Lia Chang Video: Aroon Shivdasani interviews The Waiting City’s Samrat Chakrabarti at the 10th Annual Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council (MIAAC) Film Festival

Indo-American Arts Council founder and executive director Aroon Shivdasani and Samrat Chakrabarti at the 10th annual Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council (MIAAC) Film Festival at the SVA Theater in New York on November 12, 2010. © Lia Chang

Claire McCarthy’s cross-cultural drama The Waiting City, starring Radha Mitchell, Joel Edgerton and Samrat Chakrabarti, will be released on DVD on May 31, 2011, by Entertainment One.

After the film was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, 2009, Chakrabarti was named one of the Fresh Faces at TIFF by thestar.com, for his role as Krishna. Linda Barnard of thestar.com wrote, “The high point of The Waiting City, about an Australian couple in Calcutta to adopt a child, is the lively and hilarious performance of Samrat Chakrabarti as Krishna, a meddlesome worker at the hotel where the Aussies stay. Befriending them and inserting himself into their lives, he digs out their secrets and gives unsolicited advice, in what seems like a typical Bollywood comic turn by an Indian actor.”

Samrat Chakrabarti, author Jhumpa Lahiri and Glee’s Iqbal Theba at the 10th annual Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council (MIAAC) Film Festival at the SVA Theater in New York on November 12, 2010. © 2010 Lia Chang

Last November, I attended the sold-out screening of The Waiting City at the 10th annual Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council (MIAAC) Film Festival at the SVA Theater in New York. After the screening, Indo-American Arts Council founder and executive director Aroon Shivdasani interviewed Chakrabarti about his experience working on The Waiting City. Watch the video below.

It was a big night for Chakrabarti, who had three films at the festival, appearing as an actor in Claire McCarthy’s The Waiting City and Ajay Naidu’s Ashes, and creating the score for Sundaram Tagor’s documentary The Poetics of Color: Natvar Bhavsar, which screened the night before. Chakrabarti, who is also an award-winning musician, is the recipient of the 2010 TMG Award for Global Achievers in the category of Film, TV and Drama, for his outstanding body of work as an actor. Click here for Samrat’s reel.

Bonus features on the DVD include commentary by director Claire McCarthy and actors Radha Mitchell and Joel Edgerton, a featurette and cast and crew interviews.

Other Articles by Lia Chang:
Samrat Chakrabarti stars in Soham Mehta’s Fatakra, Shiva Bajpal’s Raju, and Rehana Mirza’s Zameer & Preeti at NYIFF
Nan Melville’s Documentary ‘Nrityagram: For the Love of Dance’ screens at the Newport Beach Film Festival on May 3
11th Annual New York Indian Film Festival (NYIFF), May 4-8, 2011
Vikas Khanna’s Holy Kitchens Karma to Nirvana premieres at New York Indian Film Festival on 5/7 at Tribeca Cinemas
MIAAC Screens Ashes & The Waiting City, two films featuring Samrat Chakrabarti at SVA Theater on 11/12/10

Lia Chang: The Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council Film Festival Screens Ashes and The Waiting City, two films featuring Samrat Chakrabarti at the SVA Theater

Samrat Chakrabarti and Ashes filmmaker and star Ajay Naidu at the MIAAC screening of Ashes at the SVA Theater in New York on November 12, 2010. Photo by Lia Chang

Tonight I am off to see a double feature of Samrat Chakrabarti at the Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council (MIAAC) Film Festival at the SVA Theater (333 W.23rd St., between 8th and 9th Avenues in New York)- AJAY NAIDU’s Ashes at 6pm and Claire McCarthy’s The Waiting City at 9pm.

I chatted with Samrat yesterday just before he went to the screening of the third film he has at the festival, the documentary Sundaram Tagor’s The Poetics of Color: Natvar Bhavsar, for which he created the score. Check back for my exclusive interview with this globe-trotting actor, composer and musician, who has been having a whirlwind of amazing film, television and music projects.

Q&A of Ashes - A film by Ajay Naidu at the Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council Film Festival, SVA Theater in New York on November 12, 2010. (l-r) Ajay Naidu, Debargo Sanyal, Atul Ohri, Samrat Chakrabarti, Ajay Naidu, Reena Shah & Ajay Mehta. © 2010 Lia Chang

The Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council (MIAAC) Film Festival is the longest-running, most prestigious Indian film festival in the country, and continues through November 14. For further information please visit www.miaacfilmfest.org.

About the Indo-American Arts Council: The Indo-American Arts Council is a registered not-for-profit arts organization passionately dedicated to showcasing, building awareness, and celebrating artists of Indian origin in the performing, visual and literary arts. Annual festivals of art, dance, play writing and film are scheduled through the year, with several special events and book launches. For further information please visit www.iaac.us. The IAAC Film Festival was born in the aftermath of 9/11 in response to Mayor Giuliani’s call to New Yorkers to help rebuild a limping city. The First Annual film Festival opened its doors with Film Diaspora Godfather Ismail Merchant and closed with New York’s favorite Indian filmmaker Mira Nair. Four years ago, Mahindra & Mahindra joined forces with the IAAC Film Festival by becoming the lead sponsor, changing the name of the festival to The MIAAC Film Festival.

About The Mahindra Group: Mahindra embarked on its journey in 1945 by assembling the Willys Jeep in India and is now a $7.1 billion Indian multi-national company. It employs more than 100,000 people across the globe and enjoys a leadership position in utility vehicles, tractors, and information technology, with a significant and growing presence in financial services, tourism, infrastructure development, and trade and logistics. Today, The Mahindra Group is an embodiment of global experience and enjoys a strong corporate brand image.

Mahindra is the only Indian company among the top tractor brands in the world. It is today a full-range player with a presence in almost every segment of the automobile industry, from two-wheelers to CVs, UVs, SUVs, and sedans. Mahindra recently acquired majority stake in REVA Electric Car Co. Ltd. (now called Mahindra REVA), strengthening its position in the Electric Vehicles domain.

The Mahindra Group expanded its IT portfolio when Tech Mahindra acquired the leading global business and information technology services company, Satyam Computer Services. The company is now known as Mahindra Satyam.






All text, graphics, articles & photographs: © 2000-2010 Lia Chang Multimedia. All rights reserved. All materials contained on this site are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of Lia Chang. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content. For permission, please contact Lia at liachang@hotmail.com.

Other Articles by Lia Chang:

Lia Chang: Samrat Chakrabarti is featured in Claire McCarthy’s The Waiting City, which premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival

In The Waiting City, the latest offering by Australian director Claire McCarthy, Samrat Chakrabarti portrays Krishna, a hotel worker that an outwardly happy Australian couple, played by Radha Mitchell (Finding Neverland, Pitch Black) and Joel Edgerton (The Square, Star Wars: Episode II & III), befriend when they travel to Kolkata, India, to collect their adopted baby. Upon their arrival, they discover their arrangements have yet to be finalized, and must wait in this chaotic and foreign place. The vulnerability of their marriage begins to reveal itself as the intoxicating powers of the Indian city pull them in separate and unexpected directions.

Best know for his roles in Kissing Cousins, Shut Up and Sing and She Hate Me, I first encountered Chakrabarti on the silver screen at the Asian American International Film Festival in New York this summer, where he was featured in Sarba Das’ Karma Calling .

Samrat Chakrabarti and Rebecca Hazelwood in a scene from Amyn Kaderali’s Kissing Cousins, now available on DVD.

In Karma Calling, he is utterly charming as Rohit Rao, a call center employee in India (he calls himself Rob Roy when calling Americans) who dreams of visiting New York. When he develops a “You’ve Got Mail” friendship with Sonal Raj (played by Barnali Das), the daughter of Indian immigrants living a lonely life in New Jersey, the outcome is hopelessly romantic.

Barnali Das and Samrat Chakrabarti in Karma Calling

The New York based actor has been all over the map lately for his work in film and television, with roles in the upcoming Italian production Behind the Bodice alongside Irrfan Khan, the Bengali language film Dwando, the Indian independent film Bombay Summer, the American independent film Loins of Punjab Presents, and even a cameo in a new production from Bollywood’s Yash Raj films starring John Abraham. Television audiences may be familiar with his work on Law & Order (NBC), The Sopranos (HBO), Love Monkey (CBS) Hope and Faith (ABC), and Damages (FX).

Samrat Chakrabarti © Lia Chang

I caught up with him at a performance of ONE, the Rock Musical, starring Manu Narayan, Paolo Montalban, Pearl Sun and Michael Winther at 59e59 Theatres last night, and he mentioned that he was very proud of his work in The Waiting City, which will have its world premiere screening in the Special Presentations lineup of the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival on September 17, 2009.

During filming, director McCarthy described The Waiting City as, “An intimate, complex love story, set against the exhilarating, epic backdrop of Calcutta – a place that I’ve filmed in before and have a deep connection with. It’s impossible not to be affected by this place and certainly, the characters in The Waiting City are totally transformed by the people here and their powerful homeland.”

McCarthy’s previous credits include the documentary, Sisters (which screened on ABC Television this year and follows the experiences of her strong-willed real life sister, Helena, who naively nose-dives into volunteer work in Calcutta) and the feature film, Cross Life which screened at the 2007 Sydney Film Festival and Pusan International Film Festival in Korea.

Screening Schedule
Thursday September 17 6:00PM VISA SCREENING ROOM (ELGIN)
Friday September 18 1:45PM SCOTIABANK THEATRE 1
Saturday September 19 6:15PM VARSITY 8

Ticket packages for the Festival are now available for purchase by cash, debit or Visa. Purchase online at tiff.net/thefestival, by phone at 416-968-FILM or 1-877-968-FILM (10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Friday, closed weekends and holidays) or in person at the Festival Box Office at Nathan Phillips Square (10 a.m. to 7 p.m., seven days a week), located at 100 Queen Street West, in the white tent, west of the square.

The Special Presentations programme is made possible through the generous sponsorship of American Movie Classics Company LLC.

About TIFF: TIFF is a charitable, not-for-profit, cultural organization whose mission is to transform the way people see the world. Its vision is to lead the world in creative and cultural discovery through the moving image. TIFF generates an annual economic impact of $135 million CAD and currently employs more than 100 full-time staff, 500 part-time and seasonal staff, and counts upon the largesse of over 2,000 volunteers year-round.
The Waiting City at TIFF
Samrat Chakrabarti

Lia Chang is an actor, performance and fine art botanical photographer and an award-winning multimedia journalist. Lia’s portraits and performance photos have appeared in Vanity Fair, Gourmet, German Elle, Women’s Wear Daily, The Paris Review, VIBE, TV Guide, Daily Variety, Interior Design, American Theatre, Life & Style, OUT, New York Magazine, InStyle, Timeout.com, Villagevoice.com, Playbill.com, Theatermania.com, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, USA Today, The Boston Globe, New York Times and Washington Post. A former syndicated arts and entertainment columnist for KYODO News, Lia is the New York Bureau Chief for AsianConnections.com. She writes about culture, style and Asian American issues for a variety of publications and this Backstage Pass with Lia Chang blog. As a photographer and videographer, Lia is frequently tapped to collaborate with artists, organizations and companies in establishing their documentary photo archive. She has been documenting her colleagues and contemporaries in the arts, fashion and journalism since making her stage debut as Liat in the National Tour of South Pacific, with Robert Goulet and Barbara Eden.

Related Articles
thestar.com Fresh Faces at TIFF
Hollywood Reporter review of The Waiting City
Hot on the Hollywood Trail, a New Wave of Global Independent Movies
ONE Musical stars Paolo Montalban, Manu Narayan, Pearl Sun and Michael Winther
AAIFF09 Photos: Karma Calling, You Don’t Know Jack and Children of Invention
Amuse Bouche with Manu NarayanThe Romance of Magno Rubio

NAATCO’s pitch perfect Falsettoland hits all the right notes
Nothing is Sacred in David Henry Hwang’s Comedy of Mistaken Racial Identity
Francis Jue, At Home on the Stage
The Bacchae Opening Night photos: Andre De Shields, Jonathan Groff and Anthony Mackie
BD Wong Stars in the La Jolla Playhouse Production of Herringbone, August 1-30
Photo Call: Archbishop Supreme Tartuffe
Playbill.com: Photo Call: De Shields and Lange Star in Off Broadway’s Archbishop Supreme Tartuffe
André De Shields Stars in Archbishop Supreme Tartuffe
Andre De Shields in Impressionism
In Arthur Dong’s Hollywood Chinese, Chinese Tinseltown Tales told by Asian Silver Screen Icons