What Do You Know?

Big on Bollywood
Coming soon on the heels of the Oscars is the Bollywood Awards; a NYC-based ceremony masterminded by Kamal Dandona, an expat desi of great entrepreneurial resources. A one-time chairman of the US wing of the Congress party and Rajiv Gandhi loyalist, Dandona is wooing Bollywood in style these days. The awards night had its premiere last year with the star list including names such as Michael Jackson and Andrew Lloyd Webber rubbing shoulders and egos with Shah Rukh Khan (who reportedly charged Rs 75 lakh for his appearance) and Shekhar Kapur.

This year the awards are to be held on May 26, and Dandona hopes to attract an audience of more than 20,000 at the event. "Many big name stars have agreed to come and we expect a well produced show," says this maverick that is also promoting a Planet Hollywood-style restaurant in mid-town Manhattan, for Bollywood addicts. Zee TV has bought the telecasting rights to cover this year’s awards and will be flying down a crew from India to produce the show. If done correctly this awards night can do much to promote the Bollywood masala into mainstream US media.

Silver Lining
Paul Lee, the Canadian-Chinese producer of this year’s Silver Conch winner at MIFF, The Offering, was on a whirlwind tour of Bombay. In a recent email to me he said he had "a nice stay in Bombay … a bit rushed and hectic, but it only took me about 36 hours to get over the culture shock. Bombay is so much like Hong Kong that I almost laughed out loud many times a day at the amazing similarities. It reminded me a lot of the Hong Kong I knew when I was growing up there, plus all the elements that I’ve grown to dislike about Hong Kong: the noise, congestion, pollution, widespread dire poverty in parts of the city.

The frenetic energy of the city caught me by surprise, again reminding me of HK and NYC. When I think of India I tend to remember the more tranquil and laid-back atmosphere of Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Gangtok (which Lee has visited in the past)." Lee plans to re-visit Bombay soon, hopefully to make a film. "It was a shame that I had to leave 15 hours before the festival’s closing ceremony, as I found out after my return that The Offering was awarded the Silver Conch and a Rs 100,000 award. Too bad I wasn’t there to accept the award in person, I never thought I’d win anything with all the nice films I saw at the festival." MIFF’s international reputation meanwhile grows by leaps and bounds and has become a hot ticket. It would do well to become an annual event (oft proposed but still not implemented) and invite the Sundance Channel to participate in it the next time round. Films Division and the Indian Documentary Producers Association have seldom got things right in the past, but with MIFF they are ona strong wicket.

Riyad Wadia, avant garde film-maker, is at home in New York.