Actualités

By Katherine Matthews and Rumnique Nannar

One of the most frustrating aspects of covering festival and indie films has been the limited access for a wider audience – very often review comments run along the lines of: “Tell me where I can see this!” 2015 was a year that finally saw some great shifts in this, with a number of festival films finally getting a theatrical release – some of them films that had been on the festival circuit for a couple of years, some of them hot off the 2015 festival rounds. Audiences for both festival and indie films are small, but they’re growing, and access to this year’s “best of” selection should be easier for interested viewers. 2015 was, indeed, a great year for these films – enjoy our choices for Festival and Indie Bests!

Qissa

A TIFF2013 film that finally saw its theatrical release this past year, Qissa (“Folktale”), set in post-partition India,...

Churni Ganguly’s National Award winning film Nirbashito (The Banished) is both an unflinching and compassionate look at the idea of exile, through the story of a writer, a poet, whose work has so inflamed political sensibilities that she ends up banished from her homeland, forceably torn from her home, moments after fussing over and feeding her beloved cat, Baaghini, which is the last thing she looks at as she is dragged out the door, flown to Rajasthan, taken to Delhi, and from there out of the country, under tight security. Nowhere, it seems, is safe for this writer. Nowhere in India, at least, and perhaps nowhere in the world, as the tight security which her Swedish protectors provide for her once she arrives in Stockholm shows.

Those of us who have, perhaps, chosen to live or work or study elsewhere, may connect with the feelings of being uprooted and...

From the tale of a persecuted rights activist hounded from her home to Shabnam Sukhdev’s moving study of her father, this year’s programme foregrounds work by and about women – a far cry from the demure Bollywood heroines of the past

India’s cinema and society is changing, and women are at its forefront. And so a striking aspect of this year’s London Indian film festival is the strength of its female contribution, with women producers, directors and lead characters dominating the schedule.

The most explicit example of this is Nirbashito (Banished), a Bengali film clearly inspired by the life of Taslima Nasrin, the writer who was hounded from her native Bangladesh for her outspoken views on women’s rights, secularism and religious freedom. After living in exile in the Us and Europe, she found temporary refuge in Kolkata, but was then driven from that city and forced to live in Delhi.

The always amazing London Indian Film Festival, which begins this Thursday July 16th and runs through July 26th, is set to thrill, entertain and move audiences with it’s brilliant line up of films! Talking about the festival, Liff’s Executive & Programming Director Cary Rajinder Sawhney said, “This year’s Festival is bigger and better than ever and showcases World-class Indian films and talent. In all, this richly diverse festival will screen 20 features in a gamut of languages including Marathi, Tamil, Hindi, English, Bengali, Punjabi, Urdu and Konkani.”

Not only does the festival showcase amazing independent films from India (more about that in a bit), this year, once again, the festival boasts an incredible master class! This epic event will feature a rare on-stage interview with one of India’s most acclaimed and best loved commercial directors, widely attributed for revolutionising Tamil cinema, and inspiring Bollywood. Mani Ratnam talks about...

The festival returns this month for its sixth edition. Every year Liff aims to bring audiences some of the very best new Indian independent cinema, which includes features, documentaries and short films by both acclaimed and emerging filmmakers. This year’s line up promises to leave you entertained, informed, thought provoking and even in some cases leaving a screen shocked.

We now present the films that will be screened at this prestigious festival

Umrika | Opening Night | UK Premiere | cert 12A

Hindi with English subtitles | 98 min | India 2015 | Dir. Prashant Nair | with: Suraj Sharma, Tony Revolori, Adil Hussain, Smita Tambe, Prateik Babbar.

This year’s Sundance Audience Award winner is an uplifting, rights of passage tale about two brothers from a small village who have dreams of making it big in Umrika (America). Udai (Pratiek Babbar) is the eldest and adored by his hard-working mum. He leaves their hamlet on a bullock...