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In Jakarta, Indian film festival aims at Bollywood and beyond
Dance fever: The Indian Film Festival will present Sooraj R
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span class="caption">Dance fever: The Indian Film Festival will present Sooraj R. Barjatya's charming 1999 film Hum Saath-Saath Hain (We Stand United), which features a score by Raamlaxman. Courtesy of Box Television
Get ready for a week of thrillers, historical epics and comedies, and, of course, singing and dancing, as the Indian Embassy in Jakarta presents a week-long festival to celebrate the centenary year of Indian cinema.
The man behind the festival is Gurjit Singh, India's ambassador to Indonesia, Timor Leste and ASEAN.
Singh is also a movie fan ' a huge movie fan ' easily switching between discussing his take on the best Bollywood films released this year or the emergence of Amitabh Bachchan as an alternative actor in the 1970s.
He relaxes into his chair and smiles when he talks about movies. 'Bollywood is not cinema, you see. Bollywood is life. We live it every day,' Singh says. 'Good, bad, evil, sin, joy, sorrow, violence, peace, love, romance, disunity, discord in families ' everything comes in one movie.'
The festival will open with an invitation-only event at the Four Seasons hotel on Monday night, with a Bollywood-inspired dance and fashion show featuring the works of local designer Didiet Maulana, who will be presenting Indonesian-infused designs using ikat that the embassy imported from India.
Snippets from the first Indian feature film, the silent movie Raja Harishchandra, made in 1913, will be shown, while an exhibition of 50 classic posters from Indian cinema at the hotel will also be launched on Monday night.
'An Indian film poster is a legend by itself,' Singh says. 'Just as Indian films are bigger than reality, the posters are bigger than the films.'
Not to be missed: A scene from Pyassa (Thirst) from 1957, which Ambassador Singh describes as a film made before its time. Courtesy of TIFF
The embassy is sponsoring free screenings of 15 films from Sept. 23 to 27 at the CinemaXXI at Plaza Senayan in Senayan, South Jakarta, capped by a special screening of Unni Vijayan's 2012 film Lessons in Forgetting at the embassy on Sept. 28.
While knowing where to start is always a challenge, the ambassador recommends catching Guru Dutt's 'immortal' Pyaasa (Thirst), from 1957, about the travails of a struggling poet.
Singh says Pyaasa was a film made before its time. 'The movie was a commercial flop ' but technically, it is so good that even today everyone watches it for its technical values. An amazing film.'
Also on the ambassador's short list is Sholay (Embers), directed by Ramesh Sippy in 1975. The film ' made during a period of 'intense political drama' in India, according to Singh ' is a tale of revenge and justice starring Dharmendra, Sanjeev Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan.
Sholay is also widely regarded as the best Bollywood film ever made. 'Here comes this movie, which shows the angst of youth and how they want to change the system through individual action - not good for a democracy, right?' Singh says. 'But then, that was the Amitabh Bachchan of the 1970s ' the angry young man, fed up with the system.'
Also on the calendar are modern classics.
For example, on Thursday night the festival will present the Victorian-era sports epic Lagaan (Land Tax), which focuses on the residents of a village who decide to settle their tax bill through a cricket match against British colonial officials.
Meanwhile, the blockbuster Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (Something Happens in My Heart) with Shah Rukh Khan will be screened on Friday.
On guests, the ambassador says that Sujoy Ghosh, the director of last year's Kahaani (Story) should be on hand on Tuesday evening for the screening of his award-winning and widely acclaimed suspense thriller.
Ghosh is also slated to join a panel discussion on Wednesday between officials, producers and filmmakers from India and Indonesia, including Rajiv Kumar Jain, who runs the film festivals directorate for the Indian government; Lala Timothy, who produced Joko Anwar's Modus Anomalie; and Raam Punjaabi, the head of Multivision Plus.
The ambassador hopes that the discussion will create a framework for creating a co-productions agreement between the Indian and Indonesian film industries. Singh says that Malaysia, Mauritius, Singapore, the Seychelles, South Africa, Switzerland and the UK have all been locations for Bollywood films ' and have all received a subsequent bump in tourism numbers.
'Missing from all this is Indonesia,' Singh says. 'This is a lost opportunity. India-Indonesian tourism is very small. It can benefit a lot from this kind of thing.'
The festival will close with a concert from Shankar.Ehsaan.Loy at Skeeno Hall at Gandaria City on Sept. 29. The trio, known as 'the firebrand of Indian music', is making its first tour of Southeast Asia.
It's a must-not-miss event for fans. The group has composed or contributed to more than 50 soundtracks that include some of Bollywood's biggest films, such as Kal Ho Naa Ho and My Name Is Khan, as well writing 'Aaj Ki Raat', which was used in the UK-produced Slumdog Milionaire.
In the meantime, don't be surprised if you see the ambassador in the aisle seat when there's a Bollywood film screening in Jakarta.
'I go [to] see all of them,' Singh laughs. 'Sometimes my wife says 'Why did you bring me to see this movie?' I said, 'It's because I see all the movies!''
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Visit @IndianEmbJkt on Twitter or Indianembassyjakarta on Facebook for schedule information and kiostix.com for Shankar.Ehsaan. Loy tickets
