MIAAC, New York City’s Indian Film Festival,
Wraps Up its Ninth Successful Year with the Screening of
Antaheen: The Endless Wait’ followed by the Awards Ceremony
- Celebrities who attended include Shabana Azmi, Javed Akhtar, Rahul Bose, Sanjay Suri, Mira Nair, Deepti Naval, Shyam Benegal, Aasif Mandvi, Manisha Koirala and Sarita Choudhury
November 17, 2009 (New York, NY) – MIAAC, the Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council, New York City’s Indian film festival wrapped up five days of screenings and events on Sunday night, November 15th at the Walter Reade Theatre with the US premiere of Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury’s The Endless Wait (Antaheen). Stars Rahul Bose and Kalyan Roy attended the premiere along with actors and filmmakers including Shabana Azmi, Sarita Choudhury, Shyam Benegal, Javed Ahktar, Mira Nair, Rahul Bose, Manisha Koirala, Rajit Kapur, and Aasif Mandvi. The MIAAC Film Festival which ran from Nov 11-15 screened 47 films which spotlighted the established and emerging Indian independent filmmakers.
The Executive Director of the Indo-American Arts Council, Aroon Shivdasani gave closing night remarks and introduced the closing night film. The post-screening discussion with the filmmaker and talent was moderated by Program Director of The Film Society of Lincoln Center, Richard Peña, who also expressed enthusiasm for further collaboration with the MIAAC Film Festival in the future.
The evening concluded with the awards ceremony, with the winners receiving awards in seven categories. Several celebrated actors and filmmakers presented the awards including Amitav Ghosh, Javed Akhtar, and Mira Nair. Festival winners were chosen by a jury comprised of ten members specializing in film, and the jury process was monitored by KPMG. Awards were also presented to three student NYU filmmakers from Professor Karl Bardosh’s Cell Phone Cinema Class, with each filmmaker making a one- minute film entitled My MIAAC on their cell phone cameras.
Overall, this year’s festival premiered 44 Indian and Diaspora films and held special events, with a sidebar on Kashmir in Film, and discussion panels presented with the NYU Department of Cinema Studies at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts focusing on themes like Queer Bollywood and the changing landscape of Indian film business. The festival also held a daylong series about Indian film in cooperation with KPMG and SAMMA and with collaboration of Saavn and TiE.
Other festival highlights included an evening with Mira Nair, an evening with Sharmila Tagore at NMAI and a celebration of contemporary Bengali cinema.
The 2009 MIAAC Award Winners are:
Best Short Film Award: Good Night directed by Geetika Narang. Award presented by Manisha Koirala and Rajit Kapur. The other two nominees were Medicine Man directed by Himkar Tak and It Rises from the East directed by Sudeep Kanwal.
Best Documentary Film Award: The Salt Stories directed by Lalit Vachani. Award presented by Madhur Jaffrey and Sanjay Suri. The other two nominees were Air India by Sturla Gunnarsson and Lucky Ducks by Tracey Jackson.
Best Actor Award: Aasif Mandvi for Today’s Special. Award presented by Sarita Choudhury and Shyam Benegal. The other two nominees were Naseeruddin Shah (Shortchanged) and Rahul Bose (Endless Wait).
Best Actress Award: Tannishtha Chatterjee for Bombay Summer. Award presented by Shabana Azmi and Rahul Bose. The other two nominees were Sarita Choudhury (For Real) and Manisha Koirala (Two Paise for Sunshine).
Best Screenplay Award: Two Paise for Sunshine, Four Annas for Rain by Deepti Naval. Award presented by Javed Ahktar and Amitav Ghosh. The other two nominees were Endless Wait by Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury and Shortchanged by Raja Menon.
Best Director Award: Joseph Mathew-Varghese for Bombay Summer. Award presented by Mira Nair and Anurag Kashyap. The other two nominees were Raja Menon (Shortchanged) and Deepti Naval (Two Paise).
Best Film Award: Bombay Summer directed by Joseph Mathew-Varghese. Award presented by Tracey Jackson and Aasif Mandvi. The other two nominees were Shortchanged and Two Paise.
For more information on the MIAAC Film Festival, please visit www.miaacfilmfest.org.
About the Indo-American Arts Council:
The Indo-American Arts Council Inc. is a registered 501(c)3 not-for-profit, secular service and resource arts organization charged with the mission of promoting and building the awareness, creation, production, exhibition, publication and performance of Indian and cross-cultural art forms in North America. The IAAC supports all artistic disciplines in the classical, fusion, folk and innovative forms influenced by the arts of India. We work cooperatively with colleagues around the United States to broaden our collective audiences and to create a network for shared information, resources and funding. Our focus is to work with artists and arts organizations in North America as well as to facilitate artists and arts organizations from India to exhibit, perform and produce their works here. For more information, please visit www.iaac.us
About the Mahindra Group
The US $6.3 billion Mahindra Group is among the top 10 industrial houses in India. Mahindra is the market leader in multi-utility vehicles in India. It made a milestone entry into the passenger car segment with the Logan. Mahindra & Mahindra is the only Indian company among the top tractor brands in the world.
The Group has a leading presence in key sectors of the Indian economy, including the financial services, trade, retail and logistics, automotive components, after-market, information technology and infrastructure development. Mahindra has made an entry in the two-wheeler segment which will see the company emerge as a full-range player with a presence in almost every segment of the automobile industry.
The Mahindra Group recently expanded its IT portfolio when Tech Mahindra acquired the leading global business and information technology services company, Satyam Computer Services. The company is now known as Mahindra Satyam.
Mahindra's Farm Equipment Sector is the proud recipient of the Japan Quality Medal, the only tractor company worldwide to be bestowed this honour. It also holds the distinction of being the only tractor company worldwide to win the Deming Prize. The US based Reputation Institute recently ranked Mahindra among the top 10 Indian companies in its Global 200: The World's Best Corporate Reputations list.
Mahindra is also one of the few Indian companies to receive an A+ GRI checked rating for its first Sustainability Report for the year 2007-08. For more information, please visit www.mahindra.com
Press Contacts: Peepul PR
Gayatri Hingorani-Dewan: gayatri@mypeepul.com / 917.346.0551
High resolution photos are available upon request |
