Mira Nair, Gurinder Chadha, Deepa Mehta – The Three Bhenjis in The Big Apple…
Browsing: Deepa Mehta
Deepa Mehta to direct Burnt Sugar
Aroon Shivdasani says, “People came for the draw of the big names and stayed for the arts and got acquainted and learnt so much about lesser known artists and the excitement of their work.”
She is Bollywood’s Sweetheart for everyone in the cinema halls, from front benchers to the elite. But don’t let those dimples fool you – Preity Zinta is one of the smartest women in Bollywood who takes on tough challenges, is fearlessly outspoken and is the proud co-owner of the IPL Kings XI Punjab, along with ex-boy friend industrialist Ness Wadia.
The two are very much in the news, due to the FIR lodged by Preity Zinta, accusing Ness Wadia of molestation. The media is agog with all the details. While all that works itself out, I thought I’d share a chat I had with her some years back.
‘Midnight’s Children’ – a major film collaboration born out of an epic book – and film-goers are waiting in excited anticipation, popcorn and soda ready.
At a preview screening at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, author Salman Rushdie and director Deepa Mehta were in a fun mood, completing each other’s sentences, putting a light-hearted spin on things, and what came through clearly is the rapport they share.
I think I’ll entertain you all meanwhile with the goings on of that evening.
“I think acting, especially in something as delicate as this, is like when you’re switching a radio knob to look for a correct frequency and you know the program you want to listen to is at 99.5 and you don’t get it. You try 4 and you try 6 and you still don’t get it and you feel that you’ve lost it forever, it doesn’t exist.
And then suddenly at 99.48 something happens and you suddenly can hear very clearly the song you were looking for, the radio station you were looking for. It’s really a chance – you have to try hard but ultimately it’s a lot to do with chance and I think I got lucky. At least I hope so!”
(Rahul Bose seen here with Minu Tharoor)
Bollywood, Hollywood, art cinema, documentaries and shorts all came together in that swirling melange of new and exciting films at the Mahindra 2010 Indo American Art Council Film Festival known as MIAAC.
This festival brings 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.
It is possible to encounter so many different worlds within one city because all these immigrants have brought echoes of their homelands into their new home – especially their food!
It was a great day for celebrity spotting – Salman Rushdie, Shashi Tharoor, Suketu Mehta, Madhur Jaffrey, Konkona Sen-Sharma, Boman Irani, Shabana Azmi, Deepa Mehta, Mira Nair and Ketan Mehta were all there.