London Indian Film Festival

Celebrating the burgeoning movement of alternative Indian cinema, the second annual London Indian Film Festival will run from 30 June – 12 July, bringing to UK audiences a selection of cutting edge films from some of India’s hottest independent talents. Going way beyond Bollywood, these are films that challenge, shock, generate debate and present a more realistic view of India today in all its colour and diversity.

The festival covers a wide range of themes and issues from family dramas, coming-of age tales to twisted, urban teen-romance. Uniting these films is a new more assured Indian cool, experimenting with cinematic styles, sexual liberality, new technology and influenced by themes both East and West, which has helped new Indian cinema win favour with the young in-crowd in super cities like Mumbai, as well as with connoisseurs of world cinema across the globe.

“In addition to showing great movies, we also aim to help get these films talked about and screened more broadly in cinemas in the UK, in the same way that Iranian cinema has been,” said Festival Director Cary Rajinder Sawhney. The festival opens at Cineworld, Haymarket on 30 June with the World Premiere of the bad-boy comedy Delhi Belly, produced by the hit-maker and superstar Aamir Khan and directed by Abhinay Deo. The film stars teen heartthrob Imran Khan. With a nod to Brit-gangster flicks such as Snatch, it tells of a group of hapless mates who end up being hunted by the local mafia after one of them accidently mixes up a smuggler’s package with his stool sample (he ate some dodgy Tandoori chicken). The film reaches its climax in true heist style with a riot of mix-ups and high-speed chases, while unsuspecting English tourists duck for cover.

Other highlights of the festival include a special screening of Colours of Passion at the V&A, an homage to the revolutionary painter Raja Ravi Varma, whose paintings in the 1890s influenced modern Indian art and cinema. The film by Ketan Mehta pushes the envelope of eroticism as the painter seduces his gorgeous muse, leading to Bombay’s scandal of the century. The director will be in attendance for a Q&A.

Maverick Mumbai director Anurag Kashyap, who has worked with Danny Boyle, is at the BFI Southbank with his shocking new film That Girl in Yellow Boots, which tells of a young girl of UK/Indian mixed parentage who goes in search of her Indian father in Mumbai but discovers a terrible secret in the squalid underbelly of the city of dreams.

The Closing Night Film is the UK Premiere hit movie Autograph, where a young filmmaker gets his big break, not only to remake the classic film Nayak by master filmmaker Satyajit Ray, but to also to direct the city’s greatest superstar. As the production proceeds new found power and the promise of fame go to his head, while he has to compromise all, including his girlfriend, to follow his dream. The evening will include, fittingly, the winner of this year’s Satyajit Ray Foundation’s Short Film Competition, which carries an award of £1000. Singer and film composer Raghu Dixit will also be performing.

For more information and booking details please visit: www.londonindianfilmfestival.co.uk Tickets for all venues are currently on sale: BFI, V&A, Nehru Centre, Watermans, The University of Westminster and Cineworld Trocadero, Feltham, Wood Green and Ilford.