Now Reading
New York Film Festival to Feature Mira Nair’s ‘Mississippi Masala,’ Govindan Aravindan’s ‘Kummatty’

New York Film Festival to Feature Mira Nair’s ‘Mississippi Masala,’ Govindan Aravindan’s ‘Kummatty’

  • This year’s festival is returning to in-person screenings after going virtual last year and takes place Sept. 24 through Oct. 10.

This year’s New York Film Festival (NYFF) will include a revival of groundbreaking work from filmmakers, including Mira Nair, whose1991 film “Mississippi Masala,” is part of the lineup. Also featured in the section is the revival of Govindan Aravindan’s 1997 Malayalam film “Kummatty.”

NYFF says its revivals section “connects cinema’s historical significance and present-day cultural influence through a selection of world premieres of restorations, rarities, and more.” For Florence Almozini, FLC Senior Programmer at Large, “one of the biggest satisfactions of programming Revivals within this festival is looking back at cinematic treasures of the past and seeing their continuity and relevance with today’s cinema.”

Almost three decades after its release, “Mississippi Masala,” continues to be an incisive examination of race relations. Nair’s second feature stars Denzel Washington and Sarita Choudhury as Mina, an Ugandan Indian from Kampala whose family leaves Uganda after the implementation of Idi Amin’s policy of forcefully expelling all Asians from the country. They wind up in Greenwood, Mississippi, living with relatives and trying to reconcile the trauma of their involuntary exile with assimilating to American culture. Some 17 years pass before Mina falls for a self-employed carpet cleaner, Demetrius (Washington), and their romance puts them in conflict with the local Black and Indian American communities—not to mention Mina’s family. “At once a powerful parable and a deeply personal work,” NYFF says Nair’s “Mississippi Masala” “remains an incisive examination of race relations and the tension between passion and tradition.”

Govindan Aravindan’s fourth feature “Kummatty,” tells the tale of a trickster “bogeyman” who descends upon a village in Malabar year after year, drawing children whom he transforms into animals through sorcery. NYFF says the film embodies “a watershed moment in Indian film history,” and “is one of the great achievements of the Parallel Cinema, of which Aravindan was a key member.”

See Also

This year’s festival is returning to in-person screenings after going virtual last year. Presented by Film at Lincoln Center, the New York Film Festival takes place Sept. 24 through Oct. 10.

What's Your Reaction?
Excited
0
Happy
0
In Love
0
Not Sure
0
Silly
0
View Comments (0)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

© 2020 American Kahani LLC. All rights reserved.

The viewpoints expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions, viewpoints and editorial policies of American Kahani.
Scroll To Top