So the annual Indo-American Arts Council New York Indian Film Festival has started with a bang and some bling and the participation of filmi royalty.

Last night, Rishi Kapoor and his lovely wife Neetu Singh Kapoor walked the red carpet at the Paris theater for the opening film of this year’s festival Do Dooni Char.  (This is Disney’s first live-action Hindi film.)  Just get a load of Mrs. Kapoor’s beautiful emeralds… yowza!

Neetu Singh Kapoor and Rishi Kapoor on the red carpet.

After the screening, they were joined for a Q & A by the film’s director, Habib Faisal, the man who also wrote my fave, Jhoom Barabar Jhoom. 

Rishi Kapoor, Neetu Singh Kapoor, director Habib Faisal, and NYIFF director Aseem Chhabra at the post-screening Q&A.

Today, the action has all moved to the Tribeca Cinemas.  More later…

Sendhil Ramamurthy, one of the stars of Shor

 Star-studded opening of the 10th Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council film festival.

Tusshar Kapoor, star of Shor (and Diwali hit Golmaal 3)

The team from Shor ("Noise"), opening film of MIAAC

The non-desi photographers behind the velvet rope furiously scribbled the names the of the people gliding by them, while the rest of the pack gave them the lo-down on who was who.   Tusshar Kapoor got out of his car one reporter said “He’s very big back in India” and upon his TV mogul sister Ekta’s appearance, someone else added “And she’s huge over there!”  

Tusshar Kapoor with his sister Ekta, who produced Shor

Samrat Chakrabarti, who is clearly in the lead for the title of busiest NY-based actor was on  the SAIFF red carpet  less than two weeks ago, then over  at the  Rome Film Festival, and now back here.   He has also appeared as Irrfan Khan’s son in the latest season of HBO’s In Treatment.

Samrat Chakrabarti, starring in Ajay Naidu's Ashes

Samrat is at MIAAC for his work in Ashes, the directorial debut of his Loins of Punjab Presents co-star Ajay Naidu.   A frequent Twitterati, Samrat gave his phone to one of the photographers and asked them to snap his picture, for Tweeting purposes.   Not only an actor, Samrat is also an accomplished musician and has done the score for the documentary Natvar Bhavsar: Poetics of Color, also appearing at this year’s MIAAC.

Mr. Naidu soon followed him on the red carpet, and after much greeting and embracing of friends, he worked his way down the line of photographers.   Ajay can also be seen  in this season of the HBO series Bored to Death.

Ajay Naidu, actor and now director, whose Ashes debuts Friday night

Sarita Choudhury, who caught everyone’s eye in Mira Nair’s Mississippi Masala and Kama Sutra,  saw her director arrive at the theater and rushed over to swoop her up in a big hug.

Actor Sarita Choudhury and her director Mira Nair

Actor, author (more here) and chef, Madhur Jaffrey  tried to slip into the theater with all the other festival-goers, but was coaxed onto the red carpet.

Mira Nair, Madhur Jaffrey and Sarita Choudhury

If one were to look for  six degrees of separation between  Nandana Sen and Ajay Naidu, they wouldn’t have to go too far, as Ms. Sen played the muse Sugandha in Ketan Mehta’s Rang Rasiya the biopic of artist Raja Ravi Varma, to whom  Mr. Naidu is related.   (If  Ms. Sen had turned around,  you would see a thin gold chain encircling her waist.)

Nandana Sen

After a while, one photographer  remarked “Now, if I can just get Padma Lakshmi, I could go home.”   (She did eventually appear.)

It’s that time of the year again.

Three Indian film festivals in the NY/NJ area overlap and bump into each other over the space of the next two and a half weeks.

One the one hand, it’s a glorious excess of riches, with the likes of Anurag Kashyap and Mani Ratnam gracing us with their presence and their most recent films, along with a slew of first-timers and up-and-comers anxiously exhibiting their newborns for all to judge.

On the other hand, would it kill the organizers to space things out a little bit?

In short, here are the dates and locations:

SAIFF (South Asian International Film Festival): Oct 27 – Nov 2, NYC

NJISACF (NJ Independent South Asian CineFest): Oct 29-30, Edison

MIAAC (Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council): Nov 10 -14, NYC

It would seem to make more sense to not have all three piled up on top of each other.   For example, SAIFF started off with a bang last night, hosting Kashyap’s That Girl in Yellow Boots for its US debut.   NJISACF is on this weekend, and it has moved from its former home on the Rutgers campus to the Reliance BIG Cinema multiplex on the Ground Zero of all things desi in New Jersey: Oak Tree Road.

It’s a great festival.   Two years ago, the National Award winner and big fave of mine, Prakash Raj, was there to present Priyadarshan’s Kanchivaram (for which the director too won a National Award) and last year the big name in attendance was Adoor Gopalakrishnan.   This year too, the line-up looks fascinating (e.g. Archie Panjabi in Yasmin) and there is a special focus on women.   But I fear it will be overshadowed to a large extent by SAIFF.

Just imagine if these two film fests were on at different times.   With some better publicity for NJISACF (and specific helpful info for Manhattanites on how to get to Edison), festival-goers could be encouraged to arrive there early enough to enjoy the multitude of shops and eateries up and down Oak Tree Road before adjourning to the cinema.   Local merchants could get involved, maybe offer discounts to festival attendees.

Then, with only a few days’ gap after SAIFF ends, MIAAC commences.   And by the way, how great is it that this city can support not one, but three, festivals (including Engendered iView) devoted to South Asian film and for so many years?   (MIAAC is 10 years old, SAIFF, seven.) We truly are fortunate.

Now, just imagine if one of these festivals took place a few months earlier, say, during the sweltering days of July, or even better, August, in a wonderful cinematic lead-up to the annual Independence Day hoopla?   So many Indian film people travel to the US for promotional events at that time anyway.   If there were a space of months rather than days between these two film fests, we movie lovers would get a bit of a breather, with time to absorb and talk up all the great movies we’ve seen, and there wouldn’t be such a cannibalization of films and audiences, plus the actors and directors who attend.

UPDATE 10/Nov/2010:   Am happy to see that the WSJ is making similar observations about the fall film traffic jam.

And now, smack in the middle of MIAAC, young hunk Imran Khan arrives with his producer Kunal Kohli to promote their film Break ke Baad, which opens in the US on Thanksgiving Eve.

One bit of good news is that MIAAC is moving to May 9 – 14 next year.

The oldest of the South Asian film festivals will take up residence for its duration at Lincoln Center, being the first to make use of the new facilities after all that ongoing construction.