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JBFC Series: India Now
The series comes direct from MoMA, where many of the films received their theatrical premieres. ... and Pooja Kohli, Director, IAAC Film Festival. ...
India is one of the world's fastest growing nations, with a film industry to match. Over a thousand features are produced each year, from Bollywood blockbusters to intimate Malayalam, Bengali, and Tamil "art films." In a spectacularly diverse country now more than a billion strong, the one thing that everyone seems to share is a passion for cinema. "India Now" features a selection of eight new feature films and two short films that capture the astonishing range of fiction and documentary styles and genres evident in India today. The series comes direct from MoMA, where many of the films received their New York theatrical premieres.
Khosla Ka Ghosla Tues. May 1 at 7:00 Opening Night Reception
Dor Wed. May 2 at 7:30
Shoonya (Zero Zone) with Printed Rainbow Thurs. May 3 at 7:30
The Bong Connection Fri. May 4 at 7:30
A Cry in the Dark with Bare Sat. May 5 at 3:00
Omkara Sun. May 6 at 2:30
Parzania Mon. May 7 at 7:00
Kaalpurush (Memories in the Mist) *Wed. May 9 at 7:30
*Free Members-Only Screening. See info below.
Click Here for a New York Times article about the series.
Special thanks to The Museum of Modern Art: Series organized by Joshua Siegel, Assistant Curator, Department of Film, and Uma Da Cunha, guest curator. And, to our longtime collaborator Aroon Shivdasani, President and Executive Director, Indo-American Arts Council; and Pooja Kohli, Director, IAAC Film Festival.
Film descriptions condensed from those of The Museum of Modern Art. |
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KHOSLA KA GHOSLA Tues. May 1 at 7:00
Dibakar Banerjee. 2006. 135 min. India. In Hindi with subtitles.
A runaway hit comedy featuring many of Bollywood's most
beloved stars. A middle-class family man from Delhi sinks his entire life savings
into a suburban plot on which to build his dream house, only to be swindled by
a greedy land shark. The family’s
triumph over the crotch-scratching extortionist and his goons is a shaggy (under)dog
story worthy of Frank Capra.
Opening Night Reception with food catered by Bollywood Bistro of Pleasantville.
Tickets: $11/members; $15/nonmembers. |
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DOR Wed. May 2 at 7:30
Nagesh Kukunoor. 2006. 124 min. India. In Hindi with subtitles.
When Zeenat, an independent, headstrong Muslim woman from the mountains of Himachal Pradesh, learns that her husband stands accused in Saudi Arabia of the murder of another Indian man, she embarks on a dramatic journey across the deserts of Rajasthan to seek the forgiveness of the only one who can pardon him, the dead man's widow. |
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SHOONYA (Zero Zone)
Thurs May 3 at 7:30
Arindam Mitra. 2006. 100 min. India. In Hindi with subtitles.
Mitra's debut feature is a finely wrought tale of temptation, treason, and honor, inspired by T.S. Eliot's The Murder in the Cathedral.A star cricketer is seduced into fixing his team's matches, only to find the law and his guilty conscience closing in on him when the scandal breaks.
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PRINTED RAINBOW
Gitanjali Rao. 2006. 15 min. India.
In Rao's gorgeously animated short, winner of three prizes at the Cannes Film Festival, a lonely old woman dreams of traveling the magical worlds printed on her precious collection of matchboxes. |
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THE BONG CONNECTION Fri. May 4 at 7:30
Anjan Dutt. 2006. 110 min. India. In Bengali with subtitles.
This utterly endearing and smart satire follows the parallel stories of two young Indian men who have difficulty adjusting to life and love in a new country: one a charismatic Indian musician from New York who moves to Kolkata to discover his cultural roots, and the other a conservative but ambitious Bengali computer technician who seizes a job opportunity in Houston. |
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A CRY IN THE DARK Sat. May 5 at 3:00
Haobam Paban Kumar. 2006. 56 min. India. In Manipuri and English with subtitles.
In 2004, Thangiam Manorama, a thirty-two-year-old woman from a village in India's eastern state of Manipur, was arrested and reportedly raped and killed while in police custody. The circumstances of her death, and its subsequent cover-up, are the subject of this documentary about resistance in the face of overwhelming military force.
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BARE
Santana Issar. 2006. 11 min. India.
A poignant short in which the filmmaker uses home movie footage and recorded telephone conversations to reach out to her alcoholic father. |
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OMKARA Sun. May 6 at 2:30
Vishal Bhardwaj. 2006. 151 min. India. In Hindi with subtitles.
Transforming the bandlands of Uttar Pradesh into a modern-day mob underworld, Bhardwaj's freewheeling, feverish adaptation of Shakespeare's Othello is one of Indian cinema's triumphs of 2006. Saif Ali Khan plays the dastardly Iago-figure Langda Tyagi, a loyal henchman to chief Omkara (Ajay Devgan plays the brooding Othello). When the politically calculating Omkara favors an impetuous playboy over Langda to be his lieutenant, the villainous gangster plots revenge on both. |
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PARZANIA Mon. May 7 at 7:00
Rahul Dholakia, 2005. 118 min. India. In Hindi and English with subtitles.
In 2002, a pogrom organized by radical Hindus against Muslims in the West Indian state of Gujarat resulted in the deaths of more than 1,100 people. Director Dholakia, a native of Gujarat now living in Los Angeles, was inspired to make a film about Parsi family friends whose thirteen-year-old son disappeared during the riots. Theater owners in Gujarat still refuse to screen this powerfully humanist statement against fundamentalism, citing fears of violent protests. |
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KAALPURUSH (Memories in the Mist)
*Wed. May 9 at 7:30
Buddhadeb Dasgupta. 2005. 120 min. India. In Bengali with subtitles.
An intimate portrait of a father, his son, and the women in their lives, told with characteristic melancholy and sardonic humor by master Bengali filmmaker Dasgupta. Rahul Bose, described by Time Magazine as "the superstar of Indian arthouse cinema," plays a mild-mannered office clerk coping with his faltering career, his ambitious wife's sudden celebrity, and haunting memories of his father. As in Dasgupta's Tale of a Naughty Girl and Chased by Dreams, the past impinges on the present in mysterious, almost surreal ways.
*FREE Members-Only Screening. Tickets available to JBFC Members only at the box office beginning on Friday, April 20 on a first-come, first-served basis. Membership ticket limitations apply. |
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| http://www.burnsfilmcenter.com/films/0706series_indianow.html |
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