Venues: Fath Auditorium at the Cincinnati Art Museum (Free Parking)
Freedom Center
Esquire Theater, Ludlow ( Free Parking with Validation)
Mariemont Theatre ( Free Parking)
Kenwood Theatre ( Free Parking)
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Synopsis: Anne is investigating the life of her grand-aunt Olivia, whose destiny has always been shrouded with scandal. The search leads back to the early 1920s, when Olivia, recently married to Douglas, a civil servant in the colonial administration, comes to live with him in India. Slowly, Olivia becomes fascinated by India and by the local ruler, a nawab who combines British distinction with Indian pomp and ruthlessness. This fascination is not without risks: the region is being ransacked by a group of sanguinary bandits, and intrigues are opposing the prejudiced British community led by Major Minnies and Dr. Saunders against the nawab. As Anne delves into the history of her grand-aunt, she is led to reconsider her own life.
Listen to Director Leena Yadav (Film Parched), 9:30 AM Thursday, 6th Sept at the Lindner Center, (atheletics Building) Main Campus Univ of Cincinnati.
September 06, 2018
“Economic and Social Challenges of Independent Directors from South Asia in the Face of Global Distribution Giants”, Sept 6 at 9:30AM With Award-Winning Director, Producer, and Writer Leena Yadav
Read about her
Panel discussion to follow.
SINAM ( 1:00 PM, Thursday, September 6, Freedom Center)
September 06, 2018
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Synopsis :The call is unsuspecting and it piques the interest of a documentary film-maker, when the caller identifies her as a prostitute. And shocks her when she says that her father is the reason why she finds herself in a brothel today.
When Durga, the film-maker visits Shakthi, the prostitute, we get to hear the story of the travails of a woman, named after an Indian Goddess confessing her story to another that bears a similar name. Of another Goddess! This ironical subtlety forms the bedrock of the narration, which is an account of anger (Sinam) prevailing over love.
TIKLI & LAXMI BOMB ( 2:00 PM, Thursday, September 6, Freedom Center)
September 06, 2018
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Synopsis :
Laxmi Malwankar is a sex worker in Mumbai working for nearly two decades. She's 40, jaded and at some level has a deep seeded loyalty towards Mhatre, the pimp, who takes care of all the girls on that street.Putul, 22, hails from Bangladesh and Mhatre has brought her to Laxmi to be taught the ropes.Putul is full of questions about how this system works and why all the men in this system of prostitution profess to provide protection but then end up becoming predators themselves. For Laxmi this is how the world works & her only advice to Putul is to quickly adapt to the ways of this world of men.Over time Putul is able to convince Laxmi that things need changing. Laxmi though still not convinced enough to take it up as her own cause decides to stand by Tikli thanks to a sequence of irrefutable events that occur on the street.Together they get to be known as Tikli and Laxmi Bomb and start off this mini revolution in which they set up a system for women, run by women, in which the final customer is a man but women run it the way they wantHow far are they able to go in this endeavor? How tall is their new organization able to grow before it becomes too big a threat for patriarchy to let it exist?Are they able to make a change that is permanent or another flash in the pan?
Living in the strata of society that is most oppressed by Patriarchy, as it doesn't even officially exist in India, can these girls actually forge a new path for sex workers in the country?
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Synopsis
Based on the critically acclaimed memoirs of British journalist Sathnam Sanghera. A touching, humorous and emotional rites-of-passage story. It's a lovely, understated performance by Anupam Kher as Sathnam's father. His is the stand-out, but all three leads are excellent. Deepti Naval as his mum – uneducated, wise, loving, suffocating. And by Sacha Dhawan as Sathnam.
SOUND OF SILENCE ( 10:00 AM, Saturday, September 8, Esquire Theatre)
September 08, 2018
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Synopsis
Set in a beautiful Himalayan valley, it’s a journey of a neglected and abandoned mute boy, who loses his mother at birth and is furiously neglected by his father. When his father goes behind bars, the boy stares at a lonely and deserted life ahead. His relationship with an elderly Buddhist monk helps him to detach from his voiceless suffering and to explore the bond that each creation shares with nature. With nowhere to go, he joins a Buddhist monastery even as he fights an inner battle of unrequited love.
September 08, 2018
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Synopsis
Following the trail of his missing ex-girlfriend, Jamie (Sam Keeley) discovers a remote monastery in the mountains founded by a guru with allegedly miraculous powers. As Jamie tries to pry secrets from the guru’s devoted acolytes (played by Kal Penn, Radhika Apte, and Oscar-winner Melissa Leo) he becomes more convinced that they know more about his lover’s disappearance than they’re telling him.
While employing the conventions of the religious cult thriller, Rekhi raises philosophical and metaphysical questions about the inherent corruption of those who seek power, even to do good, and the miracles of mindfulness. A star-studded cast headlines this story of mystical intrigue in the Himalayas with a twisty plot and startling climax that is sure to provoke discussion.
SUDHANI FROM NIGERIA (6:45 Pm, Saturday, 8th Sept 2018 at Envision Cinema, Blue Ash)
September 08, 2018
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Synopsis : Sudani from Nigeria is about a strength that's rarely celebrated in our increasingly aggressive world. The strength of compassion - what everyone, the most fragile of us, is capable of finding within. That this should be the discovery we make in a film that was sold to us as a sports movie, is all the more precious.
Zakariya's tender story is built on ordinary moments. A pompous man who shoots off Hindi to a Nigerian because that's his idea of speaking in an alien tongue; an elderly woman who confesses that she had no idea the Nigerian was called 'Samuel' and not 'Sudu' (short for 'Sudani' - how the local people refer to all Africans) after taking care of him for so long; even one of the most poignant scenes in the film, when Samuel (Samuel Abiola Robinson) paints a picture on the wall of the house he's staying in, is not drowned out in melodrama.
September 09, 2018
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Synopsis:
Based on William Shakespeare’s first tragedy, “Titus Andronicus,” There’s a primal appeal to the raw, blood-caked nastiness of its plotting and the themes of revenge and political treachery that would resurface in his later works. For “The Hungry,” writer-director Bornila Chatterjee tosses out the dialogue and updates the story to an estate in modern-day India, where a marriage of convenience around a business partnership turns into an all-consuming internecine battle. Yet the conceit is narrow and banal, losing not only the poetry of Shakespeare’s work but its populist charge, too, which is weakened by yawning gaps in the storytelling. Ultra-violence and incoherence stand to make a fraught marriage in worldwide markets.
September 09, 2018
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Synopsis:14 year old Ralph hasn't told his mother and step dad that he's tracked down his biological father. He shows up at Sid’s door and discovers his father is now a woman, but thinks having a transgender dad is pretty cool. Watch this hilarious film that is so uplifting. A life affirming film.
September 09, 2018
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Synopsis:It’s a story of Yamuna, who comes to Mumbai from a small town on the Maharashtra — Karnataka border, with her son Lahanya, after a fallout with her husband. She stays with Chandrakka and after failing to find a job elsewhere, she starts working as a nude model at JJ School of Arts, a place where Chandrakka is already employed in the same capacity. It deals with the shame she faces initially, and the courage and confidence she finds eventually. It talks about her triumphs and disappointments, her hopes and regrets.
At another level, the film is about the place of art in our society. It recognizes our failing in recognizing the true beauty and art, and observes as we gradually turn into a society of hypocrites. The subtext becomes more evident in the post-intermission section. Leading to the climax, the film turns into a ruthless social critique.
September 10, 2018
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Synopsis: "Silhouettes" is a love story of opposites that unfolds over a series of conversations, in the spirit of "Before Sunset" and "Lost in Translation". Aamod is a retired executive and playboy who lives alone in his sprawling downtown Chicago apartment; Nadia is a whipsmart lawyer in transit to see her conservative Muslim parents for the first time in more than a decade. When her train is delayed, a chance encounter brings them together for a magical day in Chicago, wandering its secret corners and its most haunting spaces for a few fleeting hours. When you feel different, home is finding another outsider. What emerges through words is the power of their feelings for each other as Aamod grapples with whether he can let go of a tragic secret and embrace a future with Nadia. "Silhouettes" confronts issues of race, identity and culture, forming a new chapter in the American love story.