From gangster action to loving elderly couple
Photo: Village Rockstars 2
The London Indian Film Festival, 16-23 July
Europe’s largest annual Indian film event returns with the UK premiere of high-action gangster film Little Jaffna, with a rookie cop going undercover to infiltrate Tamil gangs battling it out in the mean streets of Paris.
Aligning with the 100th birth year of legendary British theatre impresario Peter Brooks is the festival’s Central Gala with the UK premiere of the filmic version restoration of one of his most famed works, the interpretation of the greatest Indian epic story of love, philosophy and warfare, The Mahabharata, told as a story that encompasses all humankind.
Director Rima Das’ films return to the festival with the smoulderingly powerful Village Rockstars 2, about an Assamese teenager who holds onto her childhood dreams, only to confront the many challenges facing young people in rural India today, from threats of floods to holding her family together. The delightful Boong tells of a disobedient schoolboy’s ambition to mend his broken family in Manipur, naively risking his safety to cross into Myanmar in search of his missing dad.
Set in the Himalayas, Pyre is a sumptuously photographed story about a deeply in love elderly couple struggling to survive in a changing mountain society.
The festival celebrates emerging British Asian talent with a new industry event in collaboration with RIFCO Theatre, to encourage more UK South Asians into the industry and explore co-production. This is accompanied by the festival’s popular programme of Brit-Asian shorts.
The festival will be followed by our new Indian gaming showcase, the South Asian Gaming Zone, in partnership with FORMAT GG on 30 October.
Cary Rajinder Sawhney, CEO & programming director, London Indian Film Festival