3rd i

Beyond Bollywood: 2000 Years of Dance in Art
2023-03-31 - 2023-07-10 | Asian Art Museum, Samsung Hall, 200 Larkin St, San Francisco, CA, United States
Beyond Bollywood: 2000 Years of Dance in Art
MAR 31, 2023 – JUL 10, 2023
Akiko Yamazaki and Jerry Yang Pavilion
Asian Art Museum
200 Larkin Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
A journey for the mind, body, and senses through two millennia of art inspired by dance from South and Southeast Asia and the Himalayas.
Dance is everywhere in the arts of the Indian cultural sphere: from the sacred dance of a god bringing the world into being to the elaborate choreography of modern Bollywood, every move has meaning. Through July 10, 2023, the Asian Art Museum presents Beyond Bollywood: 2000 Years of Dance in Art, inviting all to discover the power of dance in the visual arts of India, Southeast Asia, and the Himalayas, where dancing plays a significant role in religion, mythology, and ceremony.
Featuring more than 120 artworks borrowed from 20 of the finest museums and private collections, Beyond Bollywood immerses museumgoers in a multimedia showcase of dance, bringing a wide array of historic and contemporary sculpture, painting, textiles, jewelry, photographs, and more to vivid, passionate life. Through encounters with artworks from countries including India, Pakistan, Nepal, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, and Indonesia, Beyond Bollywood reveals the enduring capacity of dance to inspire a diverse range of artists and audiences alike. “We hope visitors will come away with a transformed notion of the importance and power of dance,” says co-curator Forrest McGill, “what it has meant in the past, and what it can mean in their own lives today.”
The exhibition’s design takes full advantage of the theatrical and technical capabilities of the museum’s new Akiko Yamazaki and Jerry Yang Pavilion, incorporating experiential elements from subtle musical backdrops to gallery-spanning video installations. Through live dance performances (taking place within the main pavilion itself) and other associated dance events and programs, viewers can experience the magic of dance in person.
Beyond Bollywood is organized by the Asian Art Museum and the Cincinatti Art Museum and co-curated by Wattis Senior Curator of South and Southeast Asian Art Forrest McGill and Ainsley M. Cameron, curator of South Asian Art, Islamic Art and Antiquities at the Cincinnati Art Museum. An exhibition catalog published by the Asian Art Museum includes essays by McGill, Cameron, Laura Weinstein, Padma Kaimal, and Esha Niyogi De.

Bhangra and Beats Night Market
2023-07-14 17:00 - 22:00, 2023-09-08 17:00 - 22:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Downtown SF, Battery St @ Clay, San Francisco, CA, 94126, United States
3rd i Co-Presents with Non Stop Bhangra & Into the Streets:
Bhangra and Beats Night Market
Time: 5-10pm | Free | All Ages
Free RSVP/Registration:
https://bhangraandbeats-may12th.eventbrite.com
Move to the beats of the Bay, taste delicious street food cuisines, sip cocktails, shop from unique local artisans, and celebrate San Francisco’s cultural renaissance — all while gazing at the moon rising above the stunning Downtown San Francisco skyline at Bhangra & Beats Night Market.
Taking place over three Fridays in 2023 from 5pm-10pm, this FREE event will transform 3 City blocks into a vibrant cultural destination for the delight of locals and visitors alike.

San Francisco International South Asian Film Festival 2023
2023-10-20 19:15 - 2023-10-22 20:00 | Roxie Theater, 3117 16th Street, San Francisco, CA, 94103, United States
Join us for 3rd i’s 21st Annual San Francisco International South Asian Film Festival, October 20-22 at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco, with special guests celebrating 21 years of community and diversity!
View the schedule of films here.

3rd i Co-presents "To Kill a Tiger"
2023-11-04 15:30 | Roxie Theater, 3117 16th Street, San Francisco, CA, 94103, United States
Q&A with director Nisha Pahuja, moderated by Sara Dosa (Academy-Award Nominee, FIRE OF LOVE).
Join us Saturday, November 4, at 3:30 PM for a special screening of the powerful award-winning documentary TO KILL A TIGER at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco!
In To Kill a Tiger, Ranjit, a farmer in Jharkhand, India, takes on the fight of his life when he demands justice for his 13-year-old daughter, the survivor of sexual assault. In India, where a rape is reported every 20 minutes and conviction rates are less than 30 percent, Ranjit’s decision to support his daughter is virtually unheard of, and his journey unprecedented.
Note: Content contains sexual violence that may be a trigger for sensitive viewers.

3rd i co-presents "Love, Simeon"
2024-03-10 15:30 | Root Division, 1131 Mission St, San Francisco, 94103, United States
LOVE, SIMEON
A new motion-picture performance
Written and directed by Anuj Larvaidya
March 10, 3:30pm
Closing weekend of CRIP’D ECOLOGIES exhibition
ROOT DIVISION
1131 Mission St
San Francisco
Love, Simeon is a motion-picture performance that conjures a portal to Simeon – a rhesus macaque in a primate testing facility. As an ecosexual living with HIV, my entry point into this dense knot centers the story of those simians who have been laboring to find a prevention/cure for this deadly virus. In cinematic dreams and séances, Simeon tells the story of SHIV – a chimeric construct created in a laboratory, so that a panacea might be found.
Event information and registration
More about Love, Simeon

3rd i Presents "The Seeds of Vandana Shiva"
2024-03-26 19:00 - 20:30 | Roxie Theater, 3117 16th Street, San Francisco, CA, 94103, United States
FREE FILM SCREENING – tickets for admission become available at The Roxie one hour before the 7pm screening.
Doors open at 6:30pm.
How did the willful daughter of a Himalayan forest conservator become Monsanto’s worst nightmare? The Seeds of Vandana Shiva tells the remarkable life story of Gandhian eco-activist Dr. Vandana Shiva, how she stood up to the corporate Goliaths of industrial agriculture, rose to prominence in the seed saving and organic food movements, and is inspiring an international crusade for change.
Among those engaged with organic food and farming, climate change, biodiversity, seed sovereignty, globalization, and social justice, Vandana Shiva is an icon of a global movement. But even among those who pride themselves on being well-informed, she’s relatively unknown. Few are aware of how this daughter of a Himalayan forest conservator rose from obscurity to become a world leader of Gandhian stature. Hers is the remarkable and unlikely story of a girl who trekked from highland cabin to cabin alongside her father, tended a garden alongside her mother, and passionately pursued an education that freed her from the caste and gender constraints of traditional Indian society that culminated in a degree in Nuclear Physics, and then a Ph.D. in the Philosophy of Quantum Theory. But those achievements were merely a prelude to her awakening as a fully-committed activist. Vandana Shiva brought her scientific expertise and Gandhian principles of nonviolent resistance to the struggles of Indian villagers whose livelihoods were being crushed by corporate capitalism. She has become a formidable opponent to those corporations whose drive for privatization and profit are destroying the environment and changing the climate. Their predations in the name of a ‘green revolution’ with its promises of wealth and freedom and ‘feeding the world’ through patented and chemically-dependent GMO seeds are reducing traditional farmers and entire communities to inescapable servitude. In India, the fruits of the Green Revolution have been an epidemic of rural suicides. The Seeds of Vandana Shiva focuses on the people, circumstances and seminal events in Vandana’s life—what shaped her thinking and defined her purpose. It also shows how the battle against multinational agribusiness has become an international struggle between two visions for feeding the world: The first, a multinational corporate model of chemically dependent monoculture that rewards a capitalist imperative of extraction for profit. And the other, Earth Democracy, that honors ecology, biodiversity, sustainability and community—what Dr. Shiva demonstrates is the only way forward for the future of food.

3rd i presents: I for India
2024-04-28 18:00 - 19:30 | 4 Star Theater, 2200 Clement St, San Francisco, CA, 94121, United States
Special introduction in person by Falu Bakrania!
Bakrania is a Professor of Race and Resistance Studies (RRS) in the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University and author of Bhangra and Asian Underground: South Asian Music and the Politics of Belonging in Britain.

I for India is a chronicle of immigration in Britain, from the Sixties to the present day, as seen through the eyes of one Asian family and their movie camera.
In 1965 Yash Pal Suri, a young doctor, left India for the U.K. with hopes of improving his family’s life. The first thing he did upon arriving in England was to buy two Super 8mm cameras, two projectors and two reel-to-reel tape recorders. He sent one of each to his family in India, and kept the others for himself.
Over the next forty years, through regular mailings of his filmed and taped thoughts and observations, he shared his new life abroad with family members back home, providing a unique record of the eccentricities-and occasional racism-of his new English hosts. Back in India, his relatives, in turn, responded with their own “cine-letters,” sending tales of weddings, festivals and village life, along with impassioned pleas for his return.
In addition to home movies, I for India, directed by one of Suri’s three daughters, uses archival and contemporary footage and excerpts from BBC TV programs (including The Dark Million, The Immigrant Doctors, and The End of the Line), which chart the changing national mood about immigration over the decades, from bemusement at the strange customs of the South Asian newcomers, to fears of British culture being “swamped,” to right-wing protests demanding the expulsion of “colored” immigrants.
By the end of the film, as Suri and his wife communicate today via webcam with a daughter who has relocated to Australia, I for India becomes not only a bittersweet time capsule of cultural alienation, discovery, racism and belonging, but also a contemporary exploration of universal, emotionally compelling themes of family separation and the quest for personal happiness, wherever it may take you.
“Sandhya Suri strikes humanist gold in her feature-filmmaking debut. The film manages to lyrically explore the meaning of filial responsibility with a lasting but unsentimental tenderness… one of the richest documentaries of the year.” —Aaron Hillis, The Village Voice
“Both deeply personal and surprisingly universal.” —Jeanette Catsoulis, The New York Times
“Intimate and rewarding…almost unbearably moving.” —Justin Chang, Variety
“A profound and profoundly moving film that any director could be proud of; as a debut, it’s formidably accomplished.” —Sight & Sound
“A miraculous mini-epic… terrifically warm, watchable filmmaking.” —The Guardian

3rd i Presents "Creature"
2024-06-05 18:30 - 20:00 | Roxie Theater, 3117 16th Street, San Francisco, CA, 94103, United States
FREE if you register in Eventbrite by June 4.

$10 at The Roxie box office on June 5.
Ticket link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/creature-tickets-891231235617

Co-presented by Chitresh Das Institute and San Francisco Dance Film Festival

In a dilapidated former Arctic research station, “Creature” is unknowingly enlisted by a fascistic military brigade into a program that subjects him to experimentation, harsh conditions, and isolation. He finds himself enamored with Marie, a cleaner, the only person to show him kindness and compassion; together they dream of escape from their dystopian environment.
Academy Award-winner Asif Kapadia (Senna, Amy, The Warrior) directs Creature, a genre-busting collaboration that fuses film and contemporary dance by acclaimed choreographer Akram Khan, produced by Uzma Hasan, and performed by the English National Ballet with music by Vincenzo Lamagna.
Asif Kapadia: “The creature (Jeffrey Cirio) and Marie (Erina Takahashi) want to be part of something, a society, but they’ll never be a part of it. They’ll be used, abused, screwed up and left by the people with power…Environment, global warming, religion, colonialism, xenophobia, Brexit, Trump. Outsiders searching for belonging. The enduring hope of human connection. It’s all those things, everything.”

“Intense…makes dance feel accessible and intimate” – Anna Smith, Deadline
Kapadia’s documentary sensibilities work astutely in this beautifully performed ensemble piece. A soulful and engaging feat in collaborative filmmaking. – Beth Web, Empire Online
The film feels so prescient, as though addressing the state of the world today: the abuse of power, the rise of the dictator and dictatorship, corruption, chaos, otherness. – Hynam Kendall, AnOther Magazine

Content consideration for sensitive viewers: Contemporary dance depiction of sexual harassment and assault. Flashing lights/images.

﻿

3rd i Shorts: Women Behind the Lens
2025-03-15 13:30 | Roxie Theater, 3117 16th Street, San Francisco, CA, 94103, United States
Filmmakers in person!
FREE – seating is limited. Tickets are available only at the Roxie box office, 30 minutes before the screening.
3rd i presents two films from local storytellers, filmmakers Kirthi Nath and Priyanka Suryaneni. Both of the films illuminate and explore the theme of “belonging” as they each chronicle the life of a visionary individual in their Buddhist spirituality, mindfulness and personal transformation.
Total running time: 85 min
PARAMITA, directed by Kirthi Nath (USA, 2024, 24 min)
Kirthi Nath’s short documentary blends poetry, memoir, and prayer to explore the transformative power of mindfulness, acceptance, and belonging. The film bears witness to Prajna Choudhury’s 25-year journey of coming out to her traditional Bangladeshi mother. Told with intimacy, tenderness, and quiet power, PARAMITA invites viewers into a meditative spiritual experience, as Prajna connects with Buddhist practices and nature as pathways to intergenerational healing and reconciliation.
SARANAM GACCHAMI (I Take Refuge), directed by Priyanka Suryaneni (USA, 2023, 19 min)
Priyanka Suryaneni’s short documentary is a story of cultural preservation that unfolds through the life of visionary Tibetan monk Thupten Dony—a refugee driven by a dream. Born in the foothills of Mt. Everest in Nepal, he traveled to California with only his ideas. He established the Bay Area’s largest Tibetan Monastery to safeguard their endangered heritage, an invaluable sanctuary for Tibetan culture and community in diaspora. He wears many hats at the monastery—prayer leader, spiritual guide, gardener, and party planner! Now, nearing retirement, he hopes to find a worthy successor to carry forward the Monastery’s legacy.
About the filmmakers
Kirthi Nath, a South Asian lesbian filmmaker, creates work spanning cultural poetics, social justice, and spirituality. Her films have been featured at CAAMfest, Frameline, Wicked Queer, Mill Valley Film Festival, 3rd i and more, with solo shows at YBCA and ATA. Awarded grants from CAAM, CCI and V-Day, she’s also participated in RePresent Media’s Fellowship, A-Doc Allies, BGDM Mastermind and Bitchitra Collective curated programs. https://www.paramitafilm.com/
Priyanka Suryaneni, a Bay Area-based media entrepreneur, documentarian, and visual storyteller from India, passionately brings attention to significant stories and amplifies underrepresented voices. Her recent inclusion in the BAVC Connect Mentee program, as well as the For Us By Us Film Incubator program (supported by Filmmakers Collaborative and Re-present Media), underscores her unwavering commitment to her craft and pursuit of powerful storytelling. https://prisuryaneni.com/

7 Days
2025-05-04 15:45 | Roxie Theater, 3117 16th Street, San Francisco, CA, 94103, United States
Total running time: 90 min

Tickets: $10.38 online advance tickets; $10 at the Roxie box office, 30 minutes before the show.

Buy advance tickets

Witty, charming and delightful, 7 Days, directed by Roshan Sethi (A Nice Indian Boy, 2024), is a feel-good romantic comedy. Set up on a pre-arranged date by their parents, Indian-Americans Ravi (Karan Soni) and Rita (Geraldine Viswanathan) seemingly have nothing in common. Pleasant as they are in person, they don’t exactly connect. It turns out that neither one is what their parents made them out to be. The situation turns both awkward and enlightening when they find themselves trapped inside together for a week after their first date.
The natural chemistry of the captivating leads and the culturally specific spin on romantic comedy’s familiar tropes provide a fresh and winning take on the rom-com genre.
“Optimistic and full of heart, director/co-writer Roshan Sethi’s debut…will leave you on a feel-good high.” — The Tribeca Film Festival

﻿﻿

Open Screening
2025-06-05 20:00 | Artists’ Television Access, 992 Valencia Street, San Francisco, CA, 94110, United States
FREE!
No advance ticketing required.
Doors open at 7:30 pm.
Open Screening is a forum for independent filmmakers to show their work. ATA’s free community film/video show welcomes short format work (15 min or less) from all genres.
Entries must be received by 7:00 pm on show night, cued and labeled, to be considered. Space is limited!
Submissions: To submit a digital file, email openscreening@atasite.org with the title “Open screening”. For physical media, label all tapes with name, contact info, title, and length, and mail to: Open Screening, 992 Valencia St, San Francisco, CA 94110. 1–2 weeks advance submissions recommended. If not, just walk in before the show.
Maximum length: 15 min.
Formats: Digital file (PC or Mac), DVD, miniDV/DV-cam, VHS, beta, 8 mm, and 16 mm.
For 8 mm and 16 mm films, please give ATA advance notice: openscreening@atasite.org.

Burqa Boxers
2025-06-28 14:00 | Artists’ Television Access, 992 Valencia Street, San Francisco, CA, 94110, United States
Filmmaker in person!
FREE – seating is limited.
Register for free tickets
In this documentary in Kolkata, India, where marriage is considered the ultimate feminine career fulfillment, four young Muslim women challenge stereotypes by learning to box with one of India’s first female boxing coaches. As they train, the women negotiate poverty, battle tradition and learn to confront fear.
The screening is free, but please support New Light, a nonprofit in Kolkata, India, featured in the documentary, dedicated to providing a safe haven for the children of sex workers. Your donations will help them continue their comprehensive community services. https://www.paypal.com/us/fundraiser/charity/2817738
Alka Raghuram, director of Burqa Boxers, is an award-winning filmmaker and a multidisciplinary artist. She has made several fiction, experimental, and documentary films. She was awarded the L’Oreal Woman of Worth Filmmaker Award for her script The Conqueror at Tribeca All Access. Her script Ayna was a finalist at the Sundance Screenwriters Lab. Alka frequently collaborates with other artists to create narrative performances and installations. Some of her collaborations include “Yatra” with Kathak and Flamenco dancers Pandit Chitresh Das and Antonio Hidalgo Paz; “Agni” with choreographer Charlotte Moraga and musician Alam Khan, and a photo, video and art installation Inspired by Burqa Boxers at the Locarno Film Festival. She recently received Creative Work Fund for a multimedia project called “Invoking The River” about the river Yamuna’s mythological significance and its environmental degradation in collaboration with Chitresh Das Institute of dance.
WINNER – Locarno Film Festival, co-production market top prize: Grant Open Doors
WINNER – Westlake International Documentary Festival, IDF Forum: Director of the Year

INTRO TO NONFICTION STORYTELLING WITH ALKA RAGHURAM
2026-03-29 14:00 | Artists’ Television Access, 992 Valencia Street, San Francisco, CA, 94110, United States
FREE – seating is limited.
Register here
Have a Story You Can’t Wait to Tell?
The “Intro to Nonfiction Storytelling” class is a free, 2-hour introduction to shaping real life into a cinematic narrative. This workshop will help storytellers develop tools to transform personal experience or a topic they are passionate about into a story with structure. Participants will gain a sharpened story concept.
Ready for the next steps beyond “Intro To Nonfiction Storytelling”?
Check out Alka’s 4-Week Documentary Writing Intensive, an in-person development lab designed to help you transform raw material into narrative clarity. Over four focused weeks, you will move from idea to articulation — shaping a documentary concept with structure, voice, stakes, and ethical intention.
Sundays, April 12 – May 3, 2026
2-4pm
Artists’ Television Access, San Francisco
More info and class registration: https://www.junoon.pictures/junoonlabs
Alka Raghuram is an award-winning filmmaker and a multidisciplinary artist. She has made several fiction, experimental, and documentary films. She was awarded the L’Oreal Woman of Worth Filmmaker Award for her script The Conqueror at Tribeca All Access. Her script Ayna was a finalist at the Sundance Screenwriters Lab. Alka frequently collaborates with other artists to create narrative performances and installations. Some of her collaborations include “Yatra” with Kathak and Flamenco dancers Pandit Chitresh Das and Antonio Hidalgo Paz; “Agni” with choreographer Charlotte Moraga and musician Alam Khan, and a photo, video and art installation Inspired by Burqa Boxers at the Locarno Film Festival. She recently received Creative Work Fund for a multimedia project called “Invoking The River” about the river Yamuna’s mythological significance and its environmental degradation, in collaboration with Chitresh Das Institute of dance.
WINNER – Locarno Film Festival, co-production market top prize: Grant Open Doors
WINNER – Westlake International Documentary Festival, IDF Forum: Director of the Year
