NEW DELHI: America is ready to showcase films like Taare Zameen Par and Honeymoon Travels Private Ltd at its two major events featuring Indian films held separately in New York and Los Angeles.
The first event, which is being held in New York, is called Engendered – Sex, Sexuality, Ritual and Religion. Organised by the Indo-American Arts Council, the event will begin on 18 April and continue till 20 April.
It will have films in two sections namely, “Dahleez: Beyond the Threshold” and “Pehchaan: I am not me.”
While Dahleez has screenings documenting sex workers‘ lives including Mira Nair‘s Indian Cabaret and Tales of the Night Fairies by Shohini Ghosh, Pehchaan has queer film screenings exploring “otherness,” like Honeymoon Travels Private Ltd by Reema Kagti, About Elsewhere by Priya Sen and Milind Soman Made Me Gay by Harjant Gill.
The second event is the sixth Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles. The festival, which will take place from 22 to 27 April, will have a combination of features, documentaries and shorts. Jury and audience choice prizes will be awarded to the best feature, documentary and short film.
The event will open with Richie Mehta‘s Amal while Mumbai Cutting…A City Unfolds by the ten Indian directors Sudhir Mishra, Anurag Kashyap, Rahul Dholakia, Ruchi Narain, Kundan Shah, Revathy, Shashank Ghosh, Jahnu Barua, Manish Jha and Rituparno Ghosh will close the event.
Aamir Khan‘s award-winning Taare Zameen Par will also be screened during the festival.
Aditionally, there will also be a tribute to Bollywood star Madhuri Dixit on 25 April. It will include a moderated discussion with the star followed by the screening of Mrityudand (The Death Sentence) by Prakash Jha. The second film of the tribute will be Dil To Pagal Hai (My heart is crazy) on 26 April.
Other films to be screened include Santosh Sivan‘s Before the Rains, A home in the Sky by Bipin Nadkarni, Adoor Gopalakrishnan‘s Naalu Pennungal (Four Women) and Kissing Cousins by Amyn Kaderali.
Other sections include “Youth Vision” which is a section of the programme that showcases feature-length and short family films for young and adult audiences in English and several Indian languages.
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