Arab, Iranian & Asian Video Festival Shorts II

3rd I NY and Alwan present CROSSING OutLINES: Arab, Iranian & Asian Video Festival. 3rd I NY is a monthly film and music salon showcasing independent filmmakers and dj’s/musicians of South Asia and South Asian descent. 3rd I NY is affiliated with 3rd I, a national network with chapters in San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington D.C. 3rd I is committed to promoting diverse images of South Asians through
independent film. Alwan seeks to promote the arts and culture of Iran and the Arab World. Alwan has chapters in New York, Washington, D.C. and Houston.

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SHORTS II

Seven Hours To Burn: Shanti Thakur, Canada/USA, 1999, 9 min.

Filmmaker Thakur mixes richly abstract filmmaking with disturbing archival war footage to narrate the story of her Danish mother’s and Indian father’s experiences. Her mother survives Nazi-occupied Denmark while her father experiences the devastating Partition riots in India between Hindus and Muslims. Both emigres to Canada, they meet and marry, linking two parallel genocides.

Turbans: Erika Surat Anderson, USA, 2000, 30 min.

Based on the memoirs of the filmmaker’s grandmother, “Turbans” explores the inner struggles of an Asian Indian immigrant family torn between their cultural traditions and the desire for social acceptance in America. Although born in the United States, the Singh boys are attacked for being different. The turbans they wear, a tradition sacred to their Sikh ancestors, serve only to identify them as outsiders in the prejudiced landscape of Astoria, Oregon circa 1918.

My Mother India: Safina Oberoi, Australia, 2001, 52 min.

A passionate documentary told by the child of a mixed marriage, Safina Oberoi’s film tells the story of her Australian mother, Patricia, who married an Indian Professor and went to live with him in India in the 1960s. Although the film starts off as a humorous and lighthearted documentary about an eccentric, multicultural family, it unfolds into a complex commentary on the social, political and religious events of the anti-Sikh riots of 1984.

Part of the Arab, Iranian & Asian Video Festival.