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The Final Inch (38 min) English/Hindi (with English subtitles) Oscar nomination in the category of Best Documentary (Short Film) Saturday, August 15th, 10:00 AM, UCSF Genentech Hall, 600 16th St, San Francisco Director : Irene Taylor Brodsky The Final Inch is a film about the historic global effort to eradicate polio. Here, the story told is as much about the messengers as the message. You'll meet Munzareen Fatima, one of the thousands of community "foot soldiers" across India working to sway reluctant families to vaccinate their children, and Dr. Ashfaq Bhat, who travels into the backwaters of India's Ganges Basin by boat and foot to detect emerging cases of polio. Martha Mason and Mikail Davenport bring us into their lives and describe the paralyzing challenges of childhood polio, reminding us how endemic polio once was in the United States. Trailer |
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Water (117 min) Hindi (with English subtitles) Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film of the Year Saturday, August 15th, 10:00 AM, UCSF Genentech Hall, 600 16th St, San Francisco Director : Deepa Mehta In 1938, Gandhi's party is making inroads in women's rights. Chuyia, a child already married but living with her parents, becomes a widow. By tradition, she is unceremoniously left at a bare and impoverished widows' ashram, beside the Ganges during monsoon season. The ashram's leader pimps out Kalyani, a young and beautiful widow, for household funds. Narayan, a follower of Gandhi, falls in love with her. Can she break with tradition and religious teaching to marry him? The ashram's moral center is Shakuntala, deeply religious but conflicted about her fate. Can she protect Kalyani or Chuyia? Amid all this water, is rebirth possible or does tradition drown all? Trailer |
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99 (135 min) Hindi (with English subtitles) Surprise hit of 2009. From the makers of cult-favorite Flavors. Saturday, August 15th, 1:00 PM, UCSF Genentech Hall, 600 16th St, San Francisco Directors : Raj Nidimoru, Krishna DK Cast: Boman Irani, Cyrus Broacha, Kunal Khemu, Soha Ali Khan, Mahesh Manjrekar, Vinod Khanna 99 is an original story inspired by real events. It is the story of two men in two cities who are bound by a common feeling of always being stuck at '99'. They never seem to make it to a 'century' - in life. It involves small-time crooks, conspiracies, car crashes, a briefcase full of money and a historical controversy brewing in the background.The Comedy with a mix of thriller is the heartbeat of the script with all the characters been placed well. Set in the time period of year 1999, showcasing all the events happened during that time revolving around the controversial, India-South Africa cricket betting scandal. Trailer |
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Sita Sings the Blues (82 min) English Best Picture at the Annecy Animated Film Festival Saturday, August 15th, 5:00 PM, Mission Cultural Center, 2868 Mission St (between 24th and 25th), San Francisco Director : Nina Paley Betty Boop meets bhangra in Nina Paley’s celebrated first feature-length film, which updates the ancient Sanskrit epic Ramayana by weaving the settings of San Francisco’s Potrero Hill and ancient India with the traditions of shadow puppetry, 1920s-era American torch-singing and Bollywood. The film begins with Paley blissfully slumbering in San Francisco with boyfriend and cat: life is good. But, when said boyfriend takes a job in India, painful matters of the heart ensue. Composed of several narrative and musical threads, the film skips delightfully from era to era and style to style. The faceted aesthetic makes the film a true gem, as Paley turns her own breakup into fodder for a tongue-in-cheek update of the Ramayana—the story of the goddess Sita and her star-crossed relationship with Rama. Trailer |
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Smile Pinki (39 min) Hindi (with English subtitles) Oscar for Best Documentary (Short Film) Saturday, August 15th, 5:00 PM, Mission Cultural Center, 2868 Mission St (between 24th and 25th), San Francisco Director : Megan Mylan Pinki is a five-year-old girl from a village in the Mirzapur District, India, born into a desperately poor family, and with a cleft lip. Pinki never realized that this condition required just one simple operation until she met Pankaj, a social worker traveling from village to village gathering patients to go to hospital in Varanasi that provides free surgery to thousands each year. This real-world fairy tale follows its protagonist journey to a dream smile from isolation and shame. Trailer |
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Slumdog Millionaire (120 min) English/Hindi (with English subtitles) 8 Oscars for Best Achievement in Cinematography, Directing, Editing, Music, Sound and Writing Saturday, August 15th 9:00 PM, Mission Cultural Center, 2868 Mission St (between 24th and 25th), San Francisco Directors: Danny Boyle, Loveleen Tandan (co-director: India) The story of Jamal Malik, an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, who is about to experience the biggest day of his life. With the whole nation watching, he is just one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India's "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" But when the show breaks for the night, police arrest him on suspicion of cheating; how could a street kid know so much? Desperate to prove his innocence, Jamal tells the story of his life in the slum where he and his brother grew up, of their adventures together on the road, of vicious encounters with local gangs, and of Latika, the girl he loved and lost. Each chapter of his story reveals the key to the answer to one of the game show's questions. Each chapter of Jamal's increasingly layered story reveals where he learned the answers to the show's seemingly impossible quizzes. But one question remains a mystery: what is this young man with no apparent desire for riches really doing on the game show? When the new day dawns and Jamal returns to answer the final question, the Inspector and sixty million viewers are about to find out. At the heart of its storytelling lies the question of how anyone comes to know the things they know about life and love. Trailer |