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September 28 - October 11, 2002

SALAAM, Geeta Citygirl, Artistic Director
invites you to
The Actor as Activist:
Celebrating Shabana Azmi

The Actor as Activist: Celebrating Shabana Azmi is a special retrospective program of the 40th New York Film Festival presented in collaboration with the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival with Ms. Azmi to appear in person opening weekend!

Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center
165 West 65th Street
between Broadway and Amsterdam
Manhattan, NY 10023
Tickets - http://www.filmlinc.com
Phone: 212-875-5600 starting August 23rd, 2002

Tickets: $9.50
($7.00 for students and $4.50 for Senior Citizens on weekdays before 6PM)

Since her first major screen role, as Lakshmi in Shyam Benegal's Ankur, Shabana Azmi has generated an intensity that makes it impossible to take your eyes off her.   By her mid-twenties she had become perhaps the most recognized star of the New Indian Cinema, working regularly in art cinema, Bollywood and foreign films. As if 60-odd films in a 30-year career were not enough, Shabana Azmi has also found time to devote to politics as a Member of the Indian Parliament.  Her work as a political advocate for the disadvantaged can be seen as an extension of her work as an actress; so often Shabana Azmi has portrayed women discovering how to stand up to the many forces that seek to oppress them.

The Film Society of Lincoln Center is very proud to present this 13-film tribute to Shabana Azmi and look forward to welcoming Ms. Azmi in person on September 28 and 29, where she will introduce and discuss her films, including Ankur and Fire.

A complete schedule of films is below.

The Seedling / Ankur
Shyam Benegal, India, 1973; 134m
Shabana Azmi burst onto the Indian film scene with her smoldering performance in this widely hailed landmark of Indian cinema. Surya (Anant Nag), a pampered college student sent to take over his family's properties in the countryside drifts into an affair with Lakshmi (Azmi), a married servant. When Lakshmi becomes pregnant, Surya is forced to confront some harsh truths about himself and status in this rural universe.
Sat Sept 28: 1pm and 7pm; Mon Sept 30: 6:30pm; Sun Oct 6: 8:15pm

Godmother
Vinay Shukla, India, 1999; 150m
An explosive look at caste, class, and gender conflict, Godmother focuses on a couple, Rambhi (Shabana Azmi) and Veeram (Milind Gunaji).  Displaced from their traditional lands, Veeram and Rambhi stand up to authority and become local heroes. A stirring concoction of song-and-dance numbers with a harsh exposé of the divisions that tear communities apart, Godmother shows Shabana Azmi working brilliantly in a more popular format.
Sat Sept 28: 3:45pm; Mon Sept 30: 3:30pm and 9:15pm

Fire
Deepa Mehta, Canada/India, 1996; 108m
A tender and passionate love story develops in the dark recesses of a traditional New Delhi household, signaling the slow and painful dissolution of the old order. A compelling, sometimes shocking, and very contemporary story of women breaking the bonds of obedience, fidelity, and silence. Shown at the 1996 New York Film Festival, Fire became a great international success.
Sun Sep 29: 2pm; Thu Oct 3: 6:30pm; Fri Oct 4: 9:15pm

Death Sentence / Mrityudand
Prakash Jha, India, 1997; 150m
This film chronicles harsh realities confronting three women and their men. Ketaki (Madhuri Dixit) is a young bride who watches helplessly as her loving husband becomes an abusive drunk; her sister-in-law, Chandravati (Shabana Azmi), is devastated after her husband of 17 years leaves her to become a holy man. Kanti, a servant, turns to prostitution in order to help her husband pay off a debt. One day they decide that they've had enough.
Sun Sep 29: 4:30pm followed by a Panel discussion/Q & A led by Sakhi for South Asian Women www.sakhi.org
other showings: Fri Oct 4: 3:30pm; Sun Oct 6: 5:15pm

The Ruins / Khandhar
Mrinal Sen, India, 1983; 108m
In Khandar Azmi plays Jamini, a woman living with her ailing mother in the shadow of ancient ruins. Years before Jamini had been promised to a distant cousin for marriage, who in reality had married someone else.  One day three friends from the city visit the ruins; one of them, Subhash pretends to be the long awaited fiancé....
Preceded by Shabana! Actor, Activist, Woman
Dev Benegal, India, 2002; 30m
In this fascinating portrait of Shabana director Dev Benegal cuts through conflicts and controversies and gets up close and personal to India's leading actress.
Sun Sep 29: 8:15pm; Wed Oct 2:  4pm and 9pm

Kamla
Jagmohan Mundhra , India, 1985;  120m
Newspaper reporter Jai Singh (Marc Zuber) goes to an interior village and purchases a tribal girl, Kamla (Deepti Naval), as evidence of slave-trading in modern India. Jai installs Kamla, in his own home, upsetting the already fragile balance of his marriage to Sarita (Shabana Azmi). Sarita begins to reflect upon her own status in the house, and comes to see that her husband is an exploiter.
Tue Oct 1: 4pm and 9:15pm; Wed Oct 2: 6:45pm

Sati
Aparna Sen, India, 1989; 140m
This powerful period melodrama is set in the early years of the 19th century, right before the practice of sati (the act of a woman's self-immolation on the funeral pyre of her husband) was outlawed. Shabana Azmi plays Uma, an orphaned woman who is forced to become the bride of a tree. Seduced by a local school teacher, Uma becomes pregnant and is ostracised by the villagers.
Tue Oct 1: 6:30pm; Thu Oct 10: 3:15pm

In Custody
Ismail Merchant, UK/India, 1993; 123m
In Custody is about the last great Urdu poet and one man's attempt to capture the poet's work on tape for posterity. Deven (Om Puri), a small-town Hindi teacher, seeks an interview with his hero, the poet Nur (Shashi Kapoor). He makes the journey to Bhopal and finds a Byzantine household, replete with sycophants, a money-grubbing family and a conniving second wife (Shabana Azmi)…
Thu Oct 3: 4pm and 8:45pm; Fri Oct 4: 6:30pm

Mandi / The Marketplace
Shyam Benegal, India, 1983; 167m
Shabana Azmi plays Rukmini, the madam of a bordello. The most talented among Rukmini's girls is Zeenat (Smita Patil), the illegitimate daughter of a famous singer, and Rukmini is determined to turn her into a great concert performer.
Sun Oct 6: 2pm; Mon Oct 7: 6:20pm; Thu Oct 10: 8:20pm

Immaculate Conception
Jamil Dehlavi, UK, 1992; 117m
Alistair (James Wilby) and Hannah (Melissa Leo), a British-American couple in Karachi, are desperate to have a child.  Hannah accepts her aristocratic friend Samira's (Shabana Azmi) invitation to visit a fertility shrine, where they undergo strange rituals;  Kamal, the boy assigned to tend to their needs, makes love to Hannah when she is still partially drugged. An unusual role for Shabana Azmi, part vamp, part mystic, it's also one of her favorites.
Mon Oct 7: 4pm and 9:30pm; Tue Oct 8: 6:15pm

Anjuman / Congregation
Muzaffar Ali, India, 1986; 140m
Anjuman (Shabana Azmi) is a young woman who dares to dream of changing her life and the world around her. Living with her mother and siblings, Anjuman ekes out a living doing chikan embroidery, earning just enough to survive. A possible romance appears with Sajid, a young aristocrat who lives next door. Spoken in Urdu, Anjuman offers a rare opportunity to hear Shabana Azmi's lovely singing voice. Anjuman has never been released commercially in India, so these will be among the film's very first public screenings anywhere.
Tue Oct 8: 3:30pm and 8:30pm; Wed Oct 9: 6:20pm

Paar / The Crossing
Goutam Ghosh, India, 1984; 120m
A killing in a rural village in Bihar forces a laborer and his wife (Naseerrudin Shah and Shabana Azmi) to become fugitives from justice.  Escaping to the big, bewildering city of Calcutta, they soon discover that jobs are scarce and when the wife becomes pregnant, the couple decides to head back to Bihar. To make money for the journey home, they accept the only work available to them: a potentially suicidal assignment to drive a herd of pigs across a huge, rushing river.
Wed Oct 9: 4pm and 9pm; Thu Oct 10: 6pm

Geeta Citygirl, Artistic Director
SALAAM  (South Asian League of Artists in AMerica)
http://www.SALAAMtheatre.org