INDIE INDIAN FILM FEST
You’ve got two more days to catch the New York Indian Film Festival, which is celebrating a century of Indian moviemaking by looking forward even as it honors the past.
Aseem Chhabra, the director of NYIFF, compares the new emergence of an independent (non-Bollywood) cinema to "the indie film movement in the US in the 1980s, when Spike Lee and Steven Soderbergh were breaking away from the Hollywood studio-controlled filmmaking process.”
That sort of unconstrained spirit means lots of discoveries are likely, and this may be your only chance to see many of them. Among the new movies worth checking out are the child’s-eye adventure “Oonga” and the romantic comedy “Jadoo,” by former NYIFF award winner Amit Gupta.
But don’t overlook the classics, either: 1948’s “Kalpana,” which dreamily reimagines director Uday Shankar’s experiences as a dancer, was recently restored by Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Foundation. And “Garam Hawa,” about a Muslim family torn by post-partition politics, earned a Palme d’Or nomination at Cannes in 1974.
Screenings will be held at Tribeca Cinemas; for more information visit www.iaac.us/nyiff2013 –Elizabeth Weitzman
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