The Lunchbox (2013) an NFDC Film Hindi - 104 min - Drama | Romance "Dabba" (original title) Director: Ritesh Batra The Dabbawalas (lunchbox service) of Mumbai deliver 170’000 lunchboxes every day and according to a Harvard study, only one in a million ever goes astray. This movie is the story of that one mistaken delivery which connects a young housewife Ila to a lonely widower Saajan in the dusk of his life as they build a fantasy world together through notes in the lunchbox…. Both find a dream to hold on to. Ila begins a fantastical affair with a mystery suitor, pouring her heart into cooking meals for him. Saajan looks forward to lunch box deliveries from a mystery woman every day. As the lunchbox goes back and forth, this fantasy becomes so elaborate that it threatens to overwhelm their reality. The film is the story of the life of which we dream versus the life we live in, and of the courage it takes to turn out fantasies into reality. The film was released in February 2014 in the US and the New York Times described it as “A perfect balance of tact and sentimentality”. Cast: Irrfan Khan, Nimrat Kaur, Nawazuddin Siddiqui Krrish 3 (2013) Hindi - 152 min - Action | Sci-Fi Director: Rakesh Roshan Krishna aka Krrish is living a happy married life in India with his wife Priya and scientist dad Rohit, while helping the masses with his superpowers and struggling to keep a steady job. In another part of the world, an evil handicapped man named Kaal has used his DNA to generate a team of human-animal mutants, particularly the ruthless chameleon mutant Kaya who can assume any form she wants. Kaya and other mutants create havoc among the masses of India but are counter- acted by Rohit's scientific genius. Now Kaya has to figure out how Rohit managed to do that. Will she succeed? How will Krrish find Kaal and what will their final face-off entail? This is what Krrish 3 is all about. Cast: Priyanka Chopra, Hrithik Roshan, Amitabh Bachchan My Brother... Nikhil (2005) Hindi - 120 min - Drama Director: Onir The Kapoors have been living in Goa for several years, and are a well-known and respected family. Navin Kapoor is now retired, and lives with his wife, Anita, who has some Portugese blood, a sportsman son, Nikhil, and daughter, Anamika (Anu). Navin is thrilled to know that Nikhil has been selected for a sports scholarship and will be representing Goa in a national swimming championship. But his near-perfect life falls slowly apart as Nikhil is suddenly asked by his coach to take a break and let some fresh youngsters take over and eventually dismissed from the team. The Kapoors learn with shock that Nikhil has AIDS after he is arrested one day. Nikhil is kept in forced isolation since the law allowed the government to isolate HIV positive people. Will the Kapoors be able to accept the challenge together as a family or will they end up as embittered individuals who end up blaming each other? Cast: Sanjay Suri, Juhi Chawla, Purab Kohli Charulata (1964) Bengali - 117 min - Drama | Romance Director: Satyajit Ray Set in British India in the 19th century, the film revolves around Charulata, the beautiful wife of a learned Calcutta intellectual. She sits at home alone while her wealthy husband Bhupati runs his English language newspaper. Upon recognizing her profound loneliness, Bhupati invites his brother-in- law Umapada and wife Mandakini as house guests. Amal, his handsome younger cousin also comes for a visit following his graduation from college. Charu and Amal spend hours reminiscing over literature, poetry and the arts while Bhupati works on his paper. For a short time everyone is content. Then, a tragedy occurs. Umapada absconds with Bhupati's savings, leaving the entrepreneur in terrible debt. But the betrayed man soon realizes that something much more precious than his money is lost. Cast: Soumitra Chatterjee, Madhabi Mukherjee, Shailen Mukherjee Dare to Dream (2013) an NFDC Film Hindi & Marathi - 110 min - Drama "Gangoobai" (original title) Director: Priya Krishnaswamy Gangoobai, a childless, elderly widow, has lived her whole life in the tiny colonial hill station of Matheran, near Mumbai. Mountain range about 4 hours' drive from Mumbai. She works hard and has very simple aspirations until one day she falls in love ---with a designer sari. She follows her dream to the big city of Mumbai. How does this affect her, how does she change the lives of people she meets in Mumbai, does she achieve her dream….. Audience review: “A simple story told so beautifully, you just wish the movie wouldn't end”. Cast: Sarita Joshi, Purab Kohli & Mita Vasisht 3 Idiots (2009) Hindi - 170 min - Comedy | Drama | Romance Director: Rajkumar Hirani Farhan Qureshi and Raju Rastogi want to re-unite with their fellow collegian, Rancchoddas "Rancho" Shyamaldas Chanchad. They remember their student days ten years ago at the Imperial College of Engineering, one of the best colleges in India. Farhan wants to become a wildlife photographer, but is pursuing an engineering degree to fulfil his father's wish, whereas Raju needs to improve his family's financial situation, and Rancho studies for the pleasure of building machines. Life at college was full of hilarious antics, including many run-ins with the Dean Viru Sahastrabudhe (ViruS). The search for Rancho takes his two friends to unexpected turns… Cast: Aamir Khan, Madhavan, Boman Irani, Mona Singh Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011) Hindi - 153 min - Adventure | Comedy | Romance Director: Zoya Akhtar 3 young men Kabir, Imran and Arjun leave for a 3 week road trip for Kabir's extended bachelor party; a road trip where each one gets to do the ultimate sport of his choice and the other 2 just have to do it with him, whether they want to or not! And this makes them face their fears, alter their perceptions, unravel their confidence, force them out of their comfort zone and break out of the box. Ultimately it teaches them to seize the day… Cast: Katrina Kaif, Hrithik Roshan, Farhan Akhtar The Good Road (2013) Gujrati - 92 min - Drama Director: Gyan Correa Several stories are intertwined in the film with the center of the action being a highway in the rural lands of Gujarat. The film is the first Gujarati film ever to be selected to represent India at the Oscars. It unfolds over the course of a day and cross-cuts between a boy who gets separated from his parents, a truck driver and his cleaner who take in the boy, and a young girl who seeks shelter at a wayside brothel. The three sets of characters travel through the bleached landscape of the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat, whose people are as taciturn as their surroundings are unsparing. Cast: Ajay Gehi, Rinkle Karelia, Keval Katrodia Like Stars on Earth (2007) Hindi - 162 min - Biography | Comedy | Drama "Taare Zameen Par" (original title) Director: Aamir Khan, Amole Gupte Ishaan Awasthi is an eight-year-old whose world is filled with wonders that no one else seems to appreciate; colors, fish, dogs and kites are just not important in the world of adults, who are much more interested in things like homework, marks and neatness. And Ishaan just cannot seem to get anything right in class. One day a new art teacher Nikumbh bursts onto the scene, who breaks all the rules of how things are done by asking the students to think, dream and imagine. They respond with enthusiasm, all except Ishaan. Nikumbh soon realizes that Ishaan is very unhappy, and sets out to discover why. Taare Zameen Par gives you a peep into a child's mind and makes you think about the need to understand, nurture and nourish. Cast: Darsheel Safary, Aamir Khan, Tanay Chheda Gandhi, My Father (2007) Hindi - 136 min - Biography | Drama | History Director: Feroz Abbas Khan The film paints the picture of the leaders’s intricate, complex and strained relationship with son Harilal Gandhi. From the onset, the two had dreams in opposite directions. Harilal wanted to study abroad and become a barrister like his father, while Gandhi hoped that his son would join him and fight for his ideals and causes. When he is not given the opportunity to study abroad, he decides to abandon his father’s vision and leaves South Africa for India where he joins his wife Gulab and kids. He goes back to school to earn his diploma but fails three times in a row and ends in financial stress. Sick of his failure, he turns to alcohol for solace and converts to Islam, only to re-convert to a different sect of Hinduism. With political tension heating up, the rift between Gandhi and his eldest son grows until it is beyond repair. Story of a man who lived in the enormous shadow of his father, striving to discover his own identity Cast: Akshaye Khanna, Darshan Jariwala, Shefali Shetty Liv & Ingmar (2012) Swedish & English - 89 min - Documentary Director: Dheeraj Akolkar This film by a young Indian filmmaker celebrates, for the first time in the last 50 years, something sacred, something delicate, something unrequited, unrealized, unspoken... Here, sitting in Ingmar Bergman's house on Faro, Liv Ullmann herself tells the story. Passages from her book 'Changing', Ingmar's love letters - seen here for the first time - and many autobiographical sequences from their films become a part of this film's canvas. In the process, this film becomes homage, a salute... not only to two of the most important artists of our time, but also to two friends, companions and soul mates..