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| Aug. 6, 2005. 09:05 AM | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Filmi spotlights South Asian cinema Organizers are proud of their GTA roots PRITHI YELAJA STAFF REPORTER When Filmi, Toronto's South Asian film festival, launched six years ago, the main draw wasn't the movies — it was the tandoori chicken, pulao rice, naan and samosa. During the one-day festival in 2000, moviegoers got a real deal: Screenings of three films by up-and-coming South Asian filmmakers and all the Indian food they could eat, all for $25. "It was because of the Indian food that 300 people, mostly friends and family, showed up. After that, we gained momentum, and it's gotten bigger every year since," says Dinesh Sachdev, who founded Filmi along with Mohit Rajhan. The two used $1,000 of their own money to front the festival — the first of its kind in North America. Since then, they've been featured in The Times of India for their pioneering work. Filmi, which got a record 85 submissions this year, kicked off last night and runs through next Saturday. Expected to attract 5,000 people, it will feature 50 films, mostly by independent filmmakers, over nine days. Building on Filmi's success, a dozen such festivals have popped up in cities like Seattle, Los Angeles, Dallas and New York, though Toronto's remains the biggest outside India. "There's an element of Bollywood in the festival, but we don't go totally masala," says the high-energy, disarmingly direct Sachdev, who practises kung fu to help cope with the stress of running the festival. He does have the support of a platoon of dedicated volunteers, but "it's a logistical nightmare to program all these films," he says. The lineup has something for everyone, from a "mockumentary" about a has-been Bollywood actor trying to make a comeback to a real documentary about the slaying of a Sri Lankan human rights activist and a sci-fi short about society's obsession with online culture. Mumbai director Piyush Jha's King of Bollywood opened the festival to a packed house at Harbourfront last night. The comedy, which stars legendary Indian actor Om Puri playing an aging Bollywood star trying to resurrect his glory days, plus British supermodel Sophie Dahl, will be shown again next Friday at the Royal Ontario Museum. "Wherever I go, if I say I'm from India, the first thing people ask me about is Bollywood. It's like a new cultural identity," says Jha, 35, a self-taught filmmaker who quit a lucrative job in advertising with Procter & Gamble in India to make films. With King of Bollywood, Jha uses a mockumentary format to poke fun at the whole Bollywood scene. While some movies that come out of Mumbai's tinseltown, like Lagaan, are brilliant, according to Jha, he finds the majority wanting. Jha, who counts Woody Allen, Rob Reiner and Edward Burns as his directorial role models, filmed King of Bollywood primarily in England, in 36 days and on a budget of $5 million. "I'm trying to create an international genre of films that bridges east and west," says Jha, who hopes to begin shooting his next film, a romantic comedy pairing a Bollywood actress with a Hollywood actor, this fall in Toronto. Toronto filmmaker Richie Mehta will show his eighth short film at the festival. System of Units, a 22-minute film shot in seven days, explores a futuristic world where computers are installed in people's heads so everyone is online and nobody talks anymore. "I've always been fascinated with the idea that as technology grows, we're actually saying less and less to each other," says Mehta, who points out that people today tend to exchange email addresses when they first meet, rather than phone numbers. "Email is less personal. You don't have to reveal yourself and there's less risk in relationships." Filmi has been key to his success, says Mehta, 26, who studied film at Sheridan College. "It's opened a lot of doors and connected me with a whole South Asian arts community." Having showcased his work at Filmi, Mehta has been invited to other festivals and has sold his films to distributors, enabling him to make a living at it. "One of the really cool things about this festival is that it gets around the issue of typecasting. South Asians are versatile and we're making films that are relevant to everyone, not just South Asians," says Mehta, who incorporates elements of his ethnicity in all his films. For example, the leading actors in his science-fiction film are South Asian.
For a complete listing of films and times, visit http://www.filmi.org/. › Get great home delivery subscription deals here! | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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