Taking Indian Cinema To The Big Apple

In September 2001, after the attack on New York City’s World Trade Center, the city practically shut down. People were afraid to step out, especially in the areas downtown. In response to this climate of fear, former mayor Rudy Giuliani exhorted the city’s arts organisations to step up and create programmes that would bring New Yorkers out of their homes and into theatres, galleries and other such public spaces.

Two film festivals were born out of Giuliani’s call to creative action. The first was the Tribeca Film Festival started by Robert De Niro and others in 2002. The second was the much smaller Indo American Arts Council (IAAC) Film Festival, conceived by Aroon Shivdasani, an enterprising patron of the arts who, back in 1998, had co-founded its umbrella organisation, IAAC. Since the council’s focus was on bringing Indian arts—dance, theatre and literature—to the US, adding films to the mix was a no-brainer.

Moreover, people had begun to appreciate Bollywood’s soft power in its ability to reach out to audiences across the globe. Raj Kapoor’s films were big successes in countries ranging from the former Soviet Union to Iran and the Arab world. In recent years, Chinese, Japanese and Korean markets have shown exceptional box office wins for mainstreams Hindi films such as 3 Idiots (2009) and Dangal (2016).  But the US market was a different animal to tame and, therefore, a more challenging puzzle to crack.

This began to change by the start of the new millennium with the proliferation of the Indian diaspora: Indian films, especially Bollywood movies started getting screened in New York City and other larger cities of the US. Occasionally, arts institutions such as Asia Society and the Museum of Modern Art would screen independent (‘indie’) Indian films. I remember a wonderful Smita Patil retrospective that Asia Society organized after the actress’ untimely death in 1986.

But IAAC’s initiative to conduct a full-fledged Indian film festival was the first of its kind, not just in New York City, but in all of North America. In a city that prided itself on being constituted by its immigrants, it meant something to provide a welcome space for the arts from across the world.

In its debut year, the festival mostly focused on works by Indian American filmmakers. The festival opened with the 1965 Merchant Ivory production of Shakespeare Wallah starring Shashi Kapoor, Felicity Kendall and Madhur Jaffrey, who had won the Best Actress award for her role in the film at that year’s Berlinale.  This time the idea was to take a fresh perspective on the classic film.

Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding was screened on the closing night of the festival. Nair had just returned from the Venice Film Festival after having won the Golden Lion for the film when the terrorist attacks happened.

My journey as a film festival programmer began with the IAAC Film Festival. As a film journalist, I loved watching films and writing about them; why couldn’t I also curate films to share with an audience? I learnt over time, too, that selecting films and organising the event as a whole does not require any technical skill but what’s crucial is a passion for good cinema.

A chance meeting with a friend in New York, and I was invited to join the IAAC festival’s programming team. A few years later, the position of festival director position opened up and I threw my hat in the ring.

That was in 2011. The festival has changed its face a few times since then and is now called the New York Indian Film Festival (or NYIFF, as we refer to it). But the mission statement remains unchanged—to bring Indian arts, in this case, films, to the audience of New York City, a region celebrated for its racial and ethnic diversity.

Although I grew up on a diet of commercial cinema and have little against it, most of our programming remains focused on indie films from India and by diaspora that are hard to find or are not screened in generic cinema theatres. On rare occasions, however, we have made an exception to the rule. We held the first public screening of Slumdog Millionaire in NYC, with Danny Boyle, Dev Patel and Freida Pinto in attendance. And in 2019, as a tribute to Sridevi, we screened English Vinglish.

Over the years, we have held New York premieres of a wide variety of films—The Namesake, Water, Gulaal, Gangs of Wasseypur, Ugly, Fandry, Shahid, Aligarh, Iti Mrinalini, The Japanese Wife, Dosar, Memories in March, Margarita with a Straw, Pinky Elli?, Mothoon, Astu, A Death in the Gunj, Hamid and Aamis, among others.

Part of the mission is also to showcase films in various Indian languages. In addition to Hindi, we have shown films in English, Urdu, Punjabi, Haryanvi, Assamese, Bengali, Nepali (spoken in parts of Bengal and Sikkim), Manipuri, Odiya, Maithili, Gujarati, Marathi, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu. We often invite directors and stars—if the budget allows— to attend the festival. Director Shonali Bose brought her lead actor Kalki Koechlin to attend the screening of Margarita with a Straw. Rishi and Neetu Kapoor once attended the NYIFF to represent their indie film (although it had had Disney’s backing), Do Dooni Chaar. Occasionally, a script writer or a production designer has accompanied the film. While there are so many people involved in the making of a film—from editors to cinematographers, music composers, assistant directors and more—our humble festival has not always been successful in recognising and platforming these talents. It is also unfortunate that audiences tend to give more attention and credibility to a star than, say, to the editor.

Programming a festival well is key to its success. A lot goes into organising an event of a decent size in New York City—from renting theatres to bringing guests from India and hosting them. Then there is marketing and arranging the after-parties. It takes a skilled team of dedicated volunteers and regular staff to orchestrate such an event.

Every year, the preparation for the NYIFF—usually held in late-April or early-May—starts seven to eight months in advance.  For many years now, I have been wearing two hats: that of a film journalist and another of a festival programmer scouting for new and interesting films. Every September, I am a regular at the Toronto International Film Festival. In November, I attend the International Film Festival of India, along with its companion event, Film Bazaar, South Asia’s largest film market.

Film festival programmers are uniquely positioned to draw attention to smaller films that do not have large marketing budgets. As a team, what we look for are films that surprise us, stories help us navigate our lives as human beings. Personally, it gives me great joy to chance upon a little-known film that I can share with the people of this great city.

For me, there is no bigger thrill than that.

(This appeared in the print edition as "Curating Diversity")

(Views expressed are personal)

Aseem Chhabra is a freelance writer and festival director of the new york indian film festival