Montreal’s South Asian Film Festival back for 13th year

Now in its 13th year, the South Asian Film Festival is the only South Asian film festival in Quebec. It runs until Sunday.

Truly unique, it’s the ultimate cinematic journey, offering almost 50 eye-opening, thought-provoking, humanity-filled films people would likely never have a chance to see elsewhere.

According to Syeda Bukhari, festival director and head of programming: “The number of South Asians are increasing everywhere and we get to see each other but we don’t know much about each other’s culture and what is the lived experiences, what is the background people have.”

Sukhpreet Kahlon is the artistic director of the South Asian Film Festival. “Cinema connects people. Cinema brings people together. But it also gives us an insight about different countries, different cultures.

“I’m really hoping that people will connect with the various themes in the films and also be able to take away some of those incredible emotions that these films stir up.”

Ali Hassan is one of the four leads in the film Stealing Vows. He also co-wrote the film alongside Bobby Singh Brown. Hasan says: “In the ’80s and the ’90s, South Asian weddings, five, 500-600 people, that’s a lot of empty homes.

“And so there were a lot of robberies, people know, like, oh, these people are going to be at a wedding.

“Not only that, but jewelry is going to be out, clothing is going to be out, things are going to be out.

“Left in a little bit of a rush, we’re always late for things in South Asia. So kind of like an ingenious crime.

“You know people aren’t there, you know stuff, money, people give money as gifts, money is maybe lying out.

“So it came from these real events that were happening in people’s lives.

“I kept meeting people, every third person was like, that happened to my aunt, that happened to my sister.

“So it was like, you know, inspired by things that were happening in the community in that era.”

Bukhari saysL “We have several films made by Canadian filmmakers that we are showing and actually a lot of them are Montreal-based filmmakers.

“We have more than 50 films and of them, 35 films are available online for free.”

Film enthusiasts can expect world-class films about the lives of South Asians and a multitude of languages. Almost all films will be presented in their original version with English and French subtitles.

Kahlon says: “We’ve got films that show in Vancouver or they go to Toronto but not in Montreal.

“So many of the award-winning films that we have this year will be screened in Montreal for the first time.”

Bukhari comments: “We started in 2011 with just six films and today we are showing 50 films.

“This festival, because it brings you independent cinema. It’s not commercial cinema, right?

“So this gives you a nuanced understanding of the lived experiences of South Asia, and South Asia is a big region.

“It’s not just one country or two. There are several cultures, languages, religions, ethnic background.

“This festival gives you access to the lived experiences of South Asia.”