The 16th edition of the New York Indian Film Festival (NYIFF) opened on Saturday night at Skirball Center for Performing Arts with the film Let’s Dance to the Rhythm, also the New York premiere of the 2015 Bardroy Baretto-directed Konkani-language film starring Vijay Maurya, Palomi Ghosh and Prince Jacob. Narrated through the emotional rollercoaster of a love story destined to tragedy, the film celebrates Goan music through the eyes of its eclectic's generation of musicians in the 1960s and 70s.The Konkani film takes place in the Goa, when the southwestern Indian state’s musicians performed in the jazz clubs of Mumbai and strongly influenced the music of Bollywood cinema. The central characters played by Lawry and vocalist Dona are patterned after Chris Perry, known in Goa as The Man with the Golden Trumpet, who introduced jazz to Konkani music and took it to a new level, and Lorna Cordeiro, The Goan Nightingale, whom Perry discovered. The plot of the film incorporates 20 popular Konkani songs from the period, mostly written by Perry, in an effort to spotlight the largely unrecognized contributions of the Goan musicians. “Let’s Dance to the Rhythm is a beautiful representation of another era, where jazz music flourished outside of the realms of the popular Hindi cinema of Mumbai. The film is a joyful celebration of the music, the energy and the musicians and it is a story that not many people know about. It is truly a happy film and a perfect way for us to launch the 16th edition of the New York Indian Film Festival,” says Film Festival Director Aseem Chhabra.Bollywood director Leena Yadav's film Parched, which was recently awarded at the Annual Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles, will also be screened during the festival. Parched is a story about women set in the heart of parched rural landscape of Gujarat, India. It traces the bittersweet tale of four ordinary women Rani, Lajjo, Bijli and Janaki. We see them unapologetically talk about men, sex and life as they struggle with their individual boundaries to face their demons and stage their own personal wars.Indian teenage comedy Brahman Naman, For the Love of a Man, a documentary exploring the popularity of Tamil Superstar Rajinikanth and Good Ol’ Boy, a feel-good, coming-of-age story featuring actors Samrat Chakrabarti from Midnight’s Children and Poorna Jagannathan from Delhi Belly, Nirbhaya are some of the other films that have found a place in the festival.Renowned filmmaker Hansal Mehta will be closing the festival with his latest work, Aligarh. Director Mehta provides a look into the real life incident of Dr. Shrinivas Ramchandra Siras, who was suspended from his job because of his sexual orientation. Siras was the professor of Marathi at the Aligarh Muslim University. After successfully appealing his suspension, he died under suspicious circumstances.“We are thrilled to be able to share these films with the New York audience. Three of the feature films are National Award winners. And out of the nearly 40 shorts we are showing this year, there are two National Award winners,” adds Aseem.The NYIFF festival is widely recognized as the oldest, most prestigious Indian film festival in the United States, showcasing some of the greatest talents working in the diaspora. NYIFF is running from May 7 to 14 at a variety of prestigious New York City venues, including the Skirball Center for Performing Arts. The festival will feature 40 screenings (35 narrative, 5 documentary) - all seen for the first time in New York City. In addition, the festival will also feature five programs of short films.The festival highlights various cinemas of India's different regions. All the films are subtitled in English and some of the languages this year include Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Telegu, Assamese, Haryanavi and Urdu. This year’s festival will feature a couple of sidebars --NFDC restored first films of filmmakers and a three-generations sidebar, films of Bimal Roy, Basu Bhattacharya and Aditya Bhattacharya.Film Kaagaz Ki Kashti (paper boat) will be premiered at the festival. The movie traces the life journey of a down-to-earth, small-town boy, who made it big by breaking through the norms and the Ghazal scenario, by texturing traditional Ghazal singing with western instrumentation and making it simple and hummable, enticing new listeners into becoming Ghazal fans.Talking about the festival, IAAC founder Aroon Shivdasani says, “The 2016 festival features a wide array of films from all over the South Asian diaspora. This year our films reflect the reality of India, dealing both with LGBT issues that have surfaced in the supreme court and on the streets, as well as strong feminist films dealing with female infanticide, child marriage, domestic abuse, trafficking and several other key issues that affect women in a world that still leans towards chauvinism.” The New York Indian Film Festival is running from May 7 to May 14, 2016 at a variety of New York City venues, including the Skirball Center for Performing Arts.Follow@ARTINFOIndia
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