Texas: When fans and community members make a beeline for the action second year in a row, it is safe to assume that it has won over the hearts of the local community. Such was the case with the Dallas/Fortworth South Asian Film Festival that arrived here last weekend in all its glory.
It all started at the Perot Museum in downtown Dallas. This Science Museum typically draws hordes of curious school children. Instead of chirpy kids peering at the exhibits, on this Friday night it was movie-goers and cinephiles lining up to welcome the stars to Dallas. The line-up included Suraj Sharma (Umrika, Life of Pi, Homeland, Million Dollar Arm), Tiya Sircar (Miss India America, The Internship, Friends with Benefits, Vampire Diaries), Meera Simhan (Miss India America, Anger Management, Date Movie) and Tanima Bhattacharya (Shackle) and several others.
The 2016 Dallas/Fort Worth South Asian Film Festival presented 13 ground-breaking, sold-out screenings of shorts, documentaries and feature films during its three-day festival (Feb. 19th to the 21st). More than 350 people attended the opening night film, red carpet and festivities at the Perot Museum.
After the glitzy start in downtown Dallas, the action shifted to the Angelika Film Center in Plano. Several hundreds of cinephiles thronged Angelika on Saturday and Sunday. Every film was either a Texas or U.S. premiere, and the festival’s closing night film, Hansal Mehta’s “Aligarh,” was the North American premiere. Ravi Kapoor’s “Miss India America”and Prashant Nair’s “Umrika” were the opening night and centerpiece films, respectively. “Our film Shackle [Saankal]has enabled me to roam around the world and present ourselves at different festivals. My time here in Dallas has been just so memorable thanks to all the fans,” gushed Tanima Bhattcharya, the leading lady of Shackle that puts the spotlight on the controversial tradition of young women marrying underage boys in Western Rajasthan. Tanima in her portrayal of the lead female character Abeera has provided a riveting performance. Shackle was director Deedipya Joshii’s debut effort and he had only praise for the festival organizers and how the visitors felt so much at home in this warm community.
The South Asian demography is growing rapidly in this region, not only in numbers but also in terms of its central role and presence is all facets of this region – within industry, in the universities, as entrepreneurs, in the arenas of arts, culture and philanthropy. So it is only appropriate that a film festival focused on this demographic is received so well not just by the diaspora but the mainstream community as well. Sejal Desai one of the SAFF board members aptly pointed out, ”SAFF provided an unprecedented opportunity to bring together the South Asian community and mainstream movie goers alike. All of them are looking for incredibly artful cinema and to be able to get close to the film makers and the acting fraternity.” This was evident at the networking events, after-parties and post-screening Q&A sessions with 14 filmmakers and actors in attendance from all over the world.
The festival planners did a marvelous job of highlighting issues of education, arts and youth by the diverse choice of films chosen. The topics explored varied in scope from slave brides in Rajasthan to the effects of depression & mental illness on the South Asian community to the plight of the LGBTQ community in India. “The responses we got from our audiences were overwhelmingly positive,” said founder and festival director Jitin Hingorani. The festival was produced by JINGO Media, a NYC & Dallas-based PR & events boutique firm.
While telling the stories of the South Asian community within the US, the festival sent a strong message to the rest of America that the trials and triumphs of this community are no different than anyone else’s striving to eke out a living and succeed in this melting pot of a nation. For the members of the diaspora, it was a reminder of the range of challenges as well as the multitude of opportunities that their countries of origin bring.
(Author Venkatesh Raghavendra is Senior Director, American India Foundation [www.aif.org] and a frequent contributor on topics of culture, social change and philanthropy)
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