Florence, 7th-13th December 2012
Odeon cinema- Piazza Strozzi 1
Rome, 14th-16th December 2012
Trevi cinema - Vicolo del Puttarello 25

River to River Florence Indian Film Festival is back with its 12th edition.
From the 7th to the 13th Decembre at the Odeon cinema in Florence and from the 14th to the 16 Decembre the Festival reaches Rome at Trevi cinema.
For the centenary of Indian cinema that very first film, Raja Harishchandra by Dadasaheb Phalke, will be screened.
Among the guest stars: Amitabh Bachchan, Anurag Kashyap and Imtiaz Ali

The 12th River to River Florence Indian Film Festival, the only festival in Italy entirely devoted to Indian cinema and directed by Selvaggia Velo, will take place at Cinema Odeon, in Florence, from 7th to 13th December, under the Patronage of the Embassy of India and the Italy-India association.

Created and directed by Selvaggia Velo, River to River Florence Indian Film Festival takes place thanks with the Patronage of the Embassy of India and of the Associazione Italia-India, and it is organized with the contribution of Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali – Direzione Cinema, Regione Toscana and Fondazione Sistema Toscana Mediateca, Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze together with OAC, Florens 2012 and Ufficio Nazionale del Turismo Indiano in Milan, within the frame of the 50 Giorni di Cinema Internazionale a Firenze.
With the precious support of the sponsors Luisa Via Roma, Hotel Roma and Hotel Canada, Instyle, Klopman, Caffè Corsini, indit360 and Breida, and the collaboration with CTS, Palazzo Tornabuoni, Obikà Mozzarella Bar and Vini Barone Ricasoli.
During the days of the Festival, the Odeon Bistro (Florence) will prepare great Indian dishes.

On the occasion of the centenary of Indian cinema the Festival will screen Raja Harishchandra by Dadasaheb Phalke, a black and white and mute film, that was screened for the first time on the 21st of April 1913 at the Olympia Theatre of Bombay.
The Festival will present a restored version of the film, in collaboration with the National Film Archive of India.

To celebrate this very special birthday, River to River Florence Indian Film Festival has a big surprise in store: in partnership with Luisa Via Roma, it will pay a special tribute to a Bollywood superstar that is loved all over the world by millions of fans, hailed everywhere on earth and worshipped like a true god: actor Amitabh Bachchan – as an official guest, for the first time at a festival in Italy – who will be in Florence to present some of his films:

• Deewaar (The Wall) by Yash Chopra, 1975
A masterpiece and a box-office hit, this film, starring Amitabh Bachchan, tells the story of Vijay (Bachchan) and Ravi, the sons of a trade unionist fallen into disgrace, who are raised by their mother. Vijay, grown with the desire to avenge the indignities suffered by his father, turns into a criminal, and Varma into a policeman. The brothers’ fates will of course collide...
• Sholay (Flames) by Ramesh Sippy, 1975
The third film selected for the tribute to Amitabh Bachchan and also a box-office hit, Sholay is largely inspired by western films and is regarded as a masterpiece of Indian cinema. Veeru and Jaidev (Bachchan) are two criminals, hired by a former policeman to hunt Gabbar Singh, the notorious gangster who murdered his family.
• Black by Sanjay Leela Bansali (well known for his 2002 Devdas) , 2005
Freely adapted from Helen Keller’s autobiography The Story of My Life, this film tells the story of a deaf and blind girl who learns how to live a normal life with the help of her teacher (Bachchan) and their intense, complicated relationship. Undoubtedly one of the best roles for Bachchan, who, along with the great Bollywood director Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Rani Mukherjee’s extraordinary acting, made the success of the film.
Extraordinary event: after the screening of this film, Amitabh Bachchan will have a Q&A with the audience.
• Everlasting Light by Ram Madhvani, 2006
Bearing one of the names the great star Amitabh Bachchan is known as, this documentary tells the life and career of Big B, as he is affectionately called in India, with interviews to Salman Rushdie, Suketu Mehta and Shashi Tharoor.



AMITABH BACHCHAN, THE BOLLYWOOD SUPERSTAR
Born on 11th October 1942, the father in law of the famous and beautiful former Miss World and L’Oreal face Aishwarya Rai, Amitabh Bachchan is without any doubt the most important and iconic actor in Indian cinema, not only for the number of films he has starred in – over one hundred and eighty – but as a producer and as a civil and political activist as well.
People who are not familiar with Bollywood will certainly remember young Jamal, the leading character in Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire, who, in one of the first scenes of the film, would stop at nothing to get an autograph of Amitabh Bachchan, who, incidentally, has been hosting for years the Indian version of Who wants to be a millionaire?, the TV show the plot is based on.
Son of the famous Hindu poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan, Amitabh made his debut as an actor in 1969 in Saat Hindustani (Seven Indians) by Abbas, for which he got the National Best Debut Actor Award.
In 1977, he was the voice of the masterpiece Shatranj Ke Khilari (The Chess Players) by Satyajit Ray, but the film that consecrated him as a superstar was Anand (1971) by Hrishikesh Mukherjee, followed by Saudagar (Trader), based on one of Mitra’s short stories, and Namak Haraam (Traitor), both released in 1973. In those films, Amitabh Bachchan was a gloomy antihero that somehow brings to mind the characters of Bimal Roy’s neorealist films. In Bombay to Goa (1972) by Mehmood, he is the lover and defender of a girl who fled from home, in Zanjeer (Shackles, 1973) by Prakash Mehra he is a police inspector, in Deewar (The Wall, 1975) by Yash Chopra and in Sholay (Embers, 1975) by Ramesh Sippi he is a criminal, in Don (1978) by Chandra Barot he stars both as Don, a racketeer, and as Vijay, his double.
In the array of seducers and cynical dudes that can be found in lots of Indian films of the Seventies, Amitabh embodies the young man engaged in a fight against the system, in the grips of the endless conflict between state law and the law of the family and clan. It was because of his charisma and distinctive voice that Deewar and Sholay were such great hits when they were first released and still are among the most famous and representative films of the entire Bollywood industry.
While filming Coolie (1983) by Manmohan Desai, Amitabh Bachchan got seriously injured at the stomach in a fight scene: the whole country held its breath for months while he was in hospital.
Following the accident, Amitabh decided to take a break from his acting career and ventured into politics, supporting his friend Rajiv Gandhi in the 1984 Congress election campaign. He went back to acting in 1988, in Shahenshah (The Emperor) by Tinnu Anand. In 1995, he founded his own production company, Amitabh Bachchan Corporation Ltd, a veritable entertainment merchandising and marketing company that has not been immune to financial crises, with repercussions on the star’s career. Over the years, Bachchan has proven to be a very versatile actor, who can easily handle very different roles, and has worked with the best known and the most innovative directors of the time. In 2000, he won the Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award for Mohabbatein (Love stories) by Aditya Chopra.
The most interesting films in which he has starred in the last few years include Kabhi Kushi Kabhie Gham (Sometimes happy sometimes sad, 2001) by Karan Johar, the exciting box-office hit Black (2005) by Sanjay
Leela Bhansali, Sarkar (2005), Ram Gopal Varma’s tribute to The Godfather, in which he acted with his son Abhishek, and Ekalavya (2007) by Vidhu Vinod Chopra.
As well as being a keen actor, Amitabh Bachchan is also socially engaged. In April 2005, he was appointed UNICEF Ambassador and is especially focussed on the fight against poliomyelitis.


Beyond Amitabh Bachchan, other international stars will attend this edition of the Festival.
Friday 7th December will take place a unique event: together with Amitabh Bachchan, ANURAG KASHYAP will be on the stage of the Odeon cinema, he a well-known and multi-awarded Indian director and producer, who will present as Italian premiere:
• Gangs of Wasseypur part 1 on the 7th December as the Opening Film of this edition.
By one of the most promising Indian directors of the last few years, widely acclaimed at the 2012 Cannes Quinzaine des Realisateurs, Gangs of Wasseypur is a two-part blockbuster that was a real box-office hit in India. With the help of an exceptional cast and aptly written original songs, GOW is a saga about two families fighting for three generations. In the first part, Shahid Khan and his clan are dethroned by Ramandhir Singh’s gang that runs the local mines. Shahid’s son, Sardar, swears he will avenge his father and will get the city of Wasseypur back.
• Gangs of Wasseypur part 2 will be the Closing Film of the Festival, on the 13th December
The second and last part of Kashyap’s saga, where the limelight is on Faizal Khan, the more ruthless of Sardar’s sons, who, even more than his father, devotes his life to taking his revenge. The leading actors include the extraordinarily talented Huma Qureshi and Nawazuddin Siddiqui (the ruthless Faisal Khan), who star in the intense, “musical” love story of this part. A film that, along with the first part, stands out as the symbol of Indian cinema as a brand-new, rapidly-growing reality.
Anurag Kashyap, director and producer
Writer, director, producer Anurag Kashyap was born in Gorakhpur (Uttar Pradesh) in 1972. He attended, due to his friends’ insistence, a De Sica Retrospective at the International Film Festival of India of 1993, where he was deeply marked by Bicycle Thieves (1948): he moved to Mumbai five moths later. His first movie was Paanch (2000), that hasn’t been released because of the objections of the Indian Censor Board. The film was followed by the acclaimed Black Friday (2004), dealing with the blasts in Mumbai in 1993. In 1999 Kashyap directed Dev.D, a modern interpretation of the Bengal novel Devdas. He than served as a jury panelist in 66th Venice International Film Festival in 2009. In 2010, he played a role in Onir’s I Am, as a child abuser. He produced and directed many films, before the two-part gangster movie Gangs of Wasseypur.

The central focus of the Festival will be the competition for Feature films, short films and documentaries for the River to River Bitebay Audience Award (that permit the distribution and promotion of the film on the digital platform Bitebay.com). The jury will be the audience of the venue itself.
This year, thanks to the collaboration with Fondazione Piaggio and Piaggio India, the Festival presents also the Piaggio Foundation award for the feature films section. The prestigious award, that will be presented to the director of the winning film directly from the President of Piaggio Vehicles Private Ltd of Pune, consists in the new Vespa LX125.

FEATURES FILMS IN COMPETITION, as European and Italian premieres
• Alexandra David Néel, j’irai au pays des neiges by Joël Farges
In 1924, Alexandra David-Néel was the first European woman to go to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, from which all foreigners had been banned. From the book of the same name, Farges’ careful biopic tells the explorer’s awesome odyssey and her spiritual journey to Buddhism.
• Adaminte Makan Abu (Abu, son of Adam) by Salim Ahamed
The Indian contender for the 2012 Academy Awards, directed by Salim Ahmed who makes his debut into filmmaking by treating us to an exciting and honest portrait of an elderly couple who want to go to Mecca before they die. Abu and his wife alla Aisa are aware they will have to make a few sacrifices, but the man is not willing to compromise on his principles.
• Bhooter Bhobishyot (Future of the Past) by Anik Datta
A funny, extremely successful ghost comedy with a touch of masala movie, where a troupe visits a crumbling villa in Calcutta to film a TV commercial. While waiting for the cameramen, the director works at the script of his first film, but he needs a brilliant idea for the finale: someone “living” in the villa tells him the best story ever…
• Chittagong by Bedabrata Pain
1930s India. A group of teenagers, led by their teacher, spark the first few riots against the British Empire. For one of them, Jhunku, this is an opportunity to grow and understand the importance of fighting for freedom. The revelation of the year, this film is based on a true story.
The debuttant director Bedabrata Pain will be in Florence to present his film
Bedabrata Pain, director of Chittagong
For fifteen year, Dr. Bedabrata Pain was an award winning senior scientist with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), NASA, and a leading technologist in the field of CMOS image sensor. In 1999, he was inducted to the US Space Technology Hall of Fame. In December 2008, he left NASA to pursue his passion, filmmaking and Chittagong marks his directorial debut. Growing up in Tagore and ray’s Bengal, art, literature and music come naturally to Bedabrata. A painter from his childhood days, he’s also a playwright and a singer. He was the principal researcher for the documentary Lifting the veil (2011) on the impact of globalization in India and the writer of the book Behind the events in Kashmir.
• Rockstar by Imtiaz Ali
Partly filmed in Verona with a soundtrack by Academy Award winner A.R. Rahman, directed by the master of Romantic Bollywood cinema, the film tells the riveting story of the sufferings of Jakhar, who dreams of becoming a rockstar and sees Heer as his muse…But Jakhar will have to reckon with the rage and vulnerability that come with love.
Director Imtiaz Ali, well-known director and screenplayer of the romantic Bollywood scene, will be in Florence to present his film.
Imtiaz Ali, director of Rockstar
Imtiaz Ali is a renowned Bollywood director and writer specialized in romance genre.
He directed serials like Purushetraa (Zee TV) and Imtihaana (Star Plus) before switching to directing movies. He was the writer, editor and director of Socha Na Tha (2005) and Jab We Met (2007). He played a role in Anurag Kashyap’s Black Friday (2004). In 2009, he directed Love Aaj Kal, that has been screened at the River to River the next year.

SHORT FILMS IN COMPETITION, as European premieres
• A girl married off to a dead man (Nafs - Soul by Aijaz Khan), the life of a young Muslim woman in London (Khaana¬ - Food by Cary Sawhney), a day in the life of a child forced to work (Pyaas - Thirst by Sameer Ali Siddiqi), and an ordinary story viewed in the light of today’s needs (Bemata by Nina Sabnani).
• Connections: between a taxi driver and his passenger (Calcutta Taxi by Vikram Dasgupta), between two people living secluded lives (Tyu's Company by Reema Sengupta), between a photographer and a tourist (Adrak by Sahirr Sethhi), and, lastly, between a young Buddhist monk and his master (Dechen by Kaukab Basheer).
Director Vikram Dasgupta will be in Florence to present his film.


DOCUMENTARIES IN COMPETITION, as European previews
• Balls by Anirudh Chawla
A reality show in which twelve people from all walks of life openly discuss love, sex, marriage and Bollywood. From gossiping to personal experiences, a cheeky, unrestrained view of the way Indians live love and relationships in the twenty-first century.
Director Anirudh Chawla will be in Florence to present his film.
• Bharatmata Ki Jai by Arpita Chakraborty, Avadhoot Khanolkar, Anurag Mazumdar, Shweta Radhkrishnan and Amol Ranjan
In the heart of Mumbai, for 75 years the Bharatmata cinema has been screening Marathi films only and has become a centre of socialisation for the working class of the metropolis. Its owner and its oldest projectionist tell the story of the cinema which has turned cheap entertainment into its main strength.
Director Avathood Khanolkar will be in Florence to present his film.
• Certo esiste un posto migliore by Sara Luraschi
For ten years, the Joginder family, originally from Punjab, has been living in Casazza, near Bergamo, Italy, which has one of the largest Indian communities. Every day, their dreams collide with the reality of the choices they have had to make over these years.
• It’s Cricket, No? by Sudhir Aggarwal
The story of India national cricket team of blind people, told through the experiences and the passion of its players who, with the support of a Bangalore-based NGO, play the World Championship in England.
• Living with Clay by Robin De
Every year, Sanatan’s studio in Calcutta hires eighty sculptors and artists to make gigantic clay statues of Indian gods. In this way, Sanatan not only creates job opportunities but he also contributes to the survival of a job that would otherwise be doomed to disappear.
Producer Robin De will be in Florence to present the film.
• Much Ado About Knotting by Geetika Narang Abbasi and Anandana Kapur
In a society in which marriage is still a social obligation, the business of arranged marriage is run by agencies. A girl, a boy and a couple from India living abroad share their experiences in search of their twin souls.
• Nakusa, the Unwanted by Rima Amarapurkar
Childhood denied, lack of schooling and a life of sacrifice are the unwritten fate of a nakusa (literally “unwanted”). This is the name given to the third or fourth daughter of a female-only household.
• The Rat Race by Miriam Chandy Menacherry
Mumbai: a megalopolis with a population of 14 million people and 84 million rats. Every night, the NRK men (Night Rat Killers) walk through the city streets to kill as many rats as they can. This unique documentary tells us how such unusual superheroes are selected and trained.


SPECIAL SCREENINGS
• In collaboration with 1takemedia.com, the fifth edition of Advantage India, whose three winners will be screened during the closing evening of the Festival.
• The best three works of the students of the Film and Tv Institute of India in Pune


TALKS - free entrance
• Saturday 8th December, 11.30 am
Talk
Shakti. Women in Indian cinema and literature.
Speakers:
Anna Nadotti, translator and publishing consultant
Marco Restelli, indologist and journalist
• Sunday 9th December, 11.30 am
Talk
Bollywood and the expression of emotions in today’s India.
Speakers:
Franco La Cecla, anthropologist, traveller, writer, filmmaker
Ashanti Omkar, expert in Bollywood films, Cineworld Cinemas/BBC London



Contacts:
River to River Florence Indian Film Festival
Via Maggio, 1 - Florence
ph. +39 055 286929
cell. +39 335 5743364
info@rivertoriver.it
www.rivertoriver.it