9th Indian Film Festival to Present Dramatic Feature Films, Shorts and Documentaries

HOUSTON: In its ninth edition, the annual Indian Film Festival will present feature films, documentaries and short films that will appeal to both South Asian and mainstream audiences. The festival will take place October 6-7 at the Asia Society Texas Center.

“The films submitted this year reflect the historic changes in the world today and illustrate courage, art and a defense of human rights and expression through unique and personal perspectives that touch the heart and soul,” explained Sutapa Ghosh, Founder and Festival Director.

Descriptions on the films screened on Friday, October 6 are available in Indo-American edition published on September 22. On Saturday, October 7, presentations will include a short film at 4 pm, followed by a feature film at 4:35 pm. A documentary and a Q&A session follow at 7:30 pm.

Azaad. A 31-min. short film by director Rahul Chittela will be screened Saturday, October 7, 2017 at 4 pm. Produced in Hindi with English subtitles, “Azaad” is set against the socio-political backdrop of present day India. The short film unfurls the story of a dysfunctional relationship between a father and his son, within 48 hours of the father going missing.

“Azaad” is Rahul V. Chittella’s debut short film. He is an independent producer and director based in Mumbai, India, who has worked with prolific filmmaker, Mira Nair, as her creative associate and producing partner. Chittela is the director and executive producer for the “Global Lives Project, India” and has worked with the United Nations Documentary Program. He was awarded the Media Citizen Karmaveer Puraskaar in India for his contribution to projects that have used media for social change.

Kshitij: A Horizon. A 100-min. feature film, will be screened Saturday, October 7, 2017, 4:35 pm. Directed by Manouj Kadaamh, the film was produced in Marathi with English subtitles.
“Kshitij” is a story of 12 year-old girl’s struggle to continue her education in the face of severe adversity. Poverty forces her family to leave their village and go to a neighboring town to do back breaking labor in sugarcane fields.  The girl, Vacchi, continues to quietly find time to study amidst days filled with hard toil, much to the irritation of her father a simple farmer who has very little sympathy of understanding for her aspiration.

The Argumentative Indian. The 60-min. documentary film will be screened on Saturday, October 7, 2017, 7:30 pm, followed by a Q&A session. Directed by Suman Ghosh, the film was produced in Bengali with English subtitles.

This documentary traces the life and work of India’s Renaissance man and Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen. Widely regarded as one of the greatest living intellectuals of the world, the film explores his formative years and their influence on his views of the world—both past and present.
Director Suman Ghosh is a National Award winning filmmaker, who got his film training at Cornell University in New York. He also has a PhD in Economics from Cornell. Ghosh has made six feature films and one documentary film, all of which have been highly acclaimed. His first feature film “Footsteps” won two National Awards. In “The Argumentative Indian”, Ghosh presents Amartya Sen as a person whose vast intellectual vistas range from Sanskrit to modern political movements and whose greatness consists of the amalgam of such disparate topics and fields.

Tickets for Houston’s 9th Indian Film Festival are available at www.iffhinc.org.