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| March 2005 Events |
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Screenings |
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| 3RD I SOUTH ASIAN INTERNATIONAL SHORTS 2005 An exciting, inspiring array of new South Asian films from India, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. TRT: 97mins Sunday, March 13, 6:45pm Kabuki 8 Theaters, 1881
Post Street, SF Purchase tickets or call 415.478.2277 or at Kabuki Theaters |
Co-presented with SF International Asian American Film Festival by NAATA.
THE BYPASS AMAL
ARRANGED MARRIAGE
—Curated by Ivan Jaigirdar & Camille Ramani of 3rd I SF (www.thirdi.org) _______________________________________________________________ Purchase
tickets or call 415.478.2277 or at Kabuki
Theaters SUN 3.13/3:45PM/PFA * WED 3/16/7:00PM/ KABUKI
San Francisco Premiere UK/Italy/Germany/Spain 2004 | 103mins | 35mm Color | English & Punjabi w/E.S. Ken Loach, the uncompromising British director of such socially conscious and politically committed films as CARLA’S SONG (1996) and LAND AND FREEDOM (1995), now tackles interracial romance with a clear eye and a loving heart. When handsome Pakistani Scottish accountant-turned-deejay Casim breaks up a school brawl involving his belligerent younger sister Tahara, he encounters Roisin, her beautiful—and white—music teacher. He falls headlong in love with this strong-willed woman, before remembering that he's already committed to another young girl, one due to arrive any moment from Pakistan. What follows is a complex, erotic drama that, while celebrating the love affair, never stoops to demonize the cultural and religious forces that threaten to tear it apart from both sides. Woven through the film, poet Robert Burns’ verse "Ae Fond Kiss" remains an ardent reminder of what the lovers stand to lose, and proves that such struggles have always been, and always will be. “When Catholics first came to Scotland 150 years ago they were seen as aliens with a loyalty to something foreign,” writes Loach. “And now we’re demonizing asylum seekers.” Loach also refuses to mock Casim’s family, who dreads an adored only son's marrying out of his community. “Families are families,” he notes. “The surface details change, but the emotional blackmail is the same. There are always sticking points, and there’s always rebellion.” —Frako Loden
FRI 3.11/9:30PM/CASTRO
San Francisco Premiere India 2004 | 195mins | 35mm Color | Hindi w/E.S. Director Ashutosh Gowariker made history with LAGAAN, the first commercial Indian film to be nominated for an Oscar award. Now, he joins forces with India’s reigning superstar—and NAATA favorite—Shah Rukh Khan (KAL HO NAA HO [SFIAAFF ’04]) to deliver “one of the most socially relevant commercial Hindi films to have emerged in the last decade” (Times of India). Khan is Mohan Bhargava, a successful NRI (non-resident Indian) scientist who works for NASA. Homesick and lonely, he impulsively heads back to India, hoping to reunite with the nanny who raised him. Tracing her to a remote village in Uttar Pradesh, Mohan finds a world more 19th century than 21st. Falling for the village’s spirited young teacher (Gayatri Joshi), Mohan joins her fight to build a new school, and devotes himself to bringing electricity to this isolated, caste-divided town. Torn between a well-polished future in NASA skies and a more soiled one on Indian earth, Mohan must soon decide whether the light he brings burns for a moment, or a lifetime. “Gowariker writes and directs skillfully, detailing the paradoxes of present-day India. At a time when Bollywood too often resorts to the formulaic, SWADES comes across as a breath of fresh, jasmine-scented air.” —Raghu Kulkarni, City Pages. “SWADES is a movie that will tug at the heartstrings of every
Indian, immigrant or not.” CONTINUOUS JOURNEY SAT 3.12/12:15PM/KABUKI * THUR 3.17/7:30PM/ KABUKI
US Premiere Canada 2004 | 87mins | Video Color/B&W | English & Punjabi w/E.S. In person: Director Ali Kazimi Multi-award-winning Canadian filmmaker Ali Kazimi follows up such brilliant work as PASSAGE FROM INDIA and NARMADA: A VILLAGE RISES with this stunning chronicling of a long-forgotten historical moment, one that forever changed the immigration policies of the British Empire. On May 23rd, 1914, the Japanese shipping vessel Komagata Maru, chartered by Sikh businessman Gurdit Singh, arrived in Canada's Vancouver Harbor. Aboard were 376 migrants of Indian origin, citizens of the British Empire who believed it their right to move and settle freely within its domain. Upon anchoring, however, the passengers were prevented from disembarking by local Canadian officials, whose decision reflected a growing nationwide resistance to non-white immigration. This refusal to allow the Indian passengers ashore galvanized the nascent Vancouver Indian community, fueling an outbreak of support for their countrymen trapped without provisions for over two months, aboard a ship anchored only a heartbreaking half-mile from shore. Combining newly discovered archival footage, newsreels, poignant personal testimonials, and dramatically worked digital photography, CONTINUOUS JOURNEY critically examines how today's global events are actuallyreflections of the past. The film was runner-up for the audience award at Toronto's HotDocs Film Festival (North America's largest documentary film showcase), and received a special Jury Prize for Best Direction there as well. —Prasant Nukalapati YASMIN SAT 3.12/7:15PM/KABUKI *MON 3.14/9:15PM/KABUKI
North American Premiere UK 2004 | 87mins | 35mm Color What might have been a standard-issue, EAST IS EAST-style “you will bring shame on the family” generation-clash comedy gets completely twisted around by 9/11 in this lively comedy, written by the author of THE FULL MONTY. When Yasmin (BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM’s Archie Panjabi) is at home in a drab North England mill town, she is a good Muslim girl, one who’s even married a goatherder from Pakistan to please her traditional father. When she hops into her smart new car and heads for work, however, she changes into western clothes, and flirts with her workmate (and potential boyfriend) John. Their lives are suddenly changed after the events of 9/11; as public paranoia and already simmering racism come to a boil, the sheltered Yasmin (“Who’s Osama?,” she even asks in a broad Yorkshire accent) suddenly catapults from Employee of the Month to Public Enemy of the Month. With armed police crawling around the house, Yasmin’s entire family find themselves caught in the crosshairs of a virulent Islam-phobia, and a rising tide of embittered militant Islam. “Yasmin breaks territory few have broached,” wrote Scotland’s Sunday Herald after its debut at the Edinburgh Film Festival, “and does it with a tight, funny script and an exuberance that belies the subject matter.” —Sandip Roy
PINK LUDOOS FRI 3.11/7:15PM/KABUKI * TUE 3.15/9:30PM/KABUKI |
