A passion for movies

The new movie club FilmSForum and the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre are organising a new film series, “Cinema Diverse”, screening award-winners from around the globe in the presence of their filmmakers.
The series begins on Sunday with “Rang Rasiya” (“Colours of Passion”), a 2008 Hindi-language historical drama. With support from the Indian embassy, director Ketan Mehta and lead actress Nandana Sen will join the opening ceremonies at 5pm, with the movie starting at 6 in the BACC’s fifth-floor auditorium.
Touching on the themes of morality and freedom of the arts, as well as religious conflict, “Rang Rasiya” is a biographical drama about the famous 19th-century Indian portrait painter Raja Ravi Varma and his passionate relationship with a beautiful woman, Sugandha, who inspired many of his portraits. The artist, who hailed from Kerala in southern India, is best known for his paintings of Hindi goddesses like Lakshmi, Saraswati and Devi. But he also painted sensuous portraits of beautiful women like Sugandha, which got him in trouble with conservative Hindus.
One of the leading lights of Indian cinema but trained in economics from New Delhi’s St Stephens College, director Mehta has made many award-winning films like “Bhavni Bhavai”, “Mirch Masala”, “Maya Memsaab”, “Sardar”, “Mangal Pandey” and “The Rising”.
As chairman of Maya Digital Studios, one of the largest computer animation and visual effects studios in India, Mehta also pioneered the use of computer-graphic imagery in filmmaking. He has served as a consultant on many cultural bodies, such as the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Directorate of Film Festivals, Film and Television Institute of India and Doordarshan, the national television channel of India. He has also served on the board of directors of the National Film Development Corporation of India.
Actress Sen is a Harvard graduate and the daughter of Nobel laureate Amartya Sen. She has dabbled in both Bollywood and international productions. Growing up in Europe, the US and India, Sen has appeared in more than 20 feature films and has won many accolades. Last year she won the Tele Cine Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role and the Reliance Big Bangla Rising Star Award, for the blockbuster “Autograph”. She made her US film debut as the idealistic female lead in Magnolia Films’ “The War Within”, nominated for Independent Spirit Awards. It premiered at Toronto International Film Festival in 2005.
Sen was first seen on the Indian screen as Bollywood actress Rani Mukherjee’s younger sister in the critically acclaimed film “Black”, which was voted one of 10 Best Films of 2005 by Time magazine. Repeatedly voted into the annual Times of India poll as one of “India's Most Desirable Women”, Sen has served on the jury of various international film festivals, including Roma Fiction Festival, Kolkata and Abu Dhabi festivals.
Sen is also the Smile Ambassador for Operation Smile, an a children’s NGO, Cause Ambassador for RAHI (Recovery and Healing from Incest) and UNICEF’s Celebrity Advocate for Child Protection.
In academia, Sen was awarded the John Harvard Scholarship and the Agassiz Award for being at the head of her class in Literature and Creative writing. Elected early into Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard University, where she graduated with highest honours, Sen is a leading child rights activist, a spokesperson and elected jury for the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR).

World of film
Other films in the Cinema Diverse series are:
“Nikkini Vasa” (“August Drizzle”) from Sri Lanka on July 25.
“Nino” from the Philippines on October 20.
“Matir Moina” (“Clay Bird”) from Bangladesh on November 24.
“Fah Talai Jone” (“Tears of the Black Tiger”) from Thailand on December 22.
All will screen from 5pm in the fifth-floor auditorium at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre.