Full programme announced for 2017 Edinburgh Asian Film Festival
Festival brings a hand-picked selection of the best in contemporary Asian filmmaking to Filmhouse Edinburgh 24 – 26 March
Highlights include gala opening screening of Mango Dreams and the wildly engaging look at four Indian women seeking a life away from docile domesticity in the controversial Lipstick Under My Burkha
At Filmhouse Edinburgh from 24 – 26 March 2017, the festival offers a selection of the best in contemporary Asian filmmaking and fascinating post-film guest Q&As hand-picked by Tongues on Fire, hosts of the 19 year old London Asian Film Festival.
A host of Scottish premieres sit alongside the first chance for Edinburgh audiences to see the winner of the Glasgow Film Festival 2017 Audience Award and Oxfam’s inaugural Best Film on Gender Equality Award Lipstick Under My Burkha. Renowned filmmaker Mark Cousins dubbed films which screened at the inaugural 2016 festival ‘a revelation’ and highlights from the 2017 programme include:
The opening gala screening of the richly humorous road movie Mango Dreams. Salim, a Muslim rickshaw driver takes an elderly Hindu doctor, an escapee of the British partition of India, for a final trip back to his former home in Pakistan; sharing their haunting past with each other, the pair forge a warm-hearted friendship
The Threshold, an emotional look at the day in the life of an older couple, living in the picturesque Himalayas, whose own relationship is tested in the aftermath of their son’s wedding
Mantostaan, a dark historical satire on the 1947 India-Pakistan partition, based on the controversial short stories of critically-acclaimed Urdu writer Saadat Hassan Manto. The director Rahat Kazmi will be live in Edinburgh for an exclusive Q&A after the screening.
Afghanistan’s official Oscar entry Utopia, following an Afghan woman as she travels to the U.K. for artificial insemination. Complications arise when a British student at the infertility clinic decides to swap the donor semen for his own and the woman finds out that he is from a family with a long history of military conflict in her homeland. The film’s Aberdeen-based director Hassan Nazer will attend the screening
One of the most talked-about Indian films of 2017 closes the festival – the colourful and wildly engaging Lipstick Under My Burkha. First-time director Alankrita Shivastava tells the stories of four Indian women seeking more from life than docile domesticity. Young mother Shirin feels she must hide her professional success from her husband; ambitious beautician Leela takes the lead with her Muslim boyfriend even as her family arranges her marriage to a nice Hindi boy; college girl Rehana is the Cinderella figure of the quartet whilst the older, irrepressible Auntie Usha sets her sights on a hunky swimming instructor.
Dr Ashvin Devasundaram, Creative Director of Edinburgh Asian Film Festival said: “I am delighted to invite you to the 2nd Edinburgh Asian Film Festival (EAFF 2017), which returns to the Filmhouse with a treasure trove of contemporary South Asian Cinema. EAFF continues to push boundaries and blur borders. On the 70th anniversary of the India-Pakistan Partition, this year’s films reflect on the theme of separation, through cinematic evocations of the rupturing event and its reverberations in contemporary India, Pakistan and beyond. The festival features a panoply of Scottish premieres including a captivating film from Afghanistan. Following its warm reception by Edinburgh cinephiles last year, EAFF 2017 promises a vibrant, variegated, immersive and uplifting experience.”
Organised by Tongues on Fire and Filmhouse, the programme is supported by BFI, using funds from the National Lottery.
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
