Manchester Indian Film Festival returns with bigger bang across the UK

MIFF launches UK Premieres of acclaimed South-Asian movies across venues, a collection of LGBTQ+ short films, Anurag Kashyap thriller, Bengali biopic, gaming fiesta and a lot more.

After successfully delivering the London Indian Film Festival (LIFF) and Manchester Indian Film Festival (MIFF) over the past few years, the UK and Europe’s largest platform of Indian and South Asian cinema is expanding across the UK.

From October 25 to November 4, the Indian Film Festival in the UK will take place simultaneously in five cities: London, Manchester, Birmingham, Bradford and Leeds.

MIFF will launch at The Carlton Club in Whalley Range with a showing of ‘Mutiny:

Asians Storm British Music’. The rarely seen film, which is part music documentary, part social history highlights the music culture of the British Asian second generation and their impact on the British mainstream music charts of the 1990s. The evening will also have a Q&A hosted by Ladybeige of The Social Service with figures from the local music scene, including Chandé (Daytimers) and Ruby Swallow (Eves.’ Drop).

British Indian filmmaker and LIFF/MIFF Director Cary Rajinder Sawhney MBE said:

“We are delighted to welcome back our Major Funders BFI Audience Projects Fund, Film Hub North, Manchester Metropolitan University, Film Hub Midlands, Tulsea and many others.

“Mindful of tougher times, we have also tried, wherever possible, to keep ticket prices down this year. Enjoy the festival!”

Venues across Manchester, such as Everyman, Ducie Street Mini Cini, Cultplex, SODA (School Of Digital Arts) & The Carlton Club and Vue Cinema Printworks are participating in the festival.

Indian film director Anurag Kashyap’s critically acclaimed thriller ‘Kennedy’, which opened at Cannes earlier this year, is to be screened at Vue Printworks on the last day of the festival at 7 pm. The film tells the gruesome tale of an ex-cop (Rahul Bhat) who is kept on the police payroll as a special services hitman, but as non-criminals become his victims, the police soon realise they have a homicidal maniac on their hands.

The popular Bengali director, Srijit Mukherji, returns to the festival with his latest film, ‘Padatik’, shown at Everyman on November 1 at 7:45 pm. Released this year as part of veteran Bengali filmmaker Mrinal Sen’s 100th birthday celebrations, ‘Padatik’ explores the life of one of India’s greatest directors and is a must for all cinephiles. The biopic follows Sen from his days as a struggling political idealist, unable to feed his family, to his growing obsession with filmmaking in 1950s Calcutta.

There is a welcome return of the festival’s ‘Too Desi Too Queer’ package of short films exploring the lives, experiences and well-being of South Asian LGBTQIA+ communities in the Subcontinent and diaspora.

“We are also doing extensive outreach work with groups & collectives in our neighbouring towns such as Bolton & Rochdale, with workshops taking place deep in the hearts of the communities, which includes a gaming event at Bolton’s High Street Library as well as the Deeplish Community Centre in Rochdale” shared the organisers.

This year, the festival is also entering the world of online gaming and XR developed by South Asian creatives.

Opening in Manchester, in collaboration with Tulsea and FORMAT, the city’s premier gaming and nightlife festival, this will be the UK’s first showcase of new South Asian computer games. The games are set to be presented on October 26. Showcased games include Zatun Games’ VR thrillers Sniper Rust and Down & Out, and popular titles including Raji: An Ancient Epic, Mumbai Gullies, Kurukshetra: Ascension and Fishbowl.

*For more information, visit: https://manchesterindianfilmfestival.co.uk/