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It
could be the plot of a particularly unlikely Bollywood movie. A young
Greek girl grows up on the Mediterranean island of Crete and falls in
love with movies from faraway India. Every
weekend she sits glued to the screen to watch her idols like Raj
Kapoor, Dilip Kumar and others. She later moves to America, but never
forgets her Indian connection.
She decides to start an Indian
Film Festival in the world capital of cinema, Los Angeles. After a few
years the festival becomes a major cultural event and a focus of
collaboration between Hollywood and Bollywood. The End.
That,
in a nutshell, is the story of Christina Marouda, who founded The
Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (IFFLA) in 2002, as a non-profit
organisation devoted to promoting a greater appreciation of Indian
culture.
The fifth festival opens Tuesday night with the LA
premiere of Jag Mundhra's "Provoked" and closes with Rajnesh
Domalpalli's "Vanaja" on Sunday.
Sponsors of the festival
reflect the growing attention the event is gathering. Time Warner,
Sony, Wal-Mart Stores, Wells Fargo, Deluxe Labs, Nickelodeon, The
Hollywood Reporter, and Screen International are all supporting IFFLA.
The
widely read LA Weekly is even sponsoring a Bollywood By Night film
series that highlights some of the most popular Bollywood movies,
including the 20-year anniversary screening of Shekhar Kapur's landmark
"Mr India". Another highlight is a tribute to Bollywood actress Deepti
Naval, with three of her movies chosen for special screenings.
The
festival's aim is to highlight films from India as well as films about
India and films by Indian directors. IFFLA also shows films that
reflect diverse perspectives of the Indian diaspora. The 2007 line up
will showcase 36 films (13 features, 8 documentaries and 15 shorts) and
will include three world premieres, 11 US premieres and 16 LA premieres.
The
festival is both a product and a cause of the tremendous growth in
interest in Indian filmmaking in the US, said Marouda Monday.
"In
the last year, there has been a tremendous growth and awareness of
Indian cinema in the US," she said. "It's tremendously exciting but
very busy."
That's not just self-serving hype. The year 2006
was a record-breaking year for Hindi films at the US box office - seven
of the 14 foreign language films that grossed over $2 million were
Hindi movies. Hindi films were even more popular than Spanish films,
which only had two movies gross more than $2 million, despite the huge
number of Hispanics in America.
The rise in popularity has
coincided with the growth of the festival. It launched in 2002 just as
"Lagaan" and "Monsoon Wedding" became breakout hits in mainstream US
cinema.
But those landmark movies don't fit the Bollywood
stereotype, nor does the rest of the IFFLA line-up. Take the opening
movie, "Provoked", for example. It's no sugary melodrama, but a searing
examination of a case that redefined the seriousness of spousal battery
in British courts, when a Punjabi woman fights for her freedom after
being imprisoned for the murder of her abusive husband.
The
documentaries highlight current events with the world premiere of "Are
You Alright Afghanistan?" from Indian filmmaker Soumitra Ranade, who
having grown up in Afghanistan, returns to this country 26 years later
with a camera. "Divided We Fall: Americans In The Aftermath" sees
filmmaker Sharat Raju follow a Sikh American who drives across America
after 9/11.
Other movies include the international epic "Valley
Of Flowers", described as "a great Asian love story" that spans two
centuries of passion death and reincarnation from the Himalayas to
modern-day Tokyo. Movies like "Outsourced" and "Office Tigers" examine
the impact in both US and Indian society of India's growing importance
as a world technology centre.
India is also gaining greater
importance as a film production centre with many Hollywood companies
looking to make movies there. Mira Nair, the "Monsoon Wedding"
director, is about to start filming "Shantaram".
With this
increased cooperation, IFFLA serves as a vital networking event for
industry professionals from India and the US and this year hopes to
attract 6,000 participants, Marouda said.
That's not bad a bad achievement for a girl from Greece, who followed her passion for Indian movies.
"It's
a great feeling," Marouda said. "A lot more work and a lot more stress.
And a lot more people to deal with. But it's just fantastic."
DPA
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