London Indian Film Festival 2011

Celebrating the burgeoning movement of alternative Indian cinema, the second annual London INDIAN Film Festival is now on and will run until 12th July, bringing to UK audiences a selection of cutting edge films from some of India's hottest independent talents. Going way beyond Bollywood, these are films that challenge, shock, generate debate and present a more realistic view of India today in all its colour and diversity.

India is the largest film producing country in the world producing some 1,000 films a year, outstripping Hollywood. But apart from mainstream Bollywood, very few of these films are seen in the UK.

The Festival covers a wide range of themes and issues from family dramas, coming-of age tales to twisted, urban teen-romance. Uniting these films is a new more assured Indian cool, experimenting with cinematic styles, sexual liberality, new technology and influenced by themes both East and West, which has helped new Indian cinema win favour with the young in-crowd in super cities like Mumbai, as well as with connoisseurs of world cinema across the globe.

Cary Rajinder Sawhney, Festival Director comments, "In addition to showing great movies, we also aim to help get these films talked about and screened more broadly in cinemas in the UK, in the same way that Iranian cinema has been. London of course has a huge Asian audience for these movies, but many non-Asian Brits would also like to find out more about the 1.2 billion strong India of today, and cinema is a great way to do this".

The festival will showcase the work of India's new wave of independent filmmakers, including Anurag Kashyap and Rituparno Ghosh and includes a performance by singer and film composer Raghu Dixit who will perform before the closing night film AUTOGRAPH on July 12.

The festival will stretch city wide, opening in the West End at the Cineworld Haymarket and continuing at V&A, BFI Southbank, Nehru Centre, Watermans, Cineworld Trocadero, Feltham, Wood Green and Ilford and The University of Westminster.

For more information and booking details please visit www.londonindianfilmfestival.co.uk. Tickets are currently on sale at the BFI and V&A and sales will commence at other venues on June 15.