Launch party @ The Carlton Club
Tuesday 21 June, 19.00
MIFF and Manchester India Partnership would like to warmly invite you to the official launch of this year’s Manchester Indian Film Festival!
We will be screening British Asian short ‘Yaha Waha’. A 30 minute documentary focusing on two artists from different sides of London and asks “what is it to be a second or third generation British Asian in 2020’s?”
Q&A Director Sarah Li and Anthony Pius (Bolly-Illusion)
Director: Sarah Li / With: Anthony Pius (Bolly-Illusion), Almas Badat
English / UK 2021 | 30 Mins
Poetry on Screen
Saturday 25 June, 12.00
MANCHESTER POETRY LIBRARY, MANCHESTER METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY
Live poetry recital from women from Deeplish Community Centre and poet Anjum Malik.
AT HOME – IN THE UK – ALHUMDULLILLAH
A GHAZAL POETRY FILM
Based on real stories shared with Manchester City Poet, Anjum Malik, this film is a privileged and intimate look into daily lives of Balqis Faroukh, Ayat Abo Al Jawz and Hayat Abouday as they dealt with the Lockdown and Ramadan together with their families.
Directed and written by Anjum Malik / Arabic and English
UK 2020 / 15 Mins
The Poetry Miles
During spring 2021, Cartwheel Arts collaborated with communities across Rochdale to develop The Poetry Miles project. Participants worked with writers Anjum Malik, Reese Williams and John Lindley to create new poems focusing on our connections, challenges and experiences throughout the pandemic. The poems were exhibited as a pavement jet-wash installation, by international artist Sumit Sarkar.
Director : Nick Farrimond / English and English Subtitles
UK 2021 / 12 Mins
Little English
Sunday 26 June, 15.30 | HOME
Manchester Mega Mela introduces Pravesh Kumar’s debut feature is a laugh-out-loud story of a dysfunctional Punjabi family in the pressure cooker life of a terraced suburban home in West London. Newly arrived from India, naive Simmy has come to marry the family’s eldest son Raj, who shockingly does a runner, leaving Simmy locked in the house by her domineering mother-in-law. However, Simmy is smarter than she appears, and soon enlists the support of the family’s disgruntled in-laws, including a sugar crazed, diabetic grandpa and dangerous, but hot, brother in law, fresh out of jail. Together they plan Simmy’s big escape.
Q&A with Pravesh Kumar, hosted by Ani Kaprekar
Director: Pravesh Kumar / With: Rameet Rauli, Viraj Juneja, Ameet Chana, Golday Notay
English | UK 2022 | 98 Mins
Ladies Only
Tuesday 28 June, 12.30 | HOME (Women Only Screening)
12.30 Screening includes live poetry recital from women from Deeplish Community Centre and poet Anjum Malik
Tuesday 28 June, 18.15 | HOME (All are Welcome)
‘What makes you angry?’ a filmmaker asks a woman traveller in the ‘Ladies Only’ compartments of Mumbai local trains running in and out of the main stations. The answers to this and many other questions are both insightful and surprising, highlighting the issues, hopes and struggles of womanhood in India today, in the face of the frenetic non-stop Mumbai lifestyle. The changing light, faces and languages creates a poetic rhythm flowing through this engrossing and must-see documentary.
Director: Rebana Liz John
Hindi with English subtitles | Germany, India 2021 | 79 Mins
Manchester Indian Film Festival champions equality; we invite all women, and anyone who identifies as a woman, to our women only screening of Ladies Only at 12:30.
Tickets : Ladies Only : 18.15 Screening
Mississippi Masala (BSL Screening)
Thursday 30 June, 12.30 | DUCIE STREET WAREHOUSE
Recognising the 50th anniversary of Asian expulsions from East Africa MIFF presents this glorious restoration of a much loved film. After Mina’s (Sarita Choudhury) Indian family is forced out of Uganda, they relocate to rural Mississippi to start a new life. Mina’s traditional family wants her to marry an Indian, but she falls for Demitrius (Denzel Washington), a handsome young carpet cleaner. However their budding relationship struggles to get off the ground as tensions rise and Mina is forced to choose between her love and her family. Mira Nair’s dazzling and heartfelt romance explores issues of race, class and privilege which are still pertinent today.
Director: Mira Nair / With: Denzel Washington, Sarita Choudhary, Roshan Seth
English | USA, UK 1991 | 118 Mins
Too Desi Too Queer
Thursday 30 June, 17.45 | HOME
We are delighted to return with our hit ‘Too Desi Too Queer’ shorts programme, exploring images of the lives, experiences and well-being of South Asian LGBTQIA+ communities in the Subcontinent and diaspora, through a dynamic and thought-provoking selection of recent LGBTQIA+ short films.
Intro with Riz Ali (they/them) a queer, South Asian artist, playwright, writer and poet. And Yvy DeLuca (she/her) is a South Asian trans writer, performer and activist.
Begum Parvathi / Director: Radhika Prasidha | 8 mins | Malayalam
Queer Parivaar / Director: Shiva Raichandani | 25 mins | English
Trinity / Director: Hetain Patel | 23 mins | English, Gujarati
Muhafiz (The Protector) / Director: Pradipta Ray | 20 mins | Hindi
My Mother’s Girlfriend / Director: Arun Fulara | 15 mins | Marathi/Hindi
Americanish
Friday 1 July, 19.00 | DUCIE STREET WAREHOUSE
Set in Jackson Heights NY, a heartwarming comedy about a first generation immigrant Pakistani mom (Lilette Dubey), is still recovering from her husband dumping her and the girls years ago. She is now conflicted by the tradition of getting her grown daughters, Maryam and Sam, hitched to suitable Pakistani boys. None too impressed by the young men who come to dinner at mom’s, they decide to take matters into their own hands.
Live poetry recital from women from Deeplish Community Centre and poet Anjum Malik
Director: Iman Zawahry / With: Aizzah Fatima, Shenaz Treasury, Lillete Dubey
English | USA 2021 | 91 Mins
No Land’s Man
Monday 4 July, 18.15 | HOME
In 2019, a man named Naveen (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) disappears from a memorial park in Sydney while travelling with his girlfriend Cathy. Flashback to New York two years earlier, Naveen finds a job at a restaurant where he meets Cathy, but he is never able to truly be himself, struggling to forge an identity as a migrant in the city. As their relationship deepens, Naveen’s lies begin to catch up with him and unable to tell the truth about anything including his name and nationality, his relationship with Cathy is put to the test and his own existence questioned. One of leading figures of new Bangladeshi cinema, Farooki’s latest is a stirring tale of a man desperately seeking to manufacture an identity in a new place that will allow him to just exist.
Live poetry recital from women from Deeplish Community Centre and poet Anjum Malik
Director: Mostofa Sarwar Farooki / With: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Eisha Chopra, Megan Mitchell
English, Hindi, Urdu, French, Bengali with English subtitles | USA, India, Bangladesh, Australia 2021 | 101 Mins
Closing Night Gala
Superfan: The Nav Bhatia Story
Wednesday 6 July, 18.00 | EVERYMAN
Manchester Giants introduces a unique and uplifting documentary focusing on the life of the Toronto Raptors biggest fan, Nav Bhatia and the massive impact he has had on the city’s basketball community. The film charts his journey to Canada as a low income immigrant worker from India and how his relentless passion for life not only built his career, but as he came into contact with basketball for the first time, quickly expanded into supporting a struggling team. Bhatia not only inspired the players, but inspired generations to get into the sport and has brought together the city’s black and South Asian communities and he is the first fan ever to receive a NBA Playoff Finals Ring, the biggest prize in basketball. This is a film that is bound to leave everyone who sees it with a smile on their face and in their hearts.
Director: Amar Wala
Canada 2021 | 50 Mins | Hindi, Gujarati, English with English subtitles
Manchester Indian Film Festival have a selection of films available to watch online during the festival at loveliffathome.com
The following films are online screenings for 48 hours only, except where indicated.
Satyajit Ray Short Film Competition
The festival’s annual Satyajit Ray Short Film Competition is a rare chance to see the works of talented and emerging filmmakers who are exploring themes of South Asian experience, that also in different ways reflect the humanist ideals of the legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray. The winner will be announced on 3rd July.
We Make Film
• Director: Shweta Ghosh
• English, Hindi, Bengali with English subtitles
• UK, India 2021 | 80 Mins
Dr. Shweta Gosh delves into the stories of film and video makers with disabilities in India and the inaccessibility and barriers to film consumption and education, and how the they find ways to articulate their creative vision. This inspiring and uplifting film discusses why it’s so important the film sector is more open to differently abled people.
Girls for the Future
• Director: Irja Von Bernstoff
• English, Hindi, Indonesian with English subtitles
• Australia, Germany, India, Indonesia,
• Senegal 2021 | 88 Mins
Girls For Future is an inspiring doc about four young front line activists, aged between 11 and 14 years old from Indonesia, Senegal, India and Australia. They represent the voice of a new generation directly affected by the climate crisis and environmental degradation at their doorstep. These four young women show tremendous endeavour, courage and power as they take on the government officials and established norms and try to bring about real world solutions to restore and protect their family and homelands, and our global climate.
Chasing Sustainability: Tales from South Asia
• Directors: Sidra Altaf, Omkar Khandagale & Aditya Thakkar and Joel Elias
• Bengali, Hindi, English with English subtitles
• UK, India, Pakistan 2021 | 76 Mins
A collection of short films curated by Dr. Anjali Jayakumar looking at the effect climate change has on the people and ecosystem of South Asia, from the mangroves and sea life of Karachi, the droughts of Maharashtra that have affected the livelihoods of sugar plantation workers to the farms of Kerala and the impact environmental regulations have had on their lives.
Moving Upstream: Ganga
• Director: Shridhar Sudhir
• Bengali, Hindi, English with English subtitles
• India 2021 | 105 Mins
Filmed over six months on a 2,500km walk along the River Ganges, this stunning documentary explores the idea of walking in this fast paced modern world and man’s evolving relationship with the natural world and bringing a much needed spotlight on the voices and concerns of the communities that depend on India’s greatest watercourse.
Taangh (Longing)
• Director: Bani Singh
• English
• India 2022 | 89 Mins
