EXCLUSIVE: Veteran filmmakers Imitiaz Ali and Onir are among the many friends confirmed to attend this 12 months’s UK Asian Movie Pageant, which runs Thursday 1st – Sunday eleventh Might at venues throughout London, Leicester, and Coventry.
The competition’s opening gala will happen on the BFI Southbank and can function the European premiere of the anthology flick My Melbourne (2024). Described as a “daring and shifting celebration of variety,” the anthology explores identification, belonging and resilience by way of 4 true tales of underrepresented voices in Australia—a queer man reconnecting along with his father; a deaf dancer chasing her dream; a meals blogger bonding with a homeless poet; and a refugee lady discovering hope by way of cricket. Administrators on the undertaking are Onir, Rima Das, Imtiaz Ali, and Kabir Khan.
The closing movie would be the London premiere of The Glassworker (2024), the Oscar-nominated animated function from director Usman Riaz. The movie’s synopsis reads: As warfare looms, a gifted glassmaker and his father see their world disrupted by a military colonel and his violinist daughter. When love blossoms between the younger artists, they have to discover the braveness to face as much as their fathers. The closing evening gala can even function the UK Asian Movie Pageant Awards presentation. As a part of the ceremony, music producer and composer Biddu will obtain the Golden Flame Lifetime Achievement Award.
Elsewhere, the competition will host a live performance on the Harrow Arts Centre on Friday, ninth Might, to rejoice the centennial of the legendary Raj Kapoor, greatest often called the best showman of Indian cinema. Performers set for the occasion embody Rekha and Chirag Rao.
The LGBTQ strand at this 12 months’s occasion will embody a screening of We Are Faheem and Karun (2024), the primary Kashmiri-language function to centre on a LGBTQ romance. The movie follows the story of an opportunity encounter between a South Indian officer and a neighborhood Kashmiri man that blossoms into a young, secret romance within the border village of Gurez.
Artists set for the competition’s Q&A periods embody filmmaker Sandhya Suri, novelist Shobhaa De, and filmmaker Yavar Abbas.
Discussing this 12 months’s lineup, UK Asian Movie Pageant Inventive Director Samir Bhamra described the occasion as a “cinematic homecoming” for its guests.
“Whether or not it’s a poetic highway journey in Parikrama, a riotous Gujarati comedy in Jai Mata Ji, or the shimmering legacy of Raj Kapoor, these movies embody the deep ache to seek out the place we belong,” Bhamra stated. “Most powerfully, they’re pushed by British Asian creatives now shaping world narratives. That is the 12 months to point out up, be seen, and really feel each beat of our collective story—on the large display screen, the place it actually belongs.”
