By Khushwant Singh Oct 24, 2007, 8:16 GMT
Chandigarh, Oct 24 (IANS) The Spinning Wheel Film Festival (SWFF) showcasing outstanding Sikh films and movies made by Sikh men and women the world over will get under way in Hollywood next month.
The festival will be held from Nov 16 at the Writers and Guild Theatre, Beverly Hills, California.
'It's a festival of films by, about and for Sikhs', said Bicky Singh, founder of Sikhpoint and chief organiser of the show.
Some prominent movies that will be screened at the festival include 'Train to Pakistan', 'Run Away Grooms' and 'Elvis Singh from Bollywood'. The guest list includes actor Waris Ahluwalia, Reema Anand, Michael Singh and filmmaker Angad Singh of the US.
Spinning Wheel, as the name suggests, is inspired from rural Punjab - where in earlier days young girls would gather around a spinning wheel or 'charkha' to weave. The spinning wheel would also be the girls' focal point to share their joys, sorrows and stories.
Using this concept as the rallying point, Spinning Wheel was started in 2003 by Toronto-based lawyer T. Sher Singh and philanthropist Birinder Singh Ahluwalia to stop the inaccurate portrayal of Sikhs in media, especially Bollywood.
The first festival was held in Toronto and it was then decided to take the Spinning Wheel to metro cities across the globe. It has been successfully held in San Francisco, Florida, Washington DC and New York.
'There had been mounting concern within the community worldwide that Sikhs and their stories were continuing to be depicted inaccurately in popular films, especially in those emanating from Bollywood,' T. Sher Singh from Canada told IANS .
Citing more reasons, Ahluwalia said 'post-9/11 America also has had its own demons to grapple with as Sikh Americans discovered that the general populace, armed with misinformation, was facing difficulty in distinguishing the Sikh turban from that of the Arabs.
'Recognizing that it was time that Sikh stories were told accurately, Sikhs zeroed in on the need to raise the quality of the content within the popular and educational media.'
Said Bicky Singh: 'As an 'emerging cinema' organisation, the SWFF has quickly grown in both size and reputation, and is now well-established as the pre-eminent Sikh film event in the world.'
'Our ultimate goal is to take the Spinning Wheel back to India where it truly belongs.'
© 2007 Indo-Asian News Service
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