The 2021 edition of New York Indian Film Festival (NYIFF) begins on June 4, and due to the ongoing pandemic, the festival will be held in a virtual format. The festival concludes on June 13.
Festival director Aseem Chhabra said in a statement, “The Covid-19 situation in India is heartbreaking and our thoughts and prayers are with those who have lost their loved ones. But we made a promise to our audience in the United States and around the world. The show must go on. We present the best of Indian cinema from 2020 and 2021.”
He added, “This year we are marking the birth anniversaries of Mahatma Gandhi, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and Satyajit Ray, by showing documentaries on the three Indian icons.”
58 films will be screened at New York Indian Film Festival 2021, which includes features, documentaries and shorts.. The festival will screen films in Assamese, Bengali, English, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu.
Kannada film Where’s Pinki? (Pinki Eili?) will be the opening film at NYIFF 2021. Ajitpal Singh’s Fire in the Mountains, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2021, will be the closing film.
Some of the films that will be available for Indian viewers include – Biriyaani (Malayalam), Blue Bird (Kannada), First Nights (Tamil), Freddie’s Piano (English), God on the Balcony (Assamese), Mail (Telugu), Parcel (Bengali), Talking Head (English, Bengali), The Music of Satyajit Ray (English, Bengali) and The Space Between The Notes (English).