The 16th Annual Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles Announces Lineup and Gala Screenings

OPENING NIGHT GALA

IN THE SHADOWS (Gali Guliyaan)
India/UK/2017/117mins/DCP/Hindi
Los Angeles Premiere
Director: Dipesh Jain

Logline: A reclusive shopkeeper vows to rescue his young neighbor from abuse – even if he must use his illegal network of surveillance cameras hidden around Old Delhi to do so.

Dipesh Jain’s impressive feature debut centers on Khuddoos (Manoj Bajpayee), a shopkeeper living in self-imposed isolation within the walled city of Old Delhi. In lieu of human interaction, Khuddoos monitors the people in his neighborhood via a series of hidden cameras he’s placed throughout the streets and alleys. Whether he fancies himself an amateur police officer or is a Peeping Tom is open to interpretation, but when Khuddoos hears the sounds of a young boy suffering abuse at the hands of his father – somewhere outside the view of Khuddoos’ cameras – he is spurred to take action.

Star Manoj Bajpayee delivers a tour de force, effortlessly relaying the deep wells of trauma that motivate Khuddoos’ sympathy for the unknown boy. Equally praiseworthy is 14-year-old first-time actor Om Singh as Idris, the subject of Khuddoos’ search. This young man possesses the gravitas of an actor with decades of experience, able to communicate his life’s history with one wounded look. Jain creates an intense, enthralling mystery around the shared pain of these two indelible characters, and in the process announces himself as a fiercely talented storyteller.

CLOSING NIGHT GALA

VILLAGE ROCKSTARS
India/2017/87mins/DCP/Assamese
Los Angeles Premiere
Director: Rima Das

Logline: A ten-year-old girl in a remote Assamese village dreams of buying a guitar and starting her own rock band.

Dhunu, a free-spirited tomboy, lives with her widowed mother and older brother as they struggle to get by in their small village in Assam. One day, after seeing a band at a local event playing with Styrofoam “guitars”, she dreams of owning a real one of her own and becoming a rockstar. She saves money and forms a supporting band with the local boys, but her rockstar hopes seem impossible without magical thinking. After an epic rainfall destroys the local crops, Dhunu is caught between the fantasy life of youth and the harsh reality of adulthood. Having shot the film in her own home village of Chhaygaon, filmmaker Rima Das, who is the film’s director, writer, editor, director of photography, production designer, costume designer and casting director, shows the beauty of the landscape and people without hiding from the culture of conformity that threatens young girls. Premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival, VILLAGE ROCKSTARS has a soul and vision rare in Indian cinema today and marks Das as a major emerging filmmaker.

OMERTA
India/2017/96mins/DCP/Hindi, English, Urdu
U.S. Premiere
Director: Hansal Mehta

Logline: IFFLA alum Hansal Mehta directs rising star Rajkummar Rao in an examination of the life and crimes of notorious terrorist Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh.

Hansal Mehta returns to IFFLA with perhaps his most ambitious feature to date. Partnering once again with his muse, actor Rajkummar Rao, the two artists probe the life of British-born terrorist Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a man believed to have, among other despicable acts, funded the events of 9/11. In order to sketch a portrait of Saeed, Mehta and Rao bring us uncomfortably close to the man, combining known biographical elements of Saeed’s life with reenactments of crimes Saeed has confessed to, or is generally believed to have committed – most notoriously, the kidnapping and murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002.

While Mehta doesn’t purport to understand, much less explain, Saeed’s motivations – nor does he pretend his actions are anything other than vile –  his skillfully mounted film provides a document of a terrorist who, undoubtedly, has had a massive influence on world events in the last twenty years.

PRAKASAN
India/2017/84mins/DCP/Malayalam
Los Angeles Premiere
Director: Bash Mohammed

Logline: Against the advice of friends and family, naïve Prakasan eagerly accepts a new job offer in the big city, but when he finds out that his duties consist of educating sassy sex-workers he realizes he’s the one who has a lot to learn.

In this witty and sweet fish-out-of-water comedy, director Bash Mohammed illustrates the virtues of cinematic simplicity in a classic story told with empathy and skill.

The outrageously endearing Dinesh Prabhakar plays the titular Prakasan, a young man lucky enough to be born into a paradisiacal forest brimming with fresh fruit where he can make love to his girlfriend in luminous natural pools. Yet Prakasan is dying to see the big city, so when he receives a job offer from a World Bank program, he happily leaves his idyllic home behind.

But his arrival in town is a shocking awakening. Nobody speaks his language, and even in their native tongue people don’t mean what they say. Most importantly, he discovers his new job is to educate sex-workers about public health, leading to comic misunderstandings but also to profound lessons. The result is an uplifting, clever story that is sure to delight IFFLA audiences.

ASK THE SEXPERT
USA/India/2017/83mins/DCP/English, Hindi
Los Angeles Premiere
Director: Vaishali Sinha

Logline: Meet Mumbai’s most popular, and controversial, newspaper columnist: 93-year-old sex expert Dr. Mahinder Watsa.

The most popular column in a daily newspaper in Mumbai is one people are hesitant to admit they read. With many states banning sex education in schools and a general taboo around any kind of public talk about sex, 93-year-old Dr. Mahinder Watsa’s column is a lifeline to millions. With humor and kindness, he addresses topics like masturbation, premature ejaculation, gender equality, and sexual pleasure in non-moralistic terms. In addition to the column, the need amongst the people for honest and factual discussion about sex leads him to answer hundreds of emails and even counsel couples and strangers who arrive at his home unannounced.

Dr. Watsa’s kindness and lifelong commitment to sex education and health has made him a willing combatant against the more conservative elements of Indian society that see his life’s work as immoral. With charm and joy, ASK THE SEXPERT shows the power of knowledge over ignorance.

UP DOWN AND SIDEWAYS
India/2017/83mins/DCP/Chokri
Los Angeles Premiere
Directors: Anushka Meenakshi and Iswar Srikumar

Logline: In a remote part of India, a co-operative of field workers has held off capitalism and Western pop culture by singing dazzling, polyharmonic folk songs, performed only when harvesting each other’s rice.

Directors Anushka Meenakshi and Iswar Srikumar took their camera to the farthest northeast corner of India to capture this ethnographic portrait of an indigenous community and their remarkable musical traditions. Villagers of Phet in the Nagaland region rely on rice cultivation as their primary means of subsistence. Together they form small teams called mülé, to work each other’s paddies year-round. As both men and women labor they sing lis, folk songs formally similar to the “call and response” style of African-American work music, but polyphonically more complex. The lyrics of love, friendship, strength and fatigue feel strikingly timeless and universal.

AJJI
India/2017/104mins/DCP/Hindi
North American Premiere
Director: Devashish Makhija

Logline: When a high-ranking politician’s son assaults her 10-year-old granddaughter and the police refuse to help, Ajji methodically devises a plan for revenge.

When 10-year-old Manda is brutally assaulted by Dhavle, a local politician’s violent and uncontrollable son, her family sees little hope  for justice. Her parents – scraping by on meager earnings from technically illegal work – are scared into silence by a police force unwilling to hold the powerful accountable. Only Ajji, Manda’s aging grandmother, sees a path to vengeance. While Dhavle parades around town fearless of any reprisal, Ajji stealthily moves through dark alleys and butcher shops, methodically devising her plan for revenge.

Devashish Makhija’s engaging thriller casts a harsh eye on institutional corruption, inequality and above all, violence against women. In the title role, Sushma Deshpande brilliantly captures Ajji’s use of her status as an overlooked, underestimated woman to her advantage. Expected in her elder years to be docile, helpless and obedient, Ajji’s transformation into a determined avenging angel is riveting to watch, and her brutal revenge combined with Makhija’s sharp social commentary cuts deep.

DARK WIND (Kadvi Hawa)
India/2017/99mins/DCP/Hindi
Los Angeles Premiere
Director: Nila Madhab Panda

Logline: The father of a struggling farmer clashes with his son’s vicious debt collector in this incisive portrait of climate change’s effects across India.

IFFLA regulars Sanjay Mishra (MASAAN, ANKHON DEKHI) and Ranvir Shorey (A DEATH IN THE GUNJ, TITLI) bring to life this sensitive yet pointed dramatization of climate change’s effects on a diverse cross-section of Indian society. In the Mahua region of Rajasthan, once known for flourishing farmlands, the ever-decreasing rainfall has left farmers without a crop to sell, and therefore with no money to repay their hefty bank loans. Hedu, the father of one such farmer, fears his son’s misfortune will lead him to drastic action. He pays a visit to a notorious debt collection officer, known as the “god of death” for his vicious tactics, looking to strike a bargain. But the agreement they reach might offer solutions for some, and total ruin for others.

Director Nila Madhab Panda masterfully constructs a thrilling story that – while it seeks to educate – plays more like great drama than as a didactic lecture. Through the engaging performances of his skilled cast, he makes tangible the desperation caused by an ever more unpredictable environment, and pays close attention to the deception and betrayal some must resort to in order to survive in such a harsh climate.

THE HUNGRY
UK, India/2017/100mins/DCP/Hindi
U.S. Theatrical Premiere
Director: Bornila Chatterjee

Logline: A wedding celebration between two powerful families erupts into deceit, revenge and murder in this update of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus.

In this all-star adaptation of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, the bard’s notoriously bloody tale of deceit and revenge is cleverly modernized by director Bornila Chatterjee and relocated to a sumptuous wedding celebration in Delhi. The approaching nuptials are meant to solidify a powerful union between the families of two business magnates – Tathagat (Naseeruddin Shah), the wealthy head of a corporate empire, will marry off his son to Tulsi (Tisca Chopra), the widow of his former partner. However, the sins of the father’s past have driven Tulsi to concoct a devious scheme for revenge, which threatens to set both families on an irreversible path to destruction.

Those familiar with Shakespeare’s play know that chaos is on the menu, and witnessing Chatterjee’s intricately designed re-telling unfold is a wicked delight. Though the film looks with both contempt and sympathy on its sprawling cast of characters, this is ultimately a biting, withering critique of a ruling class that’s long since abandoned any notions of selflessness or the greater good.