by Alex Deleon

The 11th Annual Indian Film festival of los Angeles (IFFLA) opened on Tuesday, April 9, at the usual venue, the Arclight Cinemas in Hollywood, with a gala screening and reception for "Gangs of Wasseypur". Director Anurag Kashyap was in attendance to host a Q&A session after the screening and greet well-wishers at the followng party. "Gangs of Wasseypur" achieved instant notoriety when it was screened in Cannes last year in the "Directors Fortnight" section (Quinzaine de realisateurs) and chalked up rave reviews. Since then it has become probably the most discussed Indian film of the year. Essentially this is a quasi-documentary about feuding Mafia type families that might be compared to Coppola's Godfather trilogy all rolled into one, and seems to be signalling a new direction in Bollywood - away from glossy song and dance star vehicles toward a kind of in-your-face realism with no holds barred. Until now Wasseypur was a backwater township not even marked on most Indian maps. By virtue of Anurag Kashyap's efforts it has suddenly  become a name to be reckoned with in the international film community. Until now director Kashyap has been regarded in Bollywood as more or less of a marginal maverick specializing in controversial themed projects employing lesser known actors. With the suprising international success of Wasseypur it will not be surpising if the big banners in Bollywood now try to lure him into making some films with their own box ofice stars. Remains to be seen... 

Other features on the agenda this year make this one of the most interesting festivals in recent memory.  On tap are a Sneak Preview of Mira Nair's new political thriller "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" (with an international cast running from Kiefer Sutherland to Shabana Azmi) and the festival closer will be Deepa Mehta's filmization of Salman's Rushdie's latest novel "Midnight's Children". Cast includes Seema Biswas, Shabana Azmi, and Anupam Kher in a drama involving newborn babies switched on the very eve of India's Independence.  Salman himself wrote the screenplay.

Filling out the program is a tribute to director Yash Chopra, the "King of Romance", who died suddenly in October at age 80 just after completing his last film. ("As long As There is Life"). The three Yash classics, all landmarks of Bollywood romantic cinema are: "Chandni", 1989, the film that made Sri Devi (Inglish-Vinglish) into a super star; "Silsila" (1981), a daring film for its time addressing the question of adultery (between Rekha and Amitabh Bachchan), and "Kabhi Kabhie", (1976), with an all-star cast of the seventies. Catch up time for Bollywood fans who have only seen such evergreen gems on DVD.

Other intriguing titles include: "Filmistan" debut feature by Nitin Kakkar, about a Hindi actor who is taken prisoner by Pakistani terrorists and, playing on their love for Bollywood movies, is able to win their friendship! --and "Eega" a Telugu language resurrection drama in which a woman rejected in this life returns as a Fly (sic !) to bug her ex-lover.

An unusual full length documentary will be "Celluloid Man" recounting the career of P.K.Nair, the legendary founder of the National Film archive of India, who devoted his entire life to the preservation of Indian films when no one else saw their value as a cultural legacy. The fact that India has a cinematic heritage to speak of is the single-handed achievement of this man. In the course of the film many luminaries of Indian cinema are interviewed making this a kind of living compendium of Indian film history. Sounds unmissable to me. Festival director Christina Marouda can always be counted on to assemble a unique sampling of Indian films, past and present, not to be seen elsewhere, and the 2013 assemblage is possibly the best yet.

A scene from "Midnight's Children" by Deepa Mehta

based on the Salman Rushdie novel