'Rock On' to open Indian film festival in Washington

Mumbai, Nov 11 (IANS) Bollywood director Abhishek Kapoor's recent hit "Rock On!!" will open the second annual Indian Visions Film Festival to be held in Washington DC.

Commencing Thursday, the festival will conclude with Adoor Gopalakrishnan's "Naalu Pennungal" (Four Women) Nov 16.

Set in Mumbai, "Rock On!!" stars Farhan Akhtar, Arjun Rampal, Luke Kenny and Purab Kohli and revolves around a group of four aspiring musicians who form a rock band called "Magik".

The music of the film became a rage among youngsters.

Apart from "Rock On!!", other feature films to be showcased at the festival include "Welcome to Sajjanpur" (Shyam Benegal), "A Wednesday" (Neeraj Pandey), "Mumbai Meri Jaan" (Nishikant Kamat) and "Valu: The Wild Bull" (Umesh Kulkarni) among others.

Short films like "AIDS Jaago" (Mira Nair, Vishal Bharadwaj, Farhan Akhtar and Santosh Sivan), "Between Two Worlds" (Mona Kumar), "Crossing Lines" (Leena Jayaswal and Indira Somani), "Milind Soman Made Me Gay" (Harjant Gill) and "The Private Life of Albert Pinto" (Sidharth Singh) with others will also be showcased at the event.

"Our festival will present several premier films designed to educate, entertain and provoke," Sukumar Srinivasan, executive director, Indian Visions said in a statement released here Tuesday.

Celebrity guests attending the fest include Abhishek Kapoor, Brahmanand Singh, Ashish Avikunthak and Spandan Banerjee.

• Movie News