12th Annual NEW YORK INDIAN FILM FESTIVAL is delighted to invite you to the Opening Night Celebrations
Wednesday May 23, 2012
Opening Night Red Carpet Screening of Bedabrata Pain's CHITTAGONG:
Paris Theatre, New York City
Gala Benefit Dinner: Jumeirah Essex House Ballroom, NYC.
Bedabrata Pain's CHITTAGONG is set in the turbulence of the 1930s British India, Chittagong is a true story of a 14 year old boy, Jhunku, and of his journey to find where he belongs. For the first time in Indian history, the British army is defeated by a ragtag army of schoolboys and their teacher, Masterda. Called a traitor by his peers, and let down by a man he trusts, Jhunku impulsively joins the movement. As his world is turned upside down, Jhunku is forced to confront his self-doubts. As the leaders of the movement are progressively caught or killed, Jhunku battles against seemingly insurmountable odds to win a victory of his own. The film is a brilliant, poignant action-drama, made more so by the fact that it is true. Cast: Manoj Bajpai, Barry John and Delzad Hiwale
Wednesday May 23rd, 2012
6 pm: red carpet
7 pm: screening, post-screening discussion Paris Theatre
9 pm: Gala Benefit Dinner, Jumeirah Essex House Ballroom
Screening Only (red carpet, film screening, post-screening discussion): $150; $125 IAAC members
Featured Speakers: Ambassador Nirupama Rao, Indian Ambassador to the US; Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney
Gala Benefit Dinner Tables of 10: Reserved seating (Red carpet film screening, discusson & Gala Benefit dinner) There is no member discount for the GALA BENEFIT as this is our one Benefit for the year that allows us to pay for the rest of the festival.
Emerald Table of 10
$25,000
($23,000 tax deductible)
Ruby Table of 10
$20,000
($18,000 tax deductible)
Sapphire Table of 10
$15,000
($13,000 tax deductible)
Diamond Table of 10
$10,000
($8,000 tax deductible)
Friendship Table of 10
$5,000
($3,000 tax deductible)
Individual ticket
$500
($250 tax deductible)
Special musical tributes to the late Shammi Kapoor and the late Dev Anand by Songstress Devika Bhisewith Ben Rosenblum on keyboard.
Please send your ticket/table request details(#of tickets/ table denomination, return address) with your cheque to the following address immediately:
Indo-American Arts Council,
517East 87th St., Suite 1B,
New York, NY 10128.
On the New York Indian Film Festival:
IAAC has grown into the area's most mainstream Indian film festival, offering features, documentaries, shorts and indies in numerous Indian languages and from various countries.The growth has led not only to a wider range of films, but to new partnerships and inroads to American audiences.wsj.com (Wall Street Journal)
“It’s just been very pleasurable to see how it’s grown.I remember when it started…its grown to become a very serious thing and I think now they get the best films, it gets a lot of media attention and I think it’s a fantastic platform, both for Indian filmmakers from the US, and from India.” Salman Rushdie.
The IAAC Film Festival has become one of the most important cultural events on the calendar of the Indian-American community.”Consul General Prabhu Dayal.
“With film festivals dedicated to Indian cinema popping up all over the place, the grand-daddy of them all, the Indo-American Arts Council, has upped its game with a new moniker, an earlier date and writer Aseem Chhabra as its festival director.” Variety.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012, 6.30 pm, Paris Theatre.
Chittagong Directed by Bedabrata Pain
India. 2012. 135 minutes. Hindi (with English subtitles)
Cast- Manoj Bajpai, Barry John and Delzad Hiwale
In a little known incident in the 1930s British occupied India, a handful of untrained teenage boys and girls, led by a school teacher, handed the British their first military defeat. Set against this backdrop, Chittagong is the story of the youngest and the most unlikely participant – a frail and diffident 14 old teenager, Jhunku Roy. It portrays an incredible journey of a teenager, who battles nagging self-doubts and reluctance on one hand, and a formidable enemy on the other, to achieve an impossible triumph.
For 18 years, Dr. Bedabrata Pain was a senior research scientist with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), NASA, and a leading technologist in the field of CMOS image sensors.
One of the inventors of CMOS digital imaging technology that enabled the digital camera revolution-
from cell- phone cameras to movie cameras (such as those used by RED) to those in space telescopes, he led the research and development of digital active pixel sensors at JPL for the past ten years. He was inducted to the US Space Technology Hall
of Fame in 1999 for his inventions and innovations in the field of digital imaging.
He has published over 150 technical
papers, and holds more than 87 US patents in the field of integrated sensor technology. He has received a number of awards such
as the 2005 the NASA Honor Award, 2003 Walter Kosonocky Special Mention, JPL Technical Excellence Award in 2000, NASA Researcher Award in 1999, JPL Award for Excellence in 1998, Lew-Allen Award for Excellence in 1997, and NASA Achievement Awards in 1996. His recent inventions include back-illuminated CMOS imagers.
Having topped his department at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India, he went to Columbia University, New York, USA in 1986, and graduated in 1993 with a PhD degree. He tought courses on CMOS imaging at UCLA and several image sensor companies all over the world, and was invited speaker at several conferences. He also chaired the Image Sensor Conference from 2006-2008, International Image Sensor Workshop in 2007, and served in the DSM sub-committee of IEDM 2005-2007.
In December 2008, he left NASA to pursue his passion-film-making.
"Chittagong" marks his directorial debut. Written and produced by Bedabrata, the film is featurd as the opening night film at film festivals in Los Angeles and New York. It is set for release soon in India. Before "Chittagong", he was the executive producer of internationally acclaimed, national award winning "Amu" (2005). A playwright and a singer (he is the leader singer of one of the songs of "Chittagong"), he was also the producer and the principal researcher for the documentary called "Lifting the Veil" on the impact of globalization in India, and the writer of the book titled "Behind the events in Kashmir".
In
addition to film-making, he continues to serve in the technical advisory board of several image sensor companies and guide them in developing the next-generation digital image sensing technology.
For 18 years, Dr. Bedabrata Pain was a senior research scientist with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), NASA, and a leading technologist in the field of CMOS image sensors.