Indian reels from around the world screen in Hollywood

The Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles celebrates its fifth year with films that increase awareness and understanding of India and the Indian diaspora, made by Indian and international filmmakers. Given below is the schedule for this year’s film festival.

April 17 Tuesday
Opening Night Gala. Provoked. In a case that redefined the seriousness of spousal battery in British courts, a Punjabi woman fights for her freedom after being imprisoned for the murder of her abusive husband. Director: Jag Mundhra. 7:30 p.m.

April 18 Wednesday
Shorts Program 1. Screening of short films – Printed Rainbow, Bare, Gandhi at the Bat, Monsoon, Anamika – her glorious Past, Morning Fog. 7:30 p.m.
Valley of Flowers, a great Asian love story. A mesmerizing Himalayan epic that spans two centuries, from the Silk Route to modern-day Tokyo. Director: Pan Nalin. 8:15 p.m.
Q2P, Look at the toilet… see the city. The silence that surrounds toilets is broken in this examination of the state of women’s public restrooms in Mumbai. Director: Paromita Vohra. 9: 30 p.m. Dirty Laundry. From Gandhi’s political awakening, to the anti-apartheid movement, this film looks at the important role South African activists of Indian decent have played in their country’s political history. Director: Sanjeev Chatterjee. 9: 30 p.m.

April 19 Thursday
Shorts Program 2. Screening of short films – Name Day, Shanu Taxi, Arranging Love, Tea Break, Pot of Gold, Undisputed. 7 p.m.
Life is all about friends (Unni). Award winning filmmaker, Murali Nair offers this coming-of-age story examining caste, friendship, and loss among four friends in rural India. Director: Murali Nair. 7:15 p.m.
Tribute to Deepti Naval. Moderated discussion with Deepti Naval followed by the screening of the film, Kamla. A tribal slave girl who is brought to the city by a manipulative news reporter looking to prove the existence of the flesh trade in modern India, creates ripples in the capital through her story, upsetting the reporter’s life. Director: Jag Mundhra. 8-9:15 p.m.
Screenings of Horizons, Mumtaz, Pray for me Brother, and Foundation and Empire. 9:15-10 p.m.
Bollywood by Night: Omkara. Vishal Bhardwaj transforms Shakespeare’s classic Othello to an Indian landscape in a high tension psychological drama of political and personal warfare that garners deadly consequences. Director: Vishal Bharadwaj. 10 p.m.

April 20 Friday
Outsourced. An American call center salesman whose department has been outsourced is coerced into training the company’s new Indian recruits in the idiosyncrasies of American culture and business practices. Director: John Jeffcoat. 7-7:15 p.m.
Tribute Feature: Chashme Buddoor. In this romantic comedy, three roommates vie for the affections of the new girl next door, but only one holds the key to her heart. Director: Sai Paranjpye. 7:15 p.m.
Are you alright Afghanistan? An Indian filmmaker who grew up in Afghanistan as a teenager returns to the country after twenty-six years, retracing definitive memo
ries of his youth in a country ravaged by war. Director: Soumitra Ranade. 8:30 p.m.Art in Exile. Tibetan artists living in exile in Dharamsala, India use art to keep their identity and the ‘Free Tibet’ movement alive. Directors: Nidhi Tuli and Ashraf Abbas. 8:30 p.m.
Missed Call. Aspiring filmmaker Gaurav Sengupta lives his life through the viewfinder of his camcorder. He struggles to juggle familial demands with his passion for filmmaking. When he finds love in Gayatri, and the camera begins to threaten his future with her, he must decide whether to let go or to continue telling his story. Directors: Mridul Toosidass and Vinay Subramanian. 9:30-10 p.m.
Bollywood by Night: Deewar. Two brothers, one an exemplary cop and the other a criminal, face off on a moral battlefield where even the fierce love of the mother they both adore may not be able to salvage the bonds that fate has torn asunder. Director: Yash Chopra. 10 p.m.

April 21 Saturday
Shorts Program 1 (repeat screenings from April 18). 1:30 p.m.
Divided we Fall: Americans in the Aftermath. The film follows the journey of a Sikh American student as she drives across the country in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, documenting stories of hate, violence and discrimination against Sikhs in America. Director: Sharat Raju. 4 p.m.
Office Tigers. The young, passionate executives of Office Tiger, a professional support services company in Chennai, brews fierce in-house competition among employees to ensure customer satisfaction to its clientele in the West. Director: Liz Mermin. 6:30 p.m.
Kya Tum ho? A lonely housewife, professor, and an internet café owner try to overcome their past and put their lives in perspective, while forging new alliances through an internet chat room. Director: Anish S. Ahluwalia. 9 p.m.
Bollywood by Night: Mr. India. A struggling musician who dedicates his life to caring for orphaned children finds himself faced with the task of saving the nation from an international terrorist who will stop at nothing to destroy and take over India, all with the help of a short-tempered journalist, a hoard of kids, and a secret gadget that defies human vision. Director: Shekhar Kapur. 10 p.m.

April 22 Sunday
Life is all about friends (Unni). (Repeat screening from April 19). Director: Murali Nair. 12 p.m.
Shorts Program 2 (Repeat screenings from April 19). 1:30 p.m.
1000 days and a dream. Kerala community activists organize and struggle against corporations, politicians, and police in their attempt to shut down a Coca-Cola bottling plant that is poisoning their lands and children. Directors: P. Baburaj and C. Saratchandran. 3:45 p.m.
Closing Night Gala and screening of Vanaja. Set in rural South India, a place where social barriers are built stronger than fort walls, Vanaja explores the chasm that divides classes as a young girl struggles to come of age and secure her destiny as a classical dancer. Director: Rajnesh Domalpalli. 7 p.m.

All film screenings held at ArcLight Cinemas, 6360 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles. More details at www.indianfilmfestival.org