The 2014 Indo-American Arts Council's (IAAC) New York Indian Film Festival wrapped up on May 10, at the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts with Aparna Sen's Goynar Baksho.
Anurag Kashyap's Ugly, opened the festival to an enthusiastic audience. Ugly is a sensational tale of corruption, indifference and systemic violence that begins when a 10-year-old daughter of an aspiring actor disappears.
Anurag Kashyap, director of Ugly at the opening ceremony
Nagesh Kukunoor, director of Lakshmi, which was a special feature at the festival
ANOKHI MEDIA's CEO Raj Girn was in attendance at the opening ceremony with designer Alia Khan
The festival also had a special spotlight on British filmmaker Gurinder Chadha to celebrate the 20th year anniversary of her acclaimed film Bhaji on the beach. NYIFF also featured a retrospective of Chadha's documentaries, co-presented by Third World Newsreel. The featured documentaries included, Acting our age, Im British but, A Nice Arrangement and What do you call an Indian woman who is funny?
Filmmaker Gurinder Chadha with writer/actor Madhur Jaffery at the opening ceremony
Renowned actress and first time director Geethu Mohandas showcased her film Liar's Dice as this year's Centerpiece. Liar's Dice was in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition section at Sundance this January, and has been hailed by Variety as “an assured feature debut” and “quietly effective.” The film follows Kamala, a young woman from Chitkul village and her girl child Manya, who embark on a journey leaving their native land in search for her missing husband. It stars India's leading indie film actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui, who was recently seen as the eager office worker in Ritesh Batra's The Lunchbox.
Arpita Kumar, director of My Dear Americans
Goynar Baksho stars Konkona Sen Sharma, Moushumi Chatterjee, Saswata Chatterjee and Paran Banerjee. The Bengali film is based on a story by novelist Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay of three generations of women and their changing position in society, seen in relation to a box of jewels, handed down from one generation to the next.
In talking about the primary aim of the festival, the founder and executive director of the IAAC, Aroon Shivdasani said, “When people think of Indian film, many people think only of music and dance and escapism, but that’s not all life is. Life is a lot of other things too, so we need to show them the real India. That doesn’t mean that we’re only serious, but we do bring up social issues, things that matter.”
The festival ran May 5 – 10 and featured 34 screenings with 23 narratives and 11 documentaries.
Dr. Mohan Agashe from Astu at the closing ceremony/Photo by Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images
Aparna Sen, at Closing Night Screening Of 'Goynar Baksho' /Photo by Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images
A full list of the award winners is below:
Best Film: Liar’s Dice
Best Director: Nagraj Manjule (Fandry)
Best Actor: Naseeruddin Shah (Zinda Bhaag)
Best Actress: Geetanjali Thapa (Liar’s Dice)
Best Screenplay: Virgin Talkies
Best Documentary: Gulabi Gang (directed by Nishtha Jain)
Best Short Film: Blouse (directed by Vijayeta)
Best One Minute Film: Five Days
All Images courtesy of iaac/ Namisha Raj
Featured Image: Aroon Shivdasani on stage at 2014 NYIFF
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