NYIFF – A Feast of Award-Winning Indian Films in New York Anupam Kher,…
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NYIFF – The Stories of Our Lives on the Big Screen Cinema, Cinema and Bollywood…
A world-class music concert, a major dance festival, a film festival are the delights of summer, must-see events on our social calendar. In years past each was a much anticipated real life event, with dressed-up crowds meeting their friends and rubbing shoulders with celebrities. Here we share the past memories and how each event has been reborn, reinvented this year.
Yes, it’s that time of the year when New Yorkers get wrapped up in intriguing cinema from the Indian sub-continent, wonderful stories of the diaspora and varied lives – thanks to the New York Indian Film Festival (NYIFF) which has been a gift of the Indo-American Arts Council and Aroon Shivdasani to New York City
4150 people reached on FB Lassi with Lavina page Opening Night at the New York…
dmit it – sometimes you just want to run away from mundane real life!
Well, here’s the perfect antidote, the perfect escape route… you get to follow four feisty Indian women and their secret desires, meet a famous sibling pair of filmmakers, encounter the truth about the controversial politico Arvind Kejriwal, come face to face with Satyajit Ray’s fascinating detective Feluda and check out two of your favorite stars who are picking up the megaphone and turning director! You even get to see the life story of a porn star turned Bollywood actor!
Predictably, the 16th Annual NYIFF (May 7 -14) is going to play havoc with your sleep cycle and your work life (and maybe even your love life) because you’ll want to sit zombie-like and see all the unexpected 40-plus offerings. You may as well give up your real life for a week!
If there’s one thing that Indians across the world share, it’s their love for movies. As newborns, they are weaned on cinema by star-struck parents and as toddlers, their first steps are mingled with dance steps learned from Bollywood movies on video. School kids can rattle off famous dialogues from Hindi films and as young adults, they often take their cues from the romantic sequences in their favorite films. Even patriotism and national integration are often invoked by Bollywood’s rousing lyrics and over-the-top emotions.
This year marks the 100th year of Indian cinema and this vibrant industry seems to be gaining in momentum and strength across the world. Immigrants have brought their love of cinema to America, carrying memories of the golden age of cinema of the 50’s, the wonderful films of V. Shantaram, Raj Kapoor, Bimal Roy, and Guru Dutt.
Young Indian-Americans have acquired this passion for film from their immigrant parents and in this essay, which first appeared on the Smithsonian’s blog, a look at their dreams and aspirations.
It’s a place where life and death have no value. In an encounter with the Gangs of Wsseypur, the audience is transported quite literally to the wild, wild world of Wasseypur where human blood gushes like water, gunshots ring out as freely as birdsong, and no one is burdened with a conscience of a moral compass.
Anurag Kashyap, architect of this unforgettable, hellish world, received a standing ovation at Cannes for his 5-hour plus epic ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’, a juggernaut of revenge set in rural India. An interview with the Godfather of Wasseypur…
This has been quite a year for noted actor and activist Shabana Azmi who was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India. She’s just finished Deepa Mehta’s ‘Midnight’s Children’ based on Salman Rushdie’s novel and is currently making a film with Vishal Bharadwaj. She has been chosen by TIME Magazine as 1 of 25 Asian heroes and is the only woman amongst 4 Indians on the list.
Now comes her New York minute! Shabana Azmi was presented a proclamation by New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Office for Motion Picture and Television Development for her commitment to the arts and contributions to New York City’s film industry.
In the city of reinvention, what better way to stand out from the crowd than to reinvent yourself?
As the film festivals focusing on South Asian films have multiplied in the Big Apple, the oldest and most noted showcase of them all, the MIACC Film Festival, is now known as New York Indian Film Festival (NYIFF) and is focusing on independent and regional films, while still being open to Bollywood blockbusters. The opening film ‘Do Dooni Chaar’ is a Disney film with Bollywood stars but imbued with the indie spirit.