Film Festival features Indian movies

THE Durban International Film Festival will end on Sunday. Some of the offerings include:

The short film The Dance, featuring Kajal Bagwandeen, is about a young woman named Vidya, who, against her mother’s wishes, heads for Durban with her boyfriend and dance partner.

While there, Vidya gets immersed in a new lifestyle and her choices lead to a tragic end. The movie, which also features Rory Booth and Mishqah Parthiephal, will be screened at various cinemas

on Friday and Saturday.

Million Dollar Arm follows a once-successful sports agent named JB Bernstein, who finds himself edged out by younger, slicker competitors. While watching cricket being played in India on late night TV, he comes up with an idea so radical it just might work.

Why not go to India and find the next baseball pitching sensation? Setting off for Mumbai, JB stages a televised, nationwide competition.

About 40 000 hopefuls compete and two 18-year-old finalists, Rinku and Dinesh, emerge as the winners.

But JB’s job really begins when he returns to America to try to get the two young men signed to a major baseball league. Hindi with English subtitles. The movie will be screened on Saturday at Suncoast.

The Lunchbox tells the story of an isolated housewife named Ila, who is worried about her relationship with her distant husband and sets out to seduce him through the exotic ingredients of her delectably prepared meals. The lunchbox, however, gets delivered to the wrong desk.

It is sent to a middle aged widower named Saajan and she begins to exchange notes with the stranger.

They begin an innocent friendship but it soon turns deeper. The Lunchbox brings Mumbai to life but deals with universal themes.

Hindi with English subtitles. The film will be screened on Saturday at Suncoast. For details on the abovementioned screenings, and others, log on to the website: www.durbanfilmfest.co.za