This year The Bagri Foundation London Indian Film Festival to be held between July 16-23 will kick off with Sundance winner Umrika and the hard-hitting cricket documentary Death of a Gentleman to close festival…reports Asian Lite.
The London Indian Film Festival (LIFF) has unveiled yet another promising line-up for the 2015 edition of the hugely popular festival.
Indian-origin filmmaker Prashant Nair’s award-winning ‘Umrika’ – starring ‘Life of Pi’ star Suraj Sharma – and the cricket docu-drama ‘Death of a Gentleman’ will book-end the 6th edition of the 7-day Festival which begins 16 July.
The stunning ‘Umrika’ – a play on how ‘America’ is pronounced in parts of the sub-continent – tells the story of an impoverished young Indian boy and his fascination with the apparent utopia that is ‘Umrika’.
The film won the Audience Award for World Cinema at Sundance earlier this year.
‘Death of a Gentleman’ meanwhile, will reach to the heart of cricket fans everywhere.Written, produced and directed by the well-known cricket journalists Sam Collins and Jarrod Kimber the film examines the threat posed to Test Cricket – the “purest form of the second most popular sport on earth” – by everything from the Indian Premier League, Kevin Pietersen’s attitude and Lalit Modi’s shenanigans.
Collins and Kimber travel across the cricketing world, talking to players, ex-players, broadcasters, journalists, administrators and fans and make some startling revelations along the way.
Other highlights of LIFF 2015 include ‘Gour Hari Dastaan: The Freedom File’, directed by Ananth Mahadevan and which tells the story of the wronged Indian freedom fighter Gour Haridas; ‘Saari Raat’, the debut Hindi-language feature by National Award-winning writer, director and actress Aparna Sen; ‘31 October’, a film about the bloody riots sparked by the assassination of Indira Gandhi, starring Soha Ali Khan and Vir Das, and Tamil filmmaker M. Manikandan’s ‘Slumdog Millionaire’-esque ‘The Crow’s Egg’, which explores life inside a Chennai slum.
LIFF 2015 also features appearances by the likes of Tamil legend Mani Ratnam, Konkona Sen Sharma and director Ananth Mahadevan.
More information on the event at www.londonindianfilmfestival.co.uk