The Indian Film Festival concludes with Chokher Bali and Mr and Mrs Iyer on Wednesday and Friday at the Indian Cultural Centre in New Haven, Bel Air.

Wednesday’s film is Chokher Bali, which is based on a novel of the same name by Rabindranath Tagore. The story is about Binodhini a young widow left to her own devices when her sickly husband dies soon after they are married. She returns to her village and lives there for a couple of months until she accepts the invitation of Rajlakshmi to live with her and her son, Mahendra (who had rejected a former marriage proposal with Binodini). He is newly married to Ashalata (a naive, simple village girl), but soon begins to feel a strong sexual attraction for Binodini. The story details the relationships of these three and Mahendra’s best friend Behari as they deal with issues like distrust, adultery, lies, and numerous fallings-out between them.

Rabindranath Tagore’s works have shown strong empathy with radical female characters, and Binodhini has been described as one who refuses to live the life set out by the prevailing culture.

Chokher Bali is directed by Rituparno Ghosh, an award winning director who has made many films in Bengali. The film stars Aishwarya Rai as Binodini.

On Friday the festival concludes with Aparna Sen’s acclaimed film Mr and Mrs Iyer.

Mr and Mrs Iyer is an Indian drama about Meenakshi Iyer, a Tamil Iyer Brahmin and Raja Chowdhury (played by Rahul Bhose), a Muslim wildlife photographer. The story revolves around these two lead characters during a fateful bus journey amidst the carnage of communal strife in India.

Zakir Hussain, an Indian tabla maestro, composed the background score and music for the film. Goutam Ghose, a film director himself, was the cinematographer. The film won the Nargis Dutt Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration. Aparna Sen is the winner of three National Film awards and eight International Film Festival awards. She began her career by acting and then moved to directing.

All films have English subtitles and start at 6 pm. Admission is free.