Bollywood Film Festival Begins Monday, Jan. 24, at LSU

BATON ROUGE – Starting on Monday, Jan. 24, the Bollywood Film Festival at LSU will screen movies from the Indian film industry. The film festival, sponsored by the LSU Department of English, International Studies and the Program for Study of Film and Media Arts, will take place on Mondays at 6 p.m. in Room 151 Coates Hall and is free and open to the public.
           

The Bollywood Film Festival kicks off with “Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge,” or “Brave Heart Takes the Bride,” which tells the story of Raj and Simran meeting on a European tour and falling in love, but the twist is that Simran has to return to India to marry her fiancé. Thus begins a classic Bollywood tale of reclaiming love amidst parental opposition.
          

In addition to the film series, dance instructor Subha Rajgopal will conduct a workshop on Bollywood dance on Wednesday, April 27, at 4 p.m. The venue will be determined in the near future. Following the workshop, Pallavi Rastogi, LSU English professor, will give a talk on Bollywood song and dance sequences. Indian refreshments will be served during the event.
           

The following is a schedule of screenings for the Bollywood Film Festival:

• Monday, Jan. 24: “Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge”
• Monday, Jan. 31: “Lagaan,” Part 1 – Nominated for the Best Foreign Language Oscar, Lagaan tells the story of the people of a small village in Victorian India who stake their future on a game of cricket against their ruthless British rulers.
• Monday, Feb. 7: “Lagaan,” Part 2
• Monday, Feb. 14: “Lajja,” Part 1 – Vaidehi, bride-to-be Mythili, theatre artist Janaki, and village midwife Ramdulari fight male chauvinism in a film based on, as well as a challenge to, the Sita myth.
• Monday, Feb. 21: “Lajja,” Part 2
• Monday, Feb. 28: “Bride and Prejudice” – A Bollywood update of Jane Austen’s classic tale, in which Mrs. Bakshi is eager to find suitable husbands for her four unmarried daughters.
• Monday, March 14: “Parineeta” – In this lavish cinematic extravaganza set in Calcutta in 1962, the lifelong romance between the orphaned Lolita and rich industrialist Sekhar is upset by the arrival of another man.
• Monday, March 21: “Omkara” – Bringing Othello to Bollywood, the grand Shakespearean themes of revenge and jealousy are framed against the politics of the contemporary Indian North.
• Monday, March 28: “Chak De India” – A disgraced hockey player returns to the sport scene as the coach of the Indian women’s hockey team and leads them to Olympic glory.  
• Monday, April 4: “Peepli Live” – This biting political satire depicts the media circus that results when a farmer contemplates committing suicide to benefit from a government program.
             

For more information, contact Rastogi at prastogi@lsu.edu.