SWADES

San Francisco Premiere

India 2004 | 195mins | 35mm Color | Hindi w/E.S.

Director Ashutosh Gowariker made history with LAGAAN, the first commercial Indian film to be nominated for an Oscar award. Now, he joins forces with Indiaâs reigning superstar÷and NAATA favorite÷Shah Rukh Khan (KAL HO NAA HO [SFIAAFF â04]) to deliver ãone of the most socially relevant commercial Hindi films to have emerged in the last decadeä (Times of India). Khan is Mohan Bhargava, a successful NRI (non-resident Indian) scientist who works for NASA. Homesick and lonely, he impulsively heads back to India, hoping to reunite with the nanny who raised him. Tracing her to a remote village in Uttar Pradesh, Mohan finds a world more 19th century than 21st. Falling for the villageâs spirited young teacher (Gayatri Joshi), Mohan joins her fight to build a new school, and devotes himself to bringing electricity to this isolated, caste-divided town. Torn between a well-polished future in NASA skies and a more soiled one on Indian earth, Mohan must soon decide whether the light he brings burns for a moment, or a lifetime.

ãGowariker writes and directs skillfully, detailing the paradoxes of present-day India. At a time when Bollywood too often resorts to the formulaic, SWADES comes across as a breath of fresh, jasmine-scented air.ä

÷Raghu Kulkarni, City Pages.

ãSWADES is a movie that will tug at the heartstrings of every Indian, immigrant or not.ä
÷Chidanand Rajghatta,Times of India.

Sponsored by Walgreens