NYIFF 2012: GATTU and SAVING FACE Win Top Honors

The 12th annual New York Indian Film Festival, presented by the Indo-American Arts Council, wrapped up last night at New York University's Skirball Center for the Arts. The evening began with the screening of the festival's closing night film, Anurag Kashyap's Gangs of Wasseypur, which arrived, along with its director, shortly after its screening at Directors' Fortnight in Cannes, where apparently it was very well received. Unfortunately, we only got to see part one of Kashyap's decades-spanning two-part gangster saga. However, I was quite impressed with what I did see, and eagerly await the chance to see the second part of this epic. (Think GoodFellas meets The Wild Bunch; the stunning opening sequence directly evokes the latter film, down to a variation on the famous line "If they move, kill 'em.")

Following a Q&A with Kashyap conducted by festival director Aseem Chhabra, the festival presented its awards ceremony. Unfortunately, most of the recipients were not present to receive their awards, making this year's ceremony rather brief and uneventful. Perhaps the festival, in the future, should take a page out of Cannes' book and make sure people stick around, just in case. ("Hey Haneke, don't go anywhere! Reygadas, Loach, Mungiu? You may want to book those return flights for Monday morning.")

Here are the awards for the 12th annual New York Indian Film Festival:

Gattu (Rajan Khosa)  (Read J Hurtado's review.)

Saving Face (Daniel Junge and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy)

Sujay Dahake, Shala  (Read J Hurtado's review.)

Avinash Deshpande, Shala

Bombay Snow (Chinmay Dalvi)

Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Dekh Indian Circus  (Read my review.)

Tannishtha Chatterjee, Dekh Indian Circus

Mohammad Samad, Gattu

Let's Be Out, The Sun Is Shining (Bornilla Chatterjee)

Love Lost (Caroline Cantone)

Rituparno Ghosh

Shyam Benegal

For more information on these and other films in this year's festival, visit the NYIFF website.