Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Opening Night Gala

WATER
Director: Deepa Mehta In 1938 colonial India , eight-year-old Chuyia is widowed and sent to a home where Hindu widows live a life of renunciation. Chuyia's feisty presence deeply affects the lives of the other residents, including a young widow, who falls for a Gandhian nationalist.

MEN OF BURDEN - Pedaling Towards a Horizon
Director: Raghu Jeganathan, Kousalya Jeganathan
A compassionate look at the lives of cycle-rickshaw drivers in Pondicherry as they try to survive in a trade that has all but lost its value.

PARZANIA
Director: Rahul Dholakia
A Parsi family caught in the midst of Hindu-Muslim riots, launches a search for their ten-year old son lost amid the chaos. Based on a true story.

Shorts Program 1

ALL ROADS LEAD TO HERE
Director: Richie Mehta and Stuart McIntyre
Artists: Gurpreet Chana and Jugular
In a classic western showdown, a tabla player and a beat-boxer face off.

THE LAST DANCE
Director: Akshay Roy
At the age of 65, Meroo sees a chance for love with a fellow patron at the local teahouse.

5x1=5
Director: Kamal Raghani
A kid is distracted by the thought of the dosa he plans to eat for lunch, but before the day is done he will understand the true meaning of hunger.

LUCKY
Director: Avie Luthra
Lucky, an AIDS orphan comes to the city for a formal education and learns about life through an unlikely bond with his racist Indian neighbor.

FLOWER GIRL
Director: Rajan Khosa
Based on a folk tale, a girl with the ability to transform into a flowering tree is wooed by an insincere suitor.

CATARACT
Director: Sainath Choudhury
A man off the street makes an unexpected connection with a convenience store clerk.  

PRIA
Director: Theadore Bezaire
To meet the boy of her dreams, a 15-year-old South Asian girl tries to lose her accent by imitating lines from her favorite movies.

DREAMING LHASA
Directors: Ritu Sarin, Tenzing Sonam
A woman filming a documentary in Dharamsala, India about political refugees from Tibet meets an enigmatic ex-monk, and becomes entangled in his quest to fulfill his mother’s last wish.

Friday, April 21, 2006

7:00 pm

BOMBAY CALLING
Directors: Ben Addelman, Samir Mallal
Young, ambitious telemarketers assume western names and accents in the name of customer service and a burgeoning new economy in this examination of call center culture in India .

THE CHURNING (MANTHAN)
Director: Shyam Benegal
Set against the backdrop of Gujarat ’s deteriorating dairy industry, is a tale of dairy farmers uniting for their fair share of proceeds from corporate milk-processing giants.

DOMBIVLI FAST
Director: Nishikant Kamat
Unable to bear the rampant corruption and lawlessness around him, a righteous, cultured and educated man decides to take matters into his own hands.

Shorts Program 2

BULLA KI JAANA
Director: Anand Surapur
Artist: Rabbi Shergill
In the music video that launched MTV Desi, singer-songwriter Rabbi Shergill, an artist that defies classification sets the lyrics of 18th century Sufi Saint and poet, Bulla Shah to music.

THE GRINDING MACHINE (GIRNI)
Director: Umesh Kulkarni
A child rages against a machine that provides his family financial stability but disturbs the gentle balance of his life.

G-23
Director: Anthony Chen
A worker at an Indian cinema in Singapore develops an interest in the lives of three regular patrons.

FLEETING BEAUTY
Director: Virginia Pitts
A woman traces the history of the spice trade on her lover's back.

LITTLE PRINCESS (RAJKUMARI)
Director: Victoria Harwood
Nayna travels from her village to the city to spend the day with her father and it becomes a day that she will never forget.

6 FT IN 7 MIN
Director: Rafael Del Toro
Rajeev has always been surrounded by death and on his 18th birthday his parents will finally tell him why.

KidsFest

BELLY FULL OF DREAMS
Director: Prakash Kovelamudi
9-year old Ramu has a simple dream of going to school, but for a poor child that makes a living as a rag picker the obstacles are many.

Shorts Program 1 (encore)

THE WIDOW COLONY- India's Unsettled Settlement
Director: Harpreet Kaur
Women widowed in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots await justice from the Indian government for their loss, while struggling to help their children secure a future.

DANCE OF LOVE (SRINGARAM)
Director: Sharada Ramanathan
A devadasi (temple dancer) is torn between her privileged life as the mistress of a wealthy patron and an uncertain yet independent future.

I FOR INDIA
Director: Sandhya Suri
After moving to the U.K. in 1965, Yash Pal Suri bought two Super 8 cameras, two projectors and two reel-to-reel recorders so he could keep in touch with his family in India . Their footage is a bittersweet time capsule of alienation, belonging, cultural and national identities.

FIVE (PAANCH)
Director: Anurag Kashyap
Five aspiring rock stars prepared to do whatever it takes to get to the top, find themselves in a thick web of bloodshed and betrayal.

THE MARRIED WOMAN (PARINEETA)
Director: Pradeep Sarkar
Childhood lovers find their relationship threatened by financial cravings of a parent and the influence of a kind-hearted family friend.

KidsFest

CHAKACHAK
Director: Chetan Sharma
A child attempts to understand the damage humans are causing to the environment.

THE PEACE TREE
Director: Mitra Sen
Two girls, one Muslim and one Christian, dream of celebrating each others’ religious festivals- Christmas and Eid.

RUNAWAY GROOMS
Director: Ali Kazimi
An Investigation into the fraudulent activities of Indo-Canadian men using the system of arranged marriage to extort huge illegal dowries from their Indian brides before abandoning them.

WAITING...
Director: Atul Gupta, Shabnam Ara
The half-widows of Kashmir are women whose husbands are disappeared and presumed dead. But with no body or official declaration of their demise the women and their children are thrust into poverty and emotional limbo.

MONSOON WEDDING
Director: Mira Nair
As dark, buried secrets surface, a father struggles to overcome all odds to keep his family together while pulling off his daughter's extravagant wedding

Shorts Program 2 (encore)

CLOSING NIGHT GALA

MIXED DOUBLES
Director: Rajat Kapoor
A happily married middle class couple encounters boredom and complacency in their sexual relationship after ten years of marriage. An “Personals” ad in the newspaper provides the husband with titillating inspiration for putting the spark back in their relationship, but he’ll need to convince his wife to participate in an evening of Mixed Doubles.