| |
|
|
Read about the recent NRI TV Film Awards ceremony!
|
|
|
|
The First NRI TV Film Awards
The first NRI TV Film Awards was held in grand style Sunday evening December 5th in New York City with over 600 invited guests which included prominent figures in the NRI community including Madhur Jaffrey, Consulate General Pramathesh Rath, Preeta Bansal, Sreenath Srinivasan, Kamal Dandana, Kanu Chauhan, Bharat Jotwani, Poonam Khubani and many others. Many Indian American filmmakers and their cast and crew attended this event and echoed the sentiments that this was a much-needed platform for their work.
Presented by H.R. Shah of TV Asia and Video Sound, this event celebrated and honored the work of Non Resident Indian talent in the world of entertainment. A production of the NRI TV Film Club, the Awards is a first step towards realization of a dream conceptualized by Tirlok Malik. A New York film producer and actor himself, Malik has long felt the need to unite all NRI talent and provide a common platform to them to express themselves. True to its logo, "To explore the artist in you!", Tirlok Malik came on stage with folded hands and invited the audience to explore this journey together with the artist and to nurture the NRI entertainment talent.
NRI TV Film Awards honored 15 films, on a non-competitive basis, made in the U.S which include Lonely in America, Arya, Little Magician, ABDC, Amercian Desi, Wings of Hope, Journey, Legally Desi, Carry on Papa, Leela, Flavors, Kehta Hai Dil Baar Baar, Piyu Gayo Pardesh, Trade-Offs, and American Addiction and many other NRI themed films were mentioned as a part of the show.
Modeled after the Academy Awards, the show included clips of films, introduction to new talent, live performances, and much more. Madhur Jaffrey, as Keynote Speaker, spoke about the importance of immigrant themed movies and the importance of filmmakers to "reach deep into their creative souls to give us something precious Cinema. A pure moving art". The rest of the event was hosted by actors including Samrat Chakrabarti, Amber Khan, Pooja Kumar , Manu Narayan of Bombay Dreams and Sreenath Srinivasan of SAJA.
Padma Khanna's group opened the show with a Saraswati Vandhana. Other performances included a song by Aalok Mehta, Anisha Nagarajan, and Deep Singh, a comedy act by Dan Nainan, monologue acts by Shetal Shah and Prashant Kumar, a Fusion Dance by Sejal Patel and Group and the show closed with a children's dance.
In between the award presentations and performances, audiences saw the complete picture of the past, present, future and potential of NRI cinema. First, there was a video montage showing clips from various movies to define what is NRI cinema. Later, audiences saw a brief history of NRI films dating back to 1981's West is West starring Ashutosh Gowarikar made by David Rathod and Girl from India made by Mickey Nivelli. Then in 1989 Tirlok Malik's Lonely in American reintroduced the NRI theme to audiences and inspired many filmmakers to make movies about NRIs. Finally, audiences were treated to a tribute to the internationally known NRI filmmakers including Ismail Merchant, Shekhar Kapur, M. Night Shyamalan, Mira Nair, Gurinder Chaddha and so on.
The Consulate General, Pramathesh Rath, honored HR Shah with a shawl presented by Tirlok Malik on behalf of NRI TV Film Club. The Consulate General also spoke at the event and said that this was great concept and much needed to nurture our talent. Preeta Bansal said that cinema is a very powerful medium and it is important to make films about NRI themes because NRIs can relate to them. Lal Dadlaney and Kishore Dadlaney of Video Sound offered their help to all filmmakers for distribution consultation. HR Shah said TV Asia was proud to present this event and in the tradition of TV Asia will continue to nurture the NRI entertainment community. Tirlok Malik closed the event with an invitation to the audience to explore and nurture the NRI entertainment community.
Television Premiere of NRI TV Film Awards on T.V. Asia
Sunday, January 23rd at 7:30pm ET, 4:30pm PT
Saturday, January 29th at 10:00pm PT
Sunday, January 30th at 1:00am, ET
|
