BIBIMAGAZINE
An advocate for change
Brings the Red Carpet to you on one of the hottest South-Asian Film Festivals in New York by Engendered.
“Engendered is an annual, New York-based transnational arts and human rights festival that brings together the best in contemporary South Asian cinema, visual arts and performance to explore the complex realities of gender and sexuality in modern South Asia, especially at the intersection of ritual and religion. The festival is designed not only to raise awareness, but also act as a fulcrum to enter public dialogue, break silences and impact perceptions around issues of gendered identities, stereotyping, bias and sexual choice and further, how those issues relate to affirmation or violations of human rights, health rights and women's rights. “
The third annual I View Film Festival was held on August 28th through August 30th 2009, which is becoming one of the most respected film festivals that explores gender and sexuality issues among South-Asians, but not limited to. Starting with the Red Carpet Reception on August 28th, 2009 at the prestigious Lincoln Center – Walter Reads Theatre- BIBIMAGAZINE interviewed some of the hottest stars in Bollywood and international acclaimed writers, directors, and producers. Below, is the list of artists that walked the Red carpet, had their work screened and who were on the panel of discussion at the I View Film Festival…from the eyes of BIBIMAGAZINE to you.
Arriving first, on the red carpet, is the brilliant Devika Urvashi Bhisé . At the age of seventeen, she directed the appraised documentary Hijras: The Third Gender. ” Hijras is a story about the outcastes of Indian society who live on its fringes. These eunuchs (originally only castrated males) were once employed by sultans and maharajas to guard the women in their harems. Now shunned by society, they are treated with less respect than the Dalits, or untouchables. Considered neither men nor women, Hijras have no constitutional rights. Currently, there is an ongoing debate in India regarding whether or not they should be granted the status of a third gender.”
BIBIMAGAZINE: How does it feel to be one of the youngest Directors at the I View Film Festival of 2009? And tell us how and why you choose to do a documentary on Hijras?
Devika: It’s an honor to be here today and I’m very excited. I have been travelling back and forth to India all my life and I was always curious of why people were always scared of Hijras and why they were a scorn to society. I did this short film to create awareness of this segment of society to allow their voices to be heard. I was privileged to share this community’s inner life and have tried to capture its stark reality as a friend rather than a voyeur. The filming took place from June 2008 to September 2008 in various cities and locations in India.
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Mehreen Jabbar is the Pakistani award winning director of numerous TV-films, with her first feature 'Ramchand Pakistani' , which has already been released in Pakistan and India in 2008 and is currently playing in cinemas in the UK to critical and audience acclaim. Beauty Parlour & Tumhari Bina, 2 short films screened at the I View Film Festival. Beauty Parlour: “Four faces, four masks and four short sketches of lives, loves and desires from Pakistan, traced through visits to the beauty parlour. Two friends long for intimacies of a different kind, a to-be-bride longs for another while getting ready for her wedding, the ‘other woman’ struggles to define her existence via her relationship with her married lover and a physically challenged transvestite has dreams of a different kind. This short film explores themes that could not be expressed on mainstream Pakistan television at the time.” Tumhari Bina: This film deals with the desires of an older single woman who lives by herself in the house that she shared with her deceased brother. Her only other companion is her trusted gardener and the pleasures of the internet through which she plays her sinister games.
This film was produced as part of a series called 'Mystery Theatre" that ran on Indus Vision, a Pakistani cable channel.
BIBIMAGAZINE: How does it make you feel knowing that Engendered has created a common place for you to screen a film that explores themes that is not widely accepted in the South-Asian cultures?
Mehreen: It feels great! I’m happy to be here. I’m a very shy person, so bear with me, and I have always felt more comfortable working with middle aged women and that lead to some short films I have done, including Beauty Parlour & Tumhari Bina. When I was born they said I looked like an old soul, maybe that has something to do with it. I always challenge the traditional views of our culture, to bring awareness of the unspoken secrets in our society. I’m very happy that Beauty Parlour & Tumhari Bina will be screened at the I View Film Festival and hope everyone enjoys it.
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MAZHAR-MOIN a talented director, features two shorts at the I View Film Festival: Burnesroad KI Nilofer & Ek Qiamat Aur. Burnesroad KI Nilofer is a short film about Nilofer is a precocious 16-year-old girl who lives with her hassled mother and disciplinarian father and eight younger siblings in a cramped flat in Karachi’s old city. Beguiled by the soaps on television, she dreams of true love but has little chance to go out and find it or even to express herself in the presence of her parents. Her only confidante is a neighbour, a young woman whose wiles her mother does not particularly approve of. When Nilofer falls for the young cable man who visits to fix her television connection, it sets in motion a series of half-com.
Ek Qiamat Aur: This is a tele-film looking at the psyche of a woman who escapes her loveless marriage and the monotony of her everyday life by weaving dreams. Soon the line between real life and dreams get blurry and threatens to jeopardize the equilibrium in her life. ic, half-tragic events that encapsulate the constricting life she lives. Mazhar: I’m very pleased to have my work screened and I View Film Festival and hope its appreciated by the viewers.
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DOSTANA: Dostana is the first Bollywood blockbuster where mainstream, straight
actors play gay characters. Kunal and Sameer (John Abraham and Abhishek Bachan) are two straight guys who pretend to be a gay couple so as to secure a posh Miami apartment. However, the plot takes a hilarious turn when both men fall for their adorable roommate Neha, played by Priyanka Chopra. The New York Times raves the film “irreverently normalizes a topic that has been virtually absent from screens in India.” Accompanied cast of Dostana(Red Carpet and Panelists) were: TARUN MANSUKHANI, director; JOHN ABRAHAM, actor; BOMAN IRANI, actor.
BIBIMAGAZINE with Tarun M: How does it feel to have Dostana as part of the I View Film Festival?
Tarun M: It’s a good start and we are all excited to be here. We were fortunate to have an amazing cast that had great chemistry together and we brought to light a subject that is still behind closed doors, in a fun and universal way.
BIBIMAGAZINE with John A: What was your first reaction when you were approached with the script of Dostana? And what was the experience like playing a gay male and Abhishek’s lover?
John A: I was honored. It was a lot of fun and I have great chemistry with Abhishek. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have done Dostana. I view myself as an actor and I submerge myself into a character to bring them alive. I do the characters to entertain, not bringing in the social and political aspects of it into the picture.
BIBIMAGAZINE with Bowman I: A versatile actor like yourself, what have you gain from the experience with your character in Dostana ? Also, can you please tell us about your film 99?
BOWMAN I: Dostana was a great experience with a great cast and as an actor I am always a student and I always become a little better with each character I play. I’m very pleased of Dostana being the only blockbuster film at the I View Film Festival. Wow, I can’t believe you are asking my about 99. 99 is inspired by real events. Its about two men in two cities who are bound by a common feeling of always being stuck at '99'. They never make it to a century in life. It small-time crooks, conspiracies, car crashes, a briefcase full of money with a historical controversy in the background.
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Parvez Sharma Director an Indian film director. He is best known for the film A Jihad for Love, on gay and lesbian Muslims. Parvez Sharma is a New York based writer and filmmaker. His first feature, which he directed and produced, "A Jihad for Love" is an international phenomenon with more than one million viewers in 37 nations in the first year of its release. On the Red Carpet and a Panelist at the I View Film Festival,
Parvez Sharma’s highlight was that: “ I can’t wait for Bollywood to produce a gay movie that won’t make me cringe!
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SONALI GULATI
Sonali Gulati is an Assistant Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Photography & Film. She has an MFA in Film & Media Arts from Temple University and a BA in Critical Social Thought from Mount Holyoke College. Ms. Gulati's areas of specialization are film production and experimental filmmaking. She has made several short films that have screened at over two hundred film festivals worldwide including Canada, United States, Europe, Australia, and Asia. She has won awards and grants from foundations such as the Third Wave Foundation and the World Studio Foundation, and recently won the Theresa Pollak Award for Excellence in the Arts in Film.
I AM is a short about what parents do when they find out that their child is gay? Having lost the opportunity to tell her mother that she is a lesbian, a young Indian filmmaker in search of answers, travels across India to meet with parents of other gay and lesbian South Asians. I Am is a personal and revealing feature film that journeys to a landscape where being gay is a criminal and punishable offence. Can this documentary conversation offer any resolution for either the filmmaker or the parents she meets? With courage, determination, and humor, families share untold stories that have thus far remained in the realm of secrecy and silence.
BIBIMAGAZINE: How do you feel about having I AM at the I View Film Festival?
Sonali G: It’s great. I AM is a personal story and I am proud to have it screened at the I View Film Festival and hope it can be a learning experience for the audience.
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RAM MADHVANI
Ram Madhvani directs for Equinox Films Private Limited, amongst the leading production houses in India, in which he is also a partner.
With over a decade's experience in the profession, Ram has worked with every important advertising agency in the country to become one of the fraternity's most respected and sought-after filmmakers.
Lets Talk is a film about a woman, married for 10 years, has an extra-marital affair and gets pregnant. She debates on whether she should tell her husband and plays out various scenarios in her mind about how he will react to her confession. The film unspools from Radhika's mind as she imagines her husband's possible reactions to her predicament. The structure of alternative realities borrows from a traditional musical form, the "Thumri", where a single thought is expressed in a multiplicity of moods. While the setting is urban contemporary Mumbai, its exploration of love is based on the enduring
myths of Lord Krishna, the eternal lover and his beloved Radha, who represents the eternal seeker. Newcomer Maia Katrak and sensational theatre actor Boman Irani provide riveting performances with a realism and truth unsurpassed in modern Indian cinema.
As Ram M skipped the Red Carpet, he contributed his sense of appreciation as a panelist of the I View Film Festival breaking boundaries each year and welcoming change.
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Zoya Akthar (director) and Farhan Akthar(actor) of Luck by Chance. Luck by Chance is a biting satire and insider’s look at gender disparity in India’s highly competitive film industry. This is the story of a struggling actor who arrives in Bollywood to become a movie star. His journey to fame is juxtaposed with that of an actress, who is also his love interest. Because of blatant gender inequity in this particular microcosm of Indian society, the woman is forced to experience everything from the “casting couch” syndrome to losing lead roles because of her age and looks. The New York Times says “it might seem as if Bollywood couldn’t possibly satirize itself …but Zoya Akhtar manages the trick deftly.”
BIBIMAGAZINE with Zoya A & Farhan A: How accomplished do you feel of having Luck By Chance screened at the I View Film Festival?
Zoya A: As a director I’m very honored to have my movie screened here tomorrow and hope everyone enjoys it as much as we enjoyed making it. Thank you.
Farhan A: Its great being here and I feel very accomplished as an actor to have Lucky By Chance at the I View Film Festival.
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AYESHA SOOD
Her introduction to film was through the still camera, and she thinks it armed her with certain skills [and an eye] to apply to this highly visual medium. Somebody once said that there are only six basic tales in the world… everything else depends on how you tell it. She subscribes to this school of thought. She thinks her strength lies in being able to tell a story through her eyes. And as a director that is the most important aspect of film making – How an individual tells a story and how you use the various film making tools [camera, costume, art, dialogue etc...] to enhance the same.
Madhuri Girl Star: is a short film about a young woman, Madhuri, who broke social boundaries as a woman and is elected the youngest woman leader of their village through her determination in doing what is just.
BIBIMAGAZINE: How important is it to you that Madhuri Girl Star is being screened at the I View Film Festival?
Ayesha S: Its great. Madhuri Girl Star is a documentary of mine that brings forth my learning experience so far in Cinema and I’m thankful to be here tonight.
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Mira Nair Accomplished Film Director/Writer/Producer Mira Nair was born in Bhubaneswar, India in 1957. Educated at both Delhi University and Harvard University, Nair began her artistic career as an actor before turning her attention to film. She found incipient success as a documentary filmmaker, winning awards for So Far From India and India Cabaret. In 1988, Nair’s debut feature, Salaam Bombay!, was nominated for an Academy Award, Golden Globe, and BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Language Film. It also won the Camera D'Or (for best first feature) and the Prix du Publique (for most popular entry) at the Cannes Film Festival as well as 25 other international awards.
My Own Country tells the story of an East Indian doctor who settles in Johnson City, Tennessee. The doctor's name is Abraham Verghese, and he specializes in infectious diseases. It's 1985, and AIDS is spreading from the big cities to the rural areas. Abraham takes on the AIDS crisis as his personal crusade and is soon well-known for his compassion and non-judgmental treatment. As he becomes overwhelmed with patients from the surrounding states, his work begins to put a strain on his marriage. The story explores sexuality from a hetero-normative perspective and exposes the myths and biases surrounding the disease in the early years.
BIBIMAGAZINE: From a director’s perspective, what does the accomplishment feel like in being part of a film festival that explores gender and sexuality issues?
Mira N: I don’t see it as gay or lesbian, I see it as form of art, humanizing the subject. All my films are challenging a society that has many secrets and I get high on rejection. If they say I can’t do it, or it will never make it, I do it.
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GHALIB SHIRAZ DHALLA
Los Angeles-based writer Ghalib Shiraz Dhalla was born in Mombasa, Kenya. At 13 years old, the aspiring young novelist published his first article on infertility in a national magazine VIVA. Since then he's written for various publications including Instinct, Genre, Angeleno, Detour and Details and is the Editor of the upscale lifestyle E-zine, IndulgeMagazine.com
An excerpt from Ode to Lata was featured in the award-winning anthology Contours of the Heart: South Asians Map North America (Rutgers), which went on to win the 18th Annual American Book Award. The Los Angeles Times Book Review hailed Dhalla's debut as "an achievement" (Sunday, March 24th, 2002) and Christopher Rice called it "a rare, great novel" (book jacket). Ode to Lata created milestones as the first South Asian gay novel ever to be reviewed by The Los Angeles Times Book Review and to be excerpted by Genre Magazine. It was also the first account of the South Asian gay experience from an author from the African continent. The cultural and academic impact of Dhalla's debut novel was further recognized when it was presented at the Between The Lines Festival at MIT (Boston) in 2004, and added to college syllabuses around the country. Ode to Lata was adapted for the motion picture, The Ode starring Sachin Bhatt, Wilson Cruz, and Sakina Jaffrey. Dhalla wrote the screenplay and is the Associate Producer for the film. The Ode premiered at the Oufest Film Festival on July 17th, 2008 to a sold-out audience. It was called "a beautiful portrait of the American experience for many first and second-generation Indian-Americans" (CineQueer, July 18th, 2008) and a film with performances that are "memorable" and filled with "cinematic intensity" (Planet Homo, July 19th, 2008).
Accompanied casts: Ghalib Shiraz Dhalla (writer); Anil Kumar (actor); Sachin Bhatt (actor).
BIBIMAGAZINE with Ghalib, Anil K, and Sachin B: Ode to Lata already accomplishing so much as a novel, how does it feel to be here today at the I View Film Festival?
Ghalib: Its great being here in NY and I’m always happy to share my work! It’s a personal story and I’m glad to be here with you tonight.
BIBIMAGAZINE with Anil K: It was an amazing experience playing the role I have in Ode, the cast was great and I love Ghalib…my son…for I played his father in the film. Some nights I will go home weeping, and I am very proud that the film is appreciated so much.
BIBIMAGAZINE with Sachin B: this movie was my first feature movie I auditioned for, the first feature length movie I acted in, and I’m honored have this as the starting point of my career! It was a role that opened a part of me that broke a lot of boundaries and took a lot of courage to be part of. I’m very proud to have it at the I View Film Festival.
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POPPY STOCKELL
Born in London in 1977, Poppy began her career at Sydney's 2SER FM whilst completing a degree in zoology at the University of New South Wales. She has since had extensive experience in radio as a freelance producer and program-maker, particularly for the ABC’s national youth station. Poppy made the leap to film and television in 2004, studying cinematography at North Sydney TAFE. Her camera credits since have included Walk Like a Man, Suburban Mayhem and The Silence. Her film credits as writer/director include the short Alight Touch and music video Foolscap and she is regularly commissioned to create travel vodcasts, such as Skiing in Morocco, for Lonely Planet. Most recently, Poppy worked as segment producer on ABC 2’s Good Game.
Searching for Sandeep: Despite living in one of the gay capitals of the world, 28-year-old
Sydneysider Poppy Stockell is forced to go online in her search for love. When she meets 31-year-old Anglo-Indian Sandeep Virdi, she thinks she's found the one. Unfortunately, Sandeep lives at home in the British Midlands with her conservative Sikh parents and three younger
sisters. Oh, and she's not out to any of them. Through raw, incredibly frank footage, Searching for Sandeep follows Poppy and Sandeep's tumultuous relationship across two years and three
continents.
BIBIMAGAZINE: How accomplished does it feel to be part of the I View Film Festival?
Poppy S: Its great being here. It’s a very personal story about me and my partner and we are happy to share it with the world, hoping it will help break the silence in families that are not yet open to having conversations on being gay or lesbian.
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The entertainment high light of the opening night was the beautiful Nadia Ali, who performed among her new songs the 2001 hit “Rapture” that topped dance charts all over the world.
Engendered has made un-measurable strides once more with three days consisting of Opening Night Celebrations with artists from all over the world and two days of film and documentaries screenings in exploring gender sexuality, not limiting, to societies among South-Asians. The success of the I View Film Festival was contributed to by BIBIMAGAZINE in bringing the spot light on the event.
Article by Sattie I Persaud.
