“If you’re not the best, you’re one of the rest!”
– Lily Prasad, Miss India America
Tag Archives: NYIFF
Immigration, Ambition, Identity Shape Film Miss India America
Untold South Asian Stories at IAAC Literary Festival in New York
New York, N.Y. Aroon Shivdasani, Executive and Artistic Director of the Indo-American Arts Council (IAAC), did not sleep much last month – though she seldom does. Aroon Shivdasani, Executive and Artistic Director of the Indo-American Arts Council (IAAC), welcomes attendees. Photo: Shashwat Gupta. Perhaps because throughout the year she coordinates the New York Indian Film Festival […]
Indian Award-Winning Documentary ‘Daughters of Mother India’ – Jarring Wake-Up Call for Men Like Me
With Jitin Hingorani. New York, N.Y. While living and working in my comfortable American cocoon in December of 2012, I vaguely remember hearing about an Indian girl named Jyoti Singh Pandey, who was brutally gang-raped on a Delhi bus with a metal rod. My immediate reaction was: “Poor girl… what is happening to my country […]
Film ‘Margarita With A Straw’ – Unexpected Brilliance – From India
New York, N.Y. The film Margarita With A Straw is so unexpectedly brilliant, on so many levels, that I was completely mesmerized. Focused on taboo within taboo, the fragility of our collective human condition and the joy and possibility of life, the film is required viewing. Not knowing as much about Indian cinema as I […]
NY Indian American Film Festival Triumphant in 13th Year
New York, N.Y. The New York Indian Film Festival (NYIFF) announced the winners of its competition categories at a ceremony at NYU’s Skirball Center last week, in the final event for the monumental festival. I was delighted to attend for the fourth year – a relative latecomer to this well-established cultural smorgasbord. The winners were […]
Next Generation of Global Indian Cinema
New York, N.Y. I recently attended Ticket2Bollywood (T2B) sponsored by Molecule Communications. I had the opportunity to interview its director Ajay Shrivastav and his sister and business partner Kiren. Brother and sister Ajay and Kiren Shrivastav are opposites. He is the creative one and Kiren more the businesswoman operating Molecule Communications in Mumbai and Ajay is opening […]
Bollywood’s Economic Impact — on New York
I first met New York-based music composer Wayne Sharpe two years ago at the New York Indo-American Film Festival (NYIFF). He was the first American I had ever encountered who worked for Bollywood. Recently I had the chance to attend a conference that focused on the economic impact of Bollywood in New York City – […]
A “Gandhi” for our Age: Indian Film Chittagong
New York, N.Y. Using visual cues from the paintings of Caravaggio, Indian filmmaker Bedabrata Pain has produced a triumphant film, Chittagong, that screened in New York last week. It is based upon a little-known episode leading to Indian Independence: a group of schoolboys who, with the help of their teacher, temporarily toppled the British a decade before […]
