Our Bureau
New York, NY
Presented by Toyota Motor North America for the second time, the 7th annual Dallas/Fort Worth South Asian Film Festival (DFW SAFF) and the 3rd annual New York City South Asian Film Festival (NYC SAFF), produced by Texas, New York and India-based media conglomerate, JINGO Ventures, will showcase an identical lineup of 23 finely-curated shorts, documentaries and feature films in downtown Dallas and Manhattan during consecutive weekends in October.
“Typically, we host our Dallas festival in the spring and our New York festival in the fall,” said Festivals Founder and Director Jitin Hingorani, “but because of the ongoing pandemic and the travel restrictions around it, we decided to host both festivals back-to-back in the fall, so that we can highlight the same set of films and fly in the same talent for both festivals. We’ve also added a virtual festival, after our two physical festivals, because our online programming during the 2020 lockdown was so successful and attracted an astounding number of cinephiles across North America.”
“After the incredible success of our partnership with DFW SAFF and NYC SAFF in 2019, we are excited to partner with Jitin and his team once again,” said Kelsey Charles, sponsorship integration, integrated marketing operations, Toyota Motor North America. “At Toyota, we celebrate cultural diversity in all that we do, and we look forward to growing our support of the South Asian community in Dallas and New York City.”
The opening, centerpiece and closing nights films at DFW SAFF & NYC SAFF are Geeta Malik’s comedy INDIA SWEET AND SPICES, Gaurav Madan’s drama BARAH BY BARAH and Ajitesh Sharma’s documentary WOMB (Women Of My Billion).
The festivals boast FOUR world premieres, EIGHT North American premieres and 11 Texas/NYC premieres. Highlights over the THREE days include:
World premiere of Rajaram Rajendran’s sci-fi thriller RANI RANI RANI, starring independent cinema queen Tannishtha Chatterjee in the titular, TRIPLE roles.
The grande dame of Indian cinema, Farrukh Jaffar (of GULABO SITABO and PEEPLI LIVE fame), takes on Bollywood’s patriarchy in the North American Premiere of Sandeep Kumar’s MEHRUNISA.
One of Mindy Kaling’s favorite films of the year is Sujata Day’s Indo-American, model minority satire DEFINITION PLEASE, having its Dallas and NYC premieres at our festivals.
International festival premiere of Abhiroop Basu’s short film, LAALI, starring Pankaj Tripathi as a lonely, Calcutta laundryman who finds solace in an unclaimed red dress left behind by a customer.
Faraz Arif Ansari’s lesbian short SHEER QORMA, starring Shabana Azmi, Divya Dutta and Swara Bhaskar, as part of the festival’s LBGTQIA+ programming. Ansari and Dutta will be in attendance.
