3rd i

3rd i is honored to co-present at Frameline37
2013-06-21 21:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Roxie Theater, 94103
3rd i is honored to co-present CHUPPAN CHUPAI / I AM GAY AND MUSLIM at Frameline37, the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival.
When: Friday, June 21, 9:30 PM
Where: Roxie Theater, San Francisco
3117 16th Street, San Francisco, CA
Chuppan Chupai director Saad Khan in person.

These two docs— one set in Pakistan and the other in Morocco — challenge viewer preconceptions about being both Muslim and gay.
I AM GAY AND MUSLIM
“My sexuality doesn’t harm my religion. I am Muslim and my sexuality keeps me Muslim.” With these words, one of the subjects of I Am Gay and Muslim gives lie to the idea that being gay and being Muslim are antithetical to each other. Director Chris Belloni follows several young men in Morocco, all of whom try to reconcile their multiple identities as gay, as Muslim, and as Moroccan. Though homosexuality is illegal in Morocco there is still space for gay men to live and love one another, and some, like 21 year-old Rayan, do so openly. His and the other stories on display in this beautiful portrait of Moroccan gay culture explode the myths about what it means to be gay and to live in the Muslim world.
— MORDECAI STAYTON
Preceded by CHUPPAN CHUPAI
Chuppan Chupai (Hide and Seek) follows the lives of four LGBT Pakistanis: activist Neeli, flighty but “famous” Kami, shy Waseem, and Jenny, a transgender woman who struggles with her transition. All live under the specter of Pakistan’s sharia laws forbidding homosexuality. Throughout the film, their lives in the urban centers of Lahore and Rawalpindi are shown to be alternately joyous and painful— symptomatic of life around the world.
More info and tickets

3rd i is pleased to support the SF Ethnic Dance Festival
2013-06-15 20:00 | Lam Research Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA, 94103, United States
When: Saturday, June 15th, 8pm
Where: Lam Research Theater
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco

3rd i presents "Bollywood Divas"
2013-06-08 19:00 | Artists’ Television Access, 992 Valencia Street, San Francisco, CA, 94110, United States
Bollywood Divas: Queering Desi Cinema
by Kareem Khubchandani and Anuj Vaidya

When: June 8 (Saturday), 7pm
Where: ATA, San Francisco
Cost: $10 online; $12 at the door
(online ticket sales at: bollywooddivas.brownpapertickets.com)
An evening of satire, comedy and drop-down drag Bollywood ‘ishtyle’!!
In Khubchandani’s LESSONS IN DRAG, Professor Lahore Vagistan, a drag queen attempting to make it from the Chicago Stage to the Bollywood Screen, educates her classroom about the day’s topic, Fillum. By combining ethnographic interviews, works of fiction by queer South Asian novelists, comedic drag sequences inspired by Bollywood, and improvised audience interaction, Kareem stages the many ways in which film becomes a tool of survival for marginal subjects.
Vaidya’s BAD GIRL WITH A HEART OF GOLD finds the artist in conversation with his own film of the same name. The performance explores the genealogy of the vamp in Bollywood — from her origins in the Jewish stars of early Indian cinema and culminating in the iconic roles of the anglo-Indian actress Helen in the 60s and 70s. The performance weaves many of Helen’s signature roles together to pose the question: Can Helen escape her perpetual death by Bollywood?
Presented in collaboration with the APICC’s United States of Asian America Festival and QCC’s National Queer Arts Festival
This program was supported by:

3rd i Films co-presents at the SF Green Film Festival
2013-06-01 18:30 | CA
Powerless
Fahad Mustafa and Deepti Kakkar, India, 2013
English and Hindi with English subtitles.
Sneak Preview.
When: Saturday, June 1, 6:30 pm
Where: New People Cinema, Japantown, SF
Would you risk your life to flip a switch? In Kanpur, India, putting oneself in harm’s way to deliver electrical power is all too common, especially for Loha Singh. He earns his living by giving electricity to those who can’t afford it, splicing lines from paying utility customers. While an admirable feat against the Goliath power company that charges well beyond reasonable fees to the people of Kanpur, Loha’s actions perpetuate the problems of the city by lessening the power supply — an amount that is distributed based on the number of paying customers. The situation intensifies for both parties and feeds into a vicious cycle of supply and demand. Somewhere in the middle of this battle is Ritu Maheshwari, the power company’s woman-in-charge, caught between two sides that do not share her understanding that change comes slowly and in increments. Powerless sheds light on the opposing corners of this political ring, from Singh’s electrical Robin Hood, tapping wires for neighbors, to the myopic utility company whose failure to understand economics forces it deeper into financial disarray. This vibrant exposé gives a whole new meaning to the words “power struggle.”
For more information on the programs and to purchase tickets, please visit the SF Green Film Festival website.

3rd i co-presents "The Island President" at the EPA
2013-05-21 11:30 - 13:00 | EPA, Arizona-California Room, CA, United States
As part of The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency Region 9) Asian American/Pacific Islander Heritage employment program, 3rd i co-presents The Island President at the EPA. May 21, 2013.

3rd i co-presents at AHSC Cinema Showcase
2013-05-18 14:00 - 16:00 | Asian Art Museum, Samsung Hall, 200 Larkin St, San Francisco, CA, United States
3rd i co-presents with CAAM at the 3rd Annual Asian Heritage Street Celebration (AHSC) Cinema Showcase.
3rd Annual Asian Heritage Street Celebration (AHSC) Cinema Showcase

Date: Saturday, May 18th, 2013
Time: 2 pm to 4 pm
Location: Asian Art Museum, Samsung Hall, 200 Larkin Street
Admission to the museum will be free all day and there is no additional cost to watch the films! Click here for the full schedule of films.

3rd i presents "From Mutiny to Bengali Harlem: Stories of the Diaspora"
2013-05-17 19:30 | New People Cinema, 1746 Post Street, San Francisco, CA, 94115, United States
(aka “Vivek Bald’s Films and Stories”)
Vivek Bald, writer, filmmaker, and MIT professor, reads from his new book Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America and presents clips from his work-in-progress, the film In Search of Bengali Harlem, and an excerpt from his rarely seen 2003 documentary Mutiny: Asians Storm British Music, about South Asian youth, music, and anti-racist activism in 1970s-90s Britain.
Vivek Bald in person
San Francisco event
When: Friday, May 17, 7:30 pm
Where: New People Cinema, Japantown
1746 Post St., San Francisco, CA 94115
Cost: $12
Buy tickets online!
The program lasts for 1.5 hours.
More details below.

Mutiny: Asians Storm British Music (dir. Vivek Bald, 2003)
Combining music documentary and social documentary, Mutiny: Asians Storm British Music charts the meteoric rise of South Asian electronic music in 1990s Britain, focusing particularly on the decades of cultural cross-pollination and political struggle that led up to that pivotal decade. Shot independently on digital video between 1996 and 2002, Mutiny features Asian Dub Foundation, Talvin Singh, Fun^Da^Mental, Anjali, State of Bengal, and many others, documenting a crucial moment in the cultural and political coming-of-age of Asian Britain.
“Concert footage, TV clips, interviews and more are briskly interwoven into an energetic documentary.” –Variety
“Great fun – a journey through some of the most historic moments of the diasporic musical movement.”
–Gurinder Chadha, Bend It Like Beckham
Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America
(Harvard University Press, 2013)

In the final years of the nineteenth century, small groups of Muslim peddlers arrived at Ellis Island every summer, bags heavy with embroidered silks from their home villages in Bengal. The American demand for “Oriental goods” took these migrants on a curious path, from New Jersey’s beach boardwalks into the heart of the segregated South. Two decades later, hundreds of Indian Muslim seamen began jumping ship in New York and Baltimore, escaping the engine rooms of British steamers to find less brutal work onshore. As factory owners sought their labor and anti-Asian immigration laws closed in around them, these men built clandestine networks that stretched from the northeastern waterfront across the industrial Midwest.
The stories of these early working-class migrants vividly contrast with our typical understanding of immigration. At a time when Asian immigrants were vilified and criminalized, Bengali Muslims quietly became part of some of America’s most iconic neighborhoods of color, from Tremé in New Orleans to Black Bottom, Detroit, from West Baltimore to Harlem.

3rd i co-presents at SFIFF
2013-05-02 - 2013-05-09 | Various
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

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 present Art for Partition
2013-04-06 11:30 - 18:00 | UC Berkeley Skydeck, 2150 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley, CA, United States
A FREE event – April 6, 2013
Presented by 1947 Archive
Discover untold stories of South Asia’s 1947 Partition. Engage through lectures, discussions, music, poetry and art. Support the preservation of first-hand accounts by bidding on donated art works or attending the benefit luncheon.
When:
11:30 am – Benefit Luncheon | Buy tickets
2:00 pm – FREE Event – Understanding Partition | Reserve Free tickets
4:00 pm – FREE Film Screening – Earth 1947 | Limited Seating – Reserve Now!
Where: UC Berkeley Skydeck | 2150 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley, CA
Enjoy stunning 360-degree bay views from the penthouse ballroom.
View the art gallery online! | Browse and bid now | Ends April 6 @ 6:30 pm
Further info here.

3rd i Films & AIF co-present an evening of Films and discussion on Education in India
2013-04-04 19:00 | Artists’ Television Access, 992 Valencia Street, San Francisco, CA, 94110, United States
AIF (American India Foundation) in association with 3rd i Films presents two short films followed by discussion.
Films: Lucky, directed by Avie Luthra and Kunjo, directed by Terrie Samundra (more info below).
When: Thursday, April 4th, 7pm – 8:30pm
Where: ATA, 992 Valencia Street, San Francisco, CA 94110
Tickets: Available on the night of the event, at the door.
Lucky
Directed by Avie Luthra, 20 min (UK/South Africa)
Lucky is an AIDS orphan desperate to leave his rural Zulu village in South Africa for the bright lights of Durban, and also to get an education there. He is full of excitement and hope but Lucky has to learn about life the hard way, not through school or education but through an unlikely bond with a prejudiced Indian elderly women.
*Lucky has won 43 international film festival awards and was shortlisted for an Oscar.
Kunjo
Directed by Terrie Samundra, 25 min (US/India)

Forced to work to support her family, Kunjo, a 12-year-old refugee, spends her days begging on the streets. When an unlikely friendship blossoms with Preeta, an educated school girl from a higher caste, Kunjo reveals her secret passion for storytelling. Faced with betrayal and the complexity of an unconventional friendship, will Kunjo stand up for herself or submit to her place in society?
*Winner, Best Narrative Short, Athens International Film Festival.

3rd i co-presents films at CAAMFest 2013
2013-03-17 - 2013-03-23 | Various
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.

3rd i co-presents CSAS' presentation of "The Mahabharata"
2013-03-16 17:00 | Chevron Auditorium, International House, UC Berkeley, Berkeley
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

Special Screening: Ashim Ahluwalia's "Miss Lovely"
2013-02-28 19:00 | New People Cinema, 1746 Post Street, San Francisco, CA, 94115, United States
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.

Big in Bollywood
2012-09-30 15:30 | Camera 12, 201 S 2nd Street, San Jose, CA, United States
Watch Trailer
Funny and irreverent, Big in Bollywood documents Omi Vaidya’s ascendency from an aspiring Indian American actor in Hollywood to a megastar in far away Bollywood. When 27-year-old American-born Omi, a struggling actor in L.A. miraculously lands a dream role in the Bollywood ﬁlm 3 Idiots (2010), his curious friends, armed with cameras, ﬂy to Mumbai to film and document his big premiere and better understand the world of Bollywood. Within a week of release, 3 Idiots skyrockets to the top of the box office, becoming the most successful Indian ﬁlm of all time. From relative obscurity to the heights of Bollywood stardom, Omi finds himself in the company of Bollywood stalwarts like Aamir Khan. While Omi deals with the challenges of new found fame and struggles with cultural competency in the strange, new world that is Bollywood — between language classes, calls to his wife back in the United States, a press tour that routinely gathers tens of thousands of people — he cheerfully greets strangers on the street who know him only as the “fourth idiot.”

Azhagarsamy’s Horse
2012-09-30 13:00 - 15:00 | Camera 12, 201 S 2nd Street, San Jose, CA, United States
This family-friendly Tamil film mixes comedy, romance, melodrama and musical montage sequences to serve up a gentle satire of rural traditions and superstitions. The small village of Mallayapuram is frantic when they realize the holy wooden statue of god Azhagarsamy’s horse is missing from the local temple. When a real horse turns up soon after, people are convinced it is the wooden horse come to life bringing luck to the drought-stricken village. However when a man named (coincidentally?) Azhagarsamy arrives claiming the horse is his, the entire village turns topsy-turvy in this delightful comic romp. Set in the lush landscapes of the Theni Hills in Tamil Nadu, Azhagarsamy’s Horse features a lively soundtrack that integrate folk forms with Western beats by composer Illayaraj, and a standout performance by the unconventional leading man Appukkutty. An audience favorite at the Toronto and Chicago Film Festivals!
PLEASE NOTE: We are sorry to inform you that the 35mm print of this film being screened at Camera12 DOES NOT HAVE English subtitles. We will provide a detailed printed plot summary for non-Tamil speakers.

Valley of Saints
2012-09-23 18:30 | Roxie Theater, 94103
Watch Trailer
Lyrical romance and lush cinematography intermingle in this neorealist feature debut that was a major award winner at the Sundance Film Festival. The breathtaking Dal Lake in Kashmir is a sprawling aquatic community where erupting political violence often distracts from natural beauty. Gulzar, a young, working-class boatman, navigates the floating landscape and dreams of a better life. When he takes on a job assisting a Kashmiri-American scientist to collect water samples for her environmental study, everything in his own life begins to take on a new hue. Syeed intricately weaves together contemporary ecological issues with traditional culture, and deftly captures the unlikely romance that blossoms between the boatman and the scientist. The standout soundtrack for the film features music by Kashmiri-American band Zerobridge.

Adda: Calcutta/Kolkata
2012-09-23 16:45 | Roxie Theater, 3117 16th Street, San Francisco, CA, 94103, United States
Adda is one of those Bengali words that is so difficult to translate into English. A gossip session, an intellectual discussion, a never-ending conversation all rolled into one, adda is the quintessential Bengali pastime. Following a number of ongoing addas at street corners, cafes, markets and living rooms, this documentary by Surjo Deb and Ranjan Palit is a free-flowing, intimate portrait of a city and its people in a time of transition: as malls and high-rises replace the old architecture of the skyline, youngsters move out of the city looking for better opportunities, the traffic gets worse and the city’s name changes from Calcutta to Kolkata. Co-director Ranjan Palit is a National Award-winning filmmaker, whose film In Camera was showcased at 3rd i’s SFISAFF 2010.

Okul Nodi (Endless River) + I am Micro
2012-09-23 16:30 | Roxie Theater, 94103
For lovers of that disappearing medium we call celluloid (or film), we bring two docs that can only be described as visual poetry. Okul Nodi (Tuni Chatterji, Co-directed by Clay Dean, 2012, Bangladesh, 52mins, Bengali with English subtitles) examines the origins of Bhatiyali, the river music of Bangladesh. Soulful and nostalgic, Bhatiyali songs often rest on dual meanings wherein boats become bodies and lovers are also lost gods. Chatterji uses innovative sound editing and lingers on the materiality of the 16mm film to create a contemplative dialogue between music, landscape and the ephemeral quality of cinema.
Shot on exquisite 35mm, I am Micro (Shumona Goel/Shai Heredia, 2011, India, 14mins, English and Hindi with English subtitles) combines imagery from an optical factory and behind-the-scenes footage from a film production (Miss Lovely) against the memories of an experimental filmmaker (Kamal Swaroop) to deliver an ode to independent cinema.

Family Album
2012-09-23 15:00 | Roxie Theater, 94103
Family Album is a powerful meditation on the tangled relationship between memory, history, and the photograph, and is a companion piece to Jain’s earlier City of Photos, an exploration of the little-known world of neighborhood photo studios which was an audience favorite at 3rd i’s SFISAFF 2006. Jain interviews members from some of Calcutta’s oldest families as they page through family albums and portraits in their ancestral homes. Jain elicits some astonishing stories – a wife whose husband photographed her in men’s clothing, a romantic portrait of a man and his dead wife, images of women studying, dressing-up, playing music – as they negotiate the lines between freedom and enclosure. Family Album is ultimately an evocative, rewarding film that showcases Jain’s innovative use of storytelling in documentary as a way to capture the imagination. Jain’s films have been shown extensively in Europe and in India, and her documentary Lakshmi and Me (3rd i’s SFISAFF 2009) was featured on PBS’ Independent Lens Film series.

Herman’s House
2012-09-23 13:45 | Roxie Theater, 94103
Watch Trailer
The injustice of solitary confinement and the transformative power of art are explored in Herman’s House, a must-see documentary that was an official selection of the Sundance Institute and the prestigious HotDocs festival. Former Black Panther Herman Wallace was languishing in solitary confinement when he received a letter from a young artist/activist, Jackie Sumell, posing a provocative question: “What kind of house does a man who has lived in a six-foot-by-nine-foot cell for over 30 years dream of?” Bhalla documents the process and the final art project that results from this initial letter: a striking installation that brings thousands of gallery visitors face to face with the injustices of the American prison system. Another terrific example of South Asian directors coming into the mainstream with stories about the universal human experience.
Panel discussion following film with:
Angad Bhalla, Filmmaker
Raphael Sperry, former president of Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility (ADPSR) an organization involved in creating awareness about the moral issues surrounding prison design
Laura Magnani of the American Friends Service Committee, involved in advocating prison reform among other peace building initiatives
Richard Kamler, Artist (The Waiting Room and Table of Voices, large installations that deal with prisons) and a former artist-in-residence at San Quentin Prison

Jagte Raho (Stay Awake)
2012-09-23 12:15 | Roxie Theater, 3117 16th Street, San Francisco, CA, 94103, United States
Classic
Something of a departure for Kapoor, Jagte Raho is a joint Bengali-Hindi film with expressionist touches meant to provide a comic yet critical survey of middle class life in India’s cities. Kapoor plays a familiar role: a poor wanderer from the country, he enters an apartment building in search of a drink of water. Taken as a thief by the inhabitants, he flees from flat to flat, encountering a cross-section of the building’s inhabitants. Kapoor produced this film for collaborators he had met through his father’s work in the theater and the leftist Indian Peoples’ Theatre Association. Co-director Sombhu Mitra was one of the giants of 20th-century Bengali theater, while scenarist K.A. Abbas – who also worked on Awaara – was a prominent writer, critic and director and a major founder of India’s “parallel” cinema. The outstanding songs were composed by Salil Choudary and feature Shailendra’s poetry.
– Harvard Film Archive

Sikh I Am: Voices on Identity
2012-09-23 12:00 | Roxie Theater, 94103
Three American-Sikhs assert and articulate their identity from a male perspective in this program of short docs.
Christina Antonakos-Wallace’s Article of Faith (2011, USA, 10 mins, in English) is a portrait of NY-based activist Sonny Singh, as he inspires New York City Sikh-youth to stand up for themselves and combat harassment in their schools. This segment is part of a larger documentary, with WINGS and ROOTS, that is currently in production.
Sikligar (2012, India, 23 mins, in Punjabi and Marvi with English subtitles) is a documentary by Mandeep Sethi about the hidden story of the Sikligar Sikhs, the black-ironsmiths and weapons makers of the Khalsa Army of the Sikhs.
Harjant Gill’s Roots of Love (2011, India, 26mins, in English and Punjabi with English subtitles) examines the changing significance of the turban among Sikhs in India, where the choice of cutting one’s hair is one that not only concerns the individual and his family, but an entire community.
Followed by a discussion moderated by Simran Kaur (from the The Sikh Coalition).
pictured above: Sonny Singh in Article of Faith

Cocktail
2012-09-22 21:30 - 2012-09-23 00:00 | Castro Theatre, 429 Castro Street, San Francisco, CA, 94114, United States
Bollywood at the Castro
Watch trailer.
A great cocktail needs the right mix – and this one only delivers but packs a punch, and a twist! Homi Adjania takes the classic masala love triangle – complete with song and dance and high camp – and gives it a modern flavor (did someone say threesome?) in this recent blockbuster from Bollywood. Imtiaz Ali’s (director of Jab We Met and Rockstar) script keeps it fresh and tangy, and Anil Mehta’s camerawork gives it style and flair. Saif Ali Khan (Omkara, Dil Chahtha Hai) and Deepika Padukone (Om Shanti Om) look their sexiest selves, Bollywood newcomer Diana Penty shines, and Dimple Kapadia and Boman Irani deliver excellent performances as Gautam’s doting parents.

3rd i’s Castro Reception with the Filmmakers
2012-09-22 20:00 - 21:15 | Castro Theatre, 429 Castro Street, San Francisco, CA, 94114, United States
Advance tickets are $20/ticket (plus minimal processing fee).
At- the-door tickets are $20 and can be purchased at the Castro Box Office.
All passes INCLUDE entry to the reception. Purchase Passes Here.
Meet all our festival guests up close and personal!
Enjoy food and drinks, get you photos with our celebrity guests, and let the DJ get your feet wet for our Bollywood at the Castro screening.
Special guests at this year’s festival include: journalists and filmmakers, Jon Shenk and Gotham Chopra; Bengali filmmakers, Surjo Deb (Calcutta) and Amit Ashraf (Dhaka); American filmmakers Tuni Chatterjee (from LA), and Angad Bhalla (from NY); and a kaleidoscope of Bay Area talent including musicians/filmmakers Mandeep Sethi, Biz Kulfi and Single Beige Female.
The reception will also host the PopUp Production Showcase which will showcase stills from a selection of films by Bay Area filmmakers that are currently in production.
See highlights from past receptions at 3rd i’s SFISAFF.

Decoding Deepak
2012-09-22 18:45 | Castro Theatre, 429 Castro Street, San Francisco, CA, 94114, United States
Watch Trailer
An audience favorite at the SXSW Film Festival, this intriguing portrait of Deepak Chopra has a raw honesty to it that only a son can bring. Filmmaker and journalist Gotham Chopra embarks on a year long road trip with his father in an attempt to resolve the spiritual icon from the family man. The journey takes him across the planet chronicling Deepak’s colorful activities – from a traditional monk ordainment in Thailand to a literal decoding of ancient family registers in rural India. Along the way, we meet devoted disciples who range from celebrities like Lady Gaga to lost souls in the red rock deserts of Sedona. Interwoven through the travelogue is a closer look at the expansive spiritual empire built over the last 25 years – from a decidedly non-spiritual (and boozy) origin. Full of flaws, foils, intelligence, and irreverence, the decoded Deepak is a symbol of a world searching for answers in the most unlikely places and a deeper plunge into the meaning of identity itself.

Lucky
2012-09-22 16:30 - 18:30 | Castro Theatre, 429 Castro Street, San Francisco, CA, 94114, United States
Watch Trailer
Delicately crafted, both in story and visual style, this beautiful, emotional tale explores the unusual alliance between an elderly Indian woman (with a irrational fear of Africans) and a South African orphan in post-Apartheid South Africa. Using a muted color palette to reflect themes of nostalgia and family connection, Luthra unravels a complicated story featuring amazing performances from the two main actors. Filmed in Zulu, Hindi, and English, Lucky is a true international production and represents a trend we are seeing in this year’s festival (along with Herman’s House and Sket) of South Asian directors telling stories from a multiplicity of viewpoints and cultural voices. A critical and audience favorite, Lucky is based on Luthra’s earlier short of the same name, which won over 40 international awards including an Oscar nomination.

The World Before Her
2012-09-22 14:30 - 17:00 | Castro Theatre, 429 Castro Street, San Francisco, CA, 94114, United States
Watch Trailer
Sneak Peek. Young, beautiful, and ambitious, Ankita and Ruhi compete in the Miss India pageant for the chance at a career in the beauty industry, one of the few opportunities for women to find success and empowerment in contemporary India. On the opposite end of the spectrum from Miss India is Durga Vahini, the women’s wing of the Hindu fundamentalist movement. Nisha Pahuja’s The World Before Her dramatizes the tension between traditional and modern perspectives toward women in today’s India through the juxtaposition of these two very different outlets for girls. Initially representing the two threads as mutually exclusive worldviews, Pahuja ultimately draws surprising parallels in the way women are perceived and the opportunities that are afforded them at both extremes, convincingly depicting each as real sources of both oppression and empowerment. The World Before Her is a riveting, thoughtful profile of the fundamental contradictions of a country in transition.
– Tribeca Film Festival

Alms for a Blind Horse (Anhey Ghodey Da Daan)
2012-09-22 12:00 | Castro Theatre, 429 Castro Street, San Francisco, CA, 94114, United States
Watch Trailer
This striking film by first-time director Gurvinder Singh uses exquisite cinematography and an unusual cast of characters to portray a day in the life of a rural Punjabi family facing the demolition of their village. Indian film legend, the late Mani Kaul, was the executive producer on the film and his influence can been seen throughout in the film’s use of stillness, silences and non-naturalistic approach to narrative. A beautiful soundtrack by Los Angeles based composer Catherine Lamb accentuates the poetic performances given by the non-professional cast. Alms for a Blind Horse swept the Indian National Film awards this spring and is the first Punjabi language film to hit the festival circuit.

3rd i International Shorts
2012-09-21 21:40 - 23:30 | Roxie Theater, 94103
Four startling shorts examine the limits of human desire in the face of life and death:
A nun hides her daughter in a monastery against the army’s advance, and attempts to move past the memories of civil war, in this visually sublime short Ennakum Oru Per (I Too Have a Name, 2012, USA/Sri Lanka, 12 mins, in Sinhalese and Tamil with English subtitles). Official selection at the 2012 Berlin Film Festival.
Chandi’s mother is dying. When the local doctor can’t help, Chandi turns to the Tantrik holy man, who demands a terrible price in return for her mother’s life, in Smita Bhide’s unforgettable Another Planet (2011, UK, 26 mins, in English and Marathi with English subtitles). Winner of Best Short at the 2012 International Film Festival of India, Goa.
Shilpa Munikempanna’s Kaveri (2011, India, 19 mins, in Kannada with English subtitles) is a simple story of two sisters transformed into a moving experience. 13 year old Kaveri is on the threshold of womanhood. Engulfed by the vastness of the adult world, she searches for the gesture that provides hope. Watch Trailer.
An eco-thriller set in a parched post-apocalyptic future, where water has become a scarce and invaluable commodity, Abhishek Pathak’s Boond (A Drop, 2009, India, 27 mins, in Hindi with English subtitles) tells the story of a desperate young mother and her son who are forced to take up the gun in order to protect their well. Watch Trailer.
pictured above: Suba Sivakumaran’s I Too Have a Name

Runaway (Udhao)
2012-09-21 19:15 - 21:30 | Roxie Theater, 94103
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Amit Ashraf’s dynamic script and creative visual vocabulary confirm that something is afoot in Bangladeshi cinema. The gritty, urban streets of Dhaka provide the backdrop for this noirish thriller about men who run away from family and a rickshawallah who is compelled to bring them to justice. Ashraf’s innovative editing and cinematography help to shape this film’s treatment of a common social phenomenon, creating a striking and rarely seen depiction of contemporary Dhaka. An audience favorite at multiple festivals this year, Runaway delivers a layered story filled with visual excitement.
