3rd I South Asian Independent Film

Salma
Directed by Kim Longinotto

Veteran British documentarian Kim Longinotto’s latest work is the remarkable story of Salma, a South Indian Muslim woman who endured a 25-year imprisonment and forced marriage by her own family and in-laws before embarking on a political career and national renown as the most famous female poet in the Tamil language. (England/India, 2013, 90 min)

When/Where

Thursday, May 2, 6:15 PM - Sundance Kabuki Cinemas
Saturday, May 4, 2:00 PM - Pacific Film Archive
Sunday, May 5, 3:45 PM - New People Cinema

For more information, visit the SFIFF website.

 

The Last Step
Directed by Ali Mosaffa

A Tehran engineer who’s mysteriously died, his actress wife (Leila Hatami of A Separation) and their physician friend form an ambiguous triangle in actor/director/writer Ali Mosaffa’s fascinating Iranian feature. It’s an enigmatic drama in which time and truth are slippery beasts whose gamesmanship nonetheless never lacks for emotional connection. (Iran 2012, 88 min) New Directors Prize Contender

When/Where

Saturday, May 4, 7:00 PM – New People Cinema
Wednesday, May 8, 6:15 PM – New People Cinema
Thursday, May 9, 1:00 PM – New People Cinema

For more information, visit the SFIFF website.

3rd i Films is pleased to be a community partner for the Global Film Initiative and SFFS presentation of
Ashim Ahluwalia’s Miss Lovely

When: February 28, 7 pm
Where: New People Cinema
Tickets: $5  (with discount code: 3RDMEM)

Running Time: 110mins
Language: Hindi with English subtitles

Followed by an in-depth Q&A with the filmmaker, moderated by 3rd i’s Ivan Jaigirdar

Delving deep into the underbelly of India’s film industry, where back-alley producers churn out everything from pulpy horror movies to soft-core porn, Miss Lovely takes us back to Mumbai of the 1980s with lurid detail and intoxicating style. Working out of sleazy hotels and abandoned warehouses, brothers Sonu (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) and Vicky (Anil George) are prolific producers of trashy, C-grade films for Mumbai’s booming underground market. But this precarious partnership is put to the test when the brothers meet Pinky (Niharika Singh), an exquisite ingenue with a shady past.

For more information on the program and to purchase tickets, please visit the listing on the SFFS website.

3rd i Films is pleased to copresent
Center for South Asia Studies‘ (UC Berkeley) presentation of
The Mahabharata: A Re-Telling of an Indian Epic Poem by Jean-Claude Carriére

When: March 16, 5-8pm
Where: Chevron Auditorium, International House, UC Berkeley
Tickets: See link below for ticket information

Renowned French playwright, screenwriter, author, actor and raconteur par excellence Jean-Claude Carrière spent eleven years in India, tracing the Mahabaharata’s roots in civilization, geography and its relevance in modern India. His nine-hour magnum opus, The Mahabharata, opened in 1985 under the stellar direction of his lifetime collaborator Peter Brook and an international cast, and quickly became a watershed moment in theatrical history across the Western world. Jean-Claude Carriére gives Bay Area audiences a simple but powerful one-man rendition of the story of Mahabharata, in the style of the old wandering minstrels of India.

For more information on the program and for tickets, please visit: http://southasia.berkeley.edu/events/JCC.pdf

3rd i is pleased to co-present, with the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM), three films at CAAMFest in San Francisco, an 11-day celebration of film, music, food and digital media from the world’s most innovative Asian and Asian American artists.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist: Mira Nair’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist chronicles the life of a Pakistani man altered by 9/11. From New York City in 2001 to Lahore ten years later, Changez (Riz Ahmed) loses his grip on the American Dream and ends up disillusioned with the country he used to love.

March 17, 2013
12:00 pm
Castro Theatre, San Francisco

 

Reluctant Fundamentalist Panel

March 23, 2013
4:00 pm.
Union Bank Community Room, San Francisco

 

Midnight’s Children: Auteur Deepa Mehta (Water, SFIAAFF ’06) returns to the festival with her much-anticipated collaboration with writer Salman Rushdie, an adaptation of his award-winning novel Midnight’s Children. Born at the exact moment of India’s independence, Saleem leads “midnight’s children,” those born in India’s first hour, all with magical powers.

March 17, 2013
6:00 pm
Castro Theatre, San Francisco

 

Dosa Hunt: What happens when you put pianist Vijay Iyer, music critic Amrit Singh, and members of Das Racist, Vampire Weekend, Yea-sayer and Neon Indian into an Indian disco van to track down NYC’s best dosa? Plenty of Bobby Jindal jokes, heartfelt extolling of the virtues of coconut-hair oil, and even more in this journey deep into the heart of that virtuous South Asian crepe.

March 21, 2013
6:00 pm
Asian Art Museum of San Francisco

 

For more information about these films or CAAMFest, check out the website. Details on all the films are under the Festival Guide tab.