to recover more than his prized possession, his lost dignity.

Noukadubi
Directed by Rituparno Ghosh
India, 2011, Bengali (with English subtitles), US Premiere
Cast - Raima Sen, Riya Sen, Jishu Sengupta, Priyanshu Chatterjee

Noukadubi is a period film set in the 1920s, based on a novel by Rabindranath Tagore.

A tender romance blossoming in Kolkata between law student Ramesh and his friend’s sister Hemnalini, is nipped suddenly when his father sends an urgent and mysterious summons from his village home. There, the dutiful son is peremptorily ordered to marry Susheela, daughter of a hapless widow. Ramesh refuses, confesses that his heart belongs to another, but finally relents. Hem knows nothing of all this and waits, confident that Ramseh will return soon.

After the wedding Ramesh sets out with his bride on a river boat journey back to Kolkata. On the way a fierce storm arises and the boat capsizes in the churning waters. When Ramesh gains conscience he sees his bride. There is no one else in sight, alive or dead. The two move off, take a train to Kolkata, the bride wondering why they were not going to Kashi, but trusting his judgment implicitly.

In Kolkata Ramesh realized the mistake he made - having brought with him another woman, Kamla and not his wife Shusheela. Will Ramesh reconnect with his first love, search for Kamla's or follow his responsbilities as a huband to Kamla?

Noukadubi raises questions of head and heart and the validity or otherwise of social conventions. We are left wondering whether true love will finally triumph.