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You can take Indians out of Bollywood but you certainly can't take Bollywood out of Indians! As inheritors of a powerful cinematic tradition and a film industry which is the largest in the world with over 700 films being churned out annually, it was just a matter of time before Indian immigrants on foreign shores started documenting their own stories on celluloid.

LOVE AND LONGING IN DELHI: A still from Monsoon Wedding

Ten films and four plays were on the menu of a visual feast presented to New York audiences last month by The Indo-American Arts Council (IAAC) in two festivals which ran back to back-the Indian Diaspora Film Festival and Indian Plays in the Diaspora (see story). "'Diaspora' means any scattering of people outside their homeland," says Aroon Shivdasani, director of IAAC, "and the film and theatre festival showed exactly that. The works were of Indian content-made by or written by Indians or about Indians."

North America Special Role Rehearsal Can a South Asian man who dreams of becoming a famous French chef find happiness through Indian cooking? What would Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice be like if it were set in the South Asian community of Culver City, CA? What is the price of a "good life" for an immigrant family hung up on television, technology and multibillion-dollar deals? All these tantalising questions were taken head-on in a handful of staged readings by playwrights at Indian Plays in the Diaspora, a New York collaboration between the Indo-American Arts Council (IAAC) and the Lark Theater Company. The exercise to showcase the work of Indian-American playwrights took on a diasporic dimension when submissions came in from India and Britain. Eventually three plays were chosen and read during the three-day festival at the Lark Theater. The idea was to put together a team of directors and dramaturges who would support the playwrights during the actual rehearsal process and help them acquire a fresh perspective at their own effort. "That's the thing about theater," says Michael Johnson Chase, director of Lark. "You can't write a play in a vacuum. At various points in the process you need to have the play reflected back at you to know if it's working. The plays of all three playwrights grew as a result of this process." Along with the play readings, audiences also got to hear a first reading of Tandoori Blue Eyes, a screenplay that actor-writer Aasif Mandvi is developing with screenwriter Jonathan Bines; Shishir Kurup's Merchant of Venice that turns the Shakespearean play on its ear by introducing South Asian characters into the mix; David Freeman's A First Class Man, which explores the life of mathematician Ramanujam at Cambridge University; and Queen of the Remote Control, written by Los Angeles-based author Sujata Bhatt and directed by award-winning actress Madhur Jaffrey. "Now there are so many more Indian stories that the thrill no longer needs to be, 'Look, we're up there', but rather can we move on to pushing our stories, art and range further," says Bhatt. -LM

The film festival at Loews Theater, Lincoln Square, showcased the works of noted filmmakers along side that of upcoming and novice filmmakers from the US, India and Canada. "We wanted to make the larger American community aware of our cinema and bring in a whole new audience," says Shivdasani. Apart from a colourful mix of old and new films, the festival included insightful discussions with many of the filmmakers.

The opening film was, aptly enough, Shakespeare Wallah (1965), which had firmly put Ismail Merchant and James Ivory on the international map. The duo, along with actress Madhur Jaffrey who won the best actress award at Berlin, were present at the opening night party at the Atrium and were presented with shawls by singer Harry Belafonte "for maintaining the arts and crafts with integrity and humanity at a time when we are faced with so much mindlessness, trivia and negativity. We need this, we need to know things about other people and other cultures."

The festival bill included the work of Indians who call two continents home. There was Mira Nair's My Own Country (1998) based on Abraham Verghese's poignant book about a young Indian doctor's encounters with aids patients in the Midwest; Harish Saluja's The Journey (1997), that examines the culture clashes when a retired schoolteacher from India joins his son in rural Pennsylvania; and Nisha Ganatra's Chutney Popcorn (1999), which buoyantly takes on the clash of cultures.

The festival marked the world premiere of several films including Nagesh Kukunoor's Bollywood Calling featuring Om Puri as a typical desi film-producer amid the colourful chaos of the Hindi film industry. Also premiering at the festival was Mitr-My Friend, directed by noted south Indian actress Revathy with an all-female crew. The film takes a humorous look at the isolated life of an immigrant in San Francisco, her clashes with her teenaged Americanised daughter and how the two finally arrive at a new sense of self and family.

A Passage to Ottawa tells the tale of Omi, a young Indian boy who journeys to Ottawa in search of a super hero to save his dying mother. The award-winning film is a first-time effort by a team of diasporic filmmakers: produced by Canadians Rajendra Gupta and Rashmi Rekha, directed by Gaurav Seth who came to Canada via Russia and India, and written by New Yorker Jameel Khaja.

There were also films by non-Indian filmmakers, which touched upon the Indian experience: Hunt Hoe's Seducing Maarya with Mohan Agashe and newcomer Nandana Sen, and Tony Gerber's Side Streets with an international cast of Shashi Kapoor, Shabana Azmi and Art Malik.

DINNER DATE: Still from The Journey

The biggest crowd puller was, however, Mira Nair's Monsoon Wedding, a warm and intimate story about love in Delhi. A larger auditorium was needed to accommodate the crowds and people were even sitting in the aisles. The film, featuring Naseeruddin Shah and Lillete Dubey, was shot with a handheld camera.

The Indian Diaspora was a modest festival but generated considerable interest. In fact, submissions have already started pouring in for next year. Says Shivdasani, "The Indian community is such a valid, viable community in North America-it contributes so much to the talent and multiculturalism of New York City-that it's important to create awareness and develop mainstream audiences."