.’Viceroy’s House’ – a screening in NYC. The evening was organized by Indo-American Arts Council at IFC Center and the celebs included Writer-Director Gurinder Chadha, Manish Dayal, Huma Qureshi, Samrat Chakrabarti and Tanveer Ghani,
Browsing: Samrat Chakrabarti
‘For Here or To Go?’ is the anxiety-driven roller coaster ride of H1 B visa holders in America as they wait to find out where home and their life is in uncertain times.
“Cancer is a roller coaster, I have oft heard it been said. While you are comfortably navigating the undulating rails of an expected life, you suddenly find yourself dropping in a deafening speed that jerks and rattles you to your very core. The only difference is that unlike the carnival line you willingly join, waiting to board the ride, analyzing and preparing for its every loop and dip, this ride is murky, unexpected and you never really know how it will end until you reach the other side. All you can do is hang on and hope you’ll arrive safely back at the platform.” – Ayesha Hakki
It’s not every day that New York actor Samrat Chakrabarti, who’s acted in a ton of movies and TV shows, gets to go back to his roots and star in a Bengali film. And a Hitchcockian thriller, no less! Samrat, who grew up in London, is currently in Calcutta – the city where his parents grew up and he’s seeing himself, larger than life, on huge billboards in the city.
Samrat, who’s done two big movies in the North and South of India – ‘Midnight’s Children’ and ‘Vishwaroopam’ respectively, is doing a movie in Calcutta for the first time and that too in Bengali. The film is ‘Sada Kalo Abcha’, directed by the innovative digital filmmaker Riingo Banerjee, known as the most experimental and technology driven filmmaker in Tollywood. The entire film has been shot with a range of Panasonic cameras.
Trends sometimes turn into traditions. For the immigrants who came from India, Christmas was often a lonely time of the year. Fast forward a few decades and many of them will tell you it’s now a favorite time of the year, with non-stop shopping, social get-togethers and yes, even a tree and lights, thanks to their American-born children. Now these same American Born desis are starting a new Christmas tradition – their very own desi Christmas Carol!
‘Bumbug the Musical’, produced by LAUGHistan, is a hilarious rock musical playing in Manhattan, and it could become the next holiday tradition with a desi twist to it. Created by New York actors and writers Samrat Chakrabarti and Sanjiv Jhaveri, it’s a joyous celebration of immigrant life where everyone seems to bring their own traditions to be mixed up in the giant blender of America.
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Like any good movie, the five-day festival had lots of action, drama, side stories and even back stories. There were panels, discussions, parties and after-parties, all a shorthand for absorbing the diverse material and networking with film buffs.
It was in many ways a New York story, with the opening day red carpet taking place outside the historic Paris Theater (a favorite of the late Ismail Merchant), right opposite the glitzy Plaza Hotel on Fifth Avenue. Horse carriages trotted by near Central Park, horns honked as cars sped and pedestrians rushed by in frentic NY fashion, a few stopping to see what the hullabaloo was about.
With all the fashionistas in New York, this was bound to happen. Against the grand canvas of New York Fashion Week, a group of young South Asian women entrepreneurs created their own hurrah, a showcase of the sparkling talent of desi designers from the US and the Indian-subcontinent.
At the Fashion for Compassion event at the Ritz Carlton honoring Ranjana Khan, there was a happening buzz with lots of star power on the red carpet : Abhay Deol, Preeti Desai, Archie Punjabi, Samrat Chakrabarti, Janina Gavankar, Anusha Dandekar, Pooja kumar, and Shenaz Treasurywala.
In the world of cinema, there is usually a clear demarcation between the silver screen and the audience. If you are a fan you might count yourself lucky if you got a fleeting glimpse of Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan on the red carpet or if he waved out to you as part of a crowd.
Yet for one Indian-American fan, real life blended into reel life, resulting in ‘Walkaway’, a movie which is being released on 26 screens across 18 cities in the US and echoes the life of young South Asians in New York City. First time filmmaker Shailja Gupta, very much a New York based South Asian herself, managed to pull this film off with help from none other than – Shah Rukh Khan!
‘Hiding Divya’ is a provocative Indie film which takes on hard issues – and delivers. Mental illness is a taboo word in the Indian-American community – it’s about loss of face, ‘bad blood’ and failure – and is often kept under wraps. Filmmakers Rehana Mirza & Rohi Mirza Pandya get the dialogue going…
Above: Pooja Kumar and Madhur Jaffrey in ‘Hiding Divya’
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