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Fecund S. Asia Fest by Tom Mayer
Poster for festival opener, a doc by locals Maren Grainger-Monsen and Nicole Newnham. photo: courtesy M. Diab
THIS YEAR'S 3rd I FESTIVAL, ANOTHER
name for SF's International South Asian Festival, celebrates 100 Years of Indian cinema—since the first Indian feature film, “Raja Harishchandra” was released in 1913—with “Celluloid Man”. A portrait of P.K. Nair, the founder of the National Film Archive of India, “Celluloid Man" recently won prizes at India's National Film Awards.
Since women were not allowed to appear on the Indian screen a century ago, the festival will also celebrate “Celluloid Woman,” showcasing women directors at the opening night, centerpiece and closing night galas with an extra emphasis of documentaries which seem to be growing rapidly in popularity.
The festival, the 11th annual, takes place at the New People Theater on November 6, 7, 8, and 10, the Castro Theater on November 9 and in Palo Alto's Aquarius Theater the week following.
The festival opens with “The Revolutionary Optimists” by Bay Area's own Maren Grainger-Monsen and Nicole Newnham. This Emmy-nominated doc, about three young trail-blazing change agents in Calcutta, is also part of the fest's spotlight on South Asian youth. Accompanying the film is the short “Bhiwani Junction” about a Sikh boy dreaming of boxing in the Olympics.
3rd i Films will host Pratibha Parmar's “Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth” as the closer in San Francisco. The doc is a penetrating look at the life of author Alice Walker, the first black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize, for her novel “The Color Purple” in 1983. Both Parmar and Alice Walker will attend.
The centerpiece galas at the Castro Theater on November 9, include the North American premiere of Sabiha Sumar’s “Good Morning Karachi”, which follows a young girl's determination to rise beyond her humble origins and become a famous model in Karachi. The film tells the story of Pakistan's struggle between tradition and modernity and will be followed by an on-stage conversation on the changing role of women in South Asian cinema between Sumar and Indian filmmaker Anusha Rizvi.
Two indie narratives are showcased on Friday night in San Francisco: the first, Vasan Bala's “Peddlers”, is an edgy thriller from the noir side of Bollywood. Produced by indie-guru Anurag Kashyap, this film set in the Mumbai drug world had its debut at the Cannes Film Festival Critics Week in 2012.
The second, “Simple Superstar”, is the US premiere of the feature film debut by India's first Youtube star Wilbur Sagunaraj. Part autobiography, part road trip, and part instructional video, this whacky musical is the work of a creative genius. Both filmmakers will be in attendance.
Other narrative features at the festival include the Sri Lankan independent film “With You, Without You” by Prasanna Vithanage and Anand Gandhi's landmark “Ship of Theseus” which will close out the entire festival in Palo Alto.
But it is documentaries which dominate.
Bombay-based documentarian, Nishtha Jain, will showcase her latest doc “Gulabi Gang”. A revolution is in the making among the poorest of the poor in Bundelkhand, India, as the women of the Gulabi Gang fight against gender violence, and widespread corruption. The film, a veritable documentary thriller, received Best Documentary Award at the Dubai Film Festival last year.
Also part of the focus on gender is Jeff Roy's “Mohammad to Maya”, where Mohammed, a Tamil Muslim man, travels to Singapore for sexual reassignment surgery and returns as Maya. This plays with Crescent Diamond's short “Performing Girl”, a portrait of the acclaimed Sri Lankan transgender performance artist D'Lo.
Sumar's film is part of the festival's Spotlight on Pakistan, which includes Omar Mullick and Bassam Tariq's “These Birds Walk”, a cinema verité piece which paints a lyrical portrait of youth and street-life in Karachi. An ode to childhood, this Sundance Institute supported film has been rightfully compared to Truffaut's “The 400 Blows”.
The festival will also screen Sushrut Jain's “Beyond All Boundaries” about India's favorite national obsession—cricket. Both entertaining and enlightening, this doc follows the story of these three characters - a fan who bikes across India from game to game, a boy wonder who hopes to be the next Sachin Tendulkar, and a young girl who sees cricket as a way out of poverty. Both the filmmaker, and the producer (actor Kunal Nayyar of “Big Bang Theory”), will attend the San Francisco screening of the film.
As always, Bay Area directors of short films will be featured with “Coast to Coast: From Mumbai to the Mission”. This year's program expands its focus with films that examine both the natural and the cultural, by filmmakers both local and global. A highlight is Ritesh Batra's “Café Regular, Cairo”. Posted on Oct 24, 2013 - 09:12 PM