With the works of veteran film makers such as Shyam Benegal (Bose, the Forgotten Hero) and Deepa Mehta (Heaven on Earth), as well as first-timers such as Sooni Taraporevala (Little Zizou), the 2008 edition of the Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council Film Festival in New York has a menu of beguiling features and documentaries to suit all tastes.
The Ramayana remains ever popular across the globe, and now it has gone to Broadway, finds Arthur J Pais.
The Jain Temple in Bartlett, Illinois, which serves over 6,000 people in the greater Chicago area, is one of the first big Jain temples in North America. And recently, during the Paryushan Parva celebration, it raised $2 million in just two days -- half of it in donations and the rest in interest-free loans. These funds should help expand temple facilities on its 15.4-acre property.
The Akshaya Patra Foundation, which provides free and nutritious meals to nearly a million children in government schools in half-a-dozen Indian states, last week made a $7 million commitment to feed an additional 100,000 schoolchildren. The organisation made the pledge at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York last week.
Producer Ashok Amritraj discusses his new film with Arthur J Pais.
Maitri, one of the first organisations in America aiming to empower South Asian women, raised over $500,000 at a fundraiser in Milpitas, California.
For many years, the Nathan family in suburban Washington, DC harboured a secret. Soon after the weekend visit to the Hindu temple, the family sneaked into McDonald's and feasted on burgers.
Paramount Pictures which had a strong summer season -- with Iron Man, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and Kung Fu Panda -- is enjoying an extraordinary success with the multiple versions DVD sale of Iron Man. According to the box-office tracking The-numbers.com, the DVD sets grossed $93 million in North America in the first week.
Maitri, the 16-year-old San Francisco organisation, is looking to expand its work not only with abused South Asian women but also young people in the community who could face violence from their partners, or students who may become victims of violence from their peers.
Sadia Sheperd digs deep into her roots in her memorable new memoir
The film, which cost just about $60 million (one third the budget of The Dark Knight) crossed $500 million mark worldwide this weekend, and with several territories including Japan to open in the next few months, the musical could end its run with $600 million worldwide.
A study of a dysfunctional family, Rachael Getting Married doesn't have the intensity director Jonathan Demmy's Oscar winning films like Philadelphia and The Silence of the Lambs offered. But this modestly budgeted film, which was one of the critics' favourites at the recent Toronto International Film Festival and endeared itself to the audiences too, has enough drama and a handful of excellent performances to be a hit with upscale audiences.
On Friday, along with his friends Bryant 'Preacher' Moss and Mohammed 'Mo' Amer, Usman will be seen in more than a dozen theatres in a new film, Allah Made Me Funny. The film being released by a small distributor could add more cities and theatres if the word of mouth is strong and the first week's collections hold promise.
From speed dating to listening to thought provoking talks by professor Tarun Khanna of the Harvard Business School, over 800 members of the Network of Indian Professionals recently spent three days in Boston.
Naseeruddin Shah and Om Puri are getting plenty of praise for their work in the thriller, Shoot On Sight, but the film itself isn't going anywhere, especially in America.
After writing and directing the hugely popular movie about a bunch of male strippers, Simon Beaufoy, directed the Anil Kapoor starrer Slumdog Millionaire. He recounts how he went about it and how India continues to amaze him.
Singh was not really the Kinng when it came to competing with Slumdog Millionaire, the underdog saga shot entirely in Mumbai, which won the People's Choice Award at the end of the 33rd Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) last weekend. Akshay Kumar's film was one of the 250 feature films from more than 60 countries, eligible for the award.
Danny Boyle, who has directed some of Hollywood's best known names like Leonardo DiCaprio (The Beach) and Cameron Diaz (A Life Less Ordinary), just directed Dev Patel and Anil Kapoor in Slumdog Millionaire.
Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire, starring Anil Kapoor and Dev Patel, gets terrific reviews at the ongoing Toronto International Film Festival.
Padma Viswanathan discusses her semi-biographical novel The Toss of a Lemon with rediff India Abroad's Arthur J Pais.
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