Future Toh Bright Hai Ji is a refreshing Indian slapstick comedy of the sort I would like to see more of. It’s listed as drama, inexplicably. Okay, satire maybe, but drama? I had the best time watching this movie. It was funny and uplifting.

Aamir Bashir as Ajay and Sonal Sehgal as Sonia kill it as a struggling writer and B starlet in an Indian Soap, two Kashmir ex-pats who dream of making it in Bollywood.

Married four years and tired of living in a crappy apartment in a crappy section of Mumbai with work opportunities going nowhere, an incidental visit to an astrologer who promises them a turnaround of their lives within seven days, we follow the young couple through the maze of bureaucracy and the threat of the underworld and more. This movie becomes a rollercoast ride through urban culture and the spontaneity of Aamir Bashir’s and Sonal Sehgal’s acting just brings it home what it means to be small timers in Mumbai’s bubbling entertainment industry. “Think Big, not Small” says the agent to Ajay as she is rejecting his script. This might be a small independent film but it shines pretty bright for its size.

Future Toh Bright Hai Ji is a great ensemble effort. It’s loaded with personable characters that stay with you. Not to be missed.

I put my money on Sanjay Amar, the writer/ director of this refreshing tale. If he is dreaming big, he might very well be on his way :-) If you enjoy Indian new wave cinema, you are going to enjoy this one.

Cast & Crew

Cast

Aamir Bashir
Sonal Sehgal
Asrani
Satish Kaushik
Vipin Sharma
Delnaaz Irani

Directors

Sanjay Amar

Producers

Rama Mehrotra

Writers

Sanjay Amar

A well deserved honor for the accomplished Orissa-born filmmaker. Mira Nair was my introduction into Indian films in 1991, watching Mississippi Masala with a young Denzel Washington and Sarita Choudhury. I still love this movie. And I love Mira Nair, whose voice is bold, unapologetic and poetic at the same time. The Namesake is perhaps my favorite. I must have watched it 100 times over. Mira Nair work covers two continents, the merging of cultures, ancient and new. She weaves together the different tapestries, but her heart beats to the tabla and sings to the sitar.

Congrats, Mira Nair!!

NEW YORK FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS INDUCTS
MICHAEL FINDLAY, ELLIOT GOLDENTHAL, MIRA NAIR AND FRED WILSON
INTO THE NYFA HALL OF FAME

The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) is proud to announce that author and co-director of the Acquavella Gallery Michael Findlay, composer Elliot Goldenthal, filmmaker Mira Nair and visual artist Fred Wilson will be inducted into the NYFA Hall of Fame on Tuesday, April 23^rd at Espace (635 West 42^nd Street). The evening begins at 6:30 with a cocktail reception featuring interactive art by past and current NYFA grantees, followed by dinner and remarks from all the honorees. Tickets start at $500 and tables at $5,000; tickets for the Young Patrons After party, which begins at 9:30, are $250. Tickets and tables at all levels can be purchased at www.nyfa.org.

The NYFA Hall of Fame was created to both honor the work of artists to whom NYFA provided critical support early in their careers and recognize philanthropists and patrons of the arts who have had an impact of the City’s cultural community. Past honorees include: Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio; Todd Haynes; Christian Marclay; Kathleen O’Grady; Suzan-Lori Parks; Wendy Perron; Ben Rodriguez-Cubenas, and Andres Serrano. Bios of 2013 inductees:

Michael Findlay (Patron of the Arts) is the Co-Director of Acquavella Galleries, which specializes in Impressionist and Modern European works of art and post-war American painting and sculpture. In 1973 Findlay helped organize an art auction at Sotheby Parke-Bernet to benefit survivors of the Nicaraguan earthquake and since then has been involved in many such fund-raising activities. As Vice President of the Art Dealers Association of America, Findlay assisted in the recent appeal that raised over a million dollars to benefit non-profit and commercial galleries devastated by Hurricane Sandy. His book The Value of Art was published by Prestel Publishing in 2012. Mr. Findlay will be introduced by visual artist Billy Sullivan.

Elliot Goldenthal (NYFA Fellow in Music Composition, 1989) creates works for orchestra, theater, opera, ballet and film. Most recently he scored Julie Taymor’s film version of The Tempest. In 2003, he was honored with the Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for the score to Taymor’s film Frida. In 2006, Goldenthal’s original two-act opera Grendel, directed by Taymor, premiered at the Los Angeles Opera and was a finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in music. He was commissioned by the American Ballet Theatre to compose a three-act ballet of Othello, which debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in May 1997. Additionally, Goldenthal has been nominated for three Oscars, two Golden Globe Awards, three Grammy Awards and two Tony Awards. Mr. Goldenthal will be introduced by soprano Jessye Norman.

Mira Nair (NYFA Fellow in Film, 1988) is the writer, director, and producer. At the University of Delhi she started out in the theater department acting, but turned to photography and eventually to documentary filmmaking at Harvard.

thebollywoodaddict

Bollywood movies from a Non-Indian perspective

Monthly Archives: April 2013

The Future (hopefully) Toh Bright Hai Ji – for Sanjay Amar.