The Festival of Indian Cinema, the first event showcasing Indian film ever at SMU, begins today with a pre-screening in the Greer Garson Theatre. The festival, running from March 23 to 26, will be composed of a variety of films and is open to the public with free admission.

The festival begins at 1 p.m. with a documentary directed by Sanjeev Sivan, in the 16mm screening room.

The festival will show films that illustrate various Indian languages such as Hindi, Tamil and Malayalam. All films contain English subtitles and will be shown in the McCord Auditorium in Dallas Hall.

The Bollywood blockbuster film “Dil Chahta Hai” (Follow Your Heart), directed by Farham Akhtar, will be shown tonight at 7 p.m., followed by Mani Ratnam’s “Alai Payuthe” (Waves) on Friday at 7 p.m., “Kombathu” (Rainbow of Dreams) on Saturday at 7 p.m. The Sunday screening at 2:30 will include a 5 minute preview of Sivan’s documentary and then the movie “Mr. and Mrs. Iyer” will follow. “Mr. and Mrs. Iyer” won two awards at the 2002 Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland.

According to Sunil Sam, a graduate student in cinema-television, the festival will be an “attempt to showcase the rich culture and youth of India today.”

For more information on the event, visit people.smu.edu/iff or call the cinema-television department at 214-768-3497.

– Whitney Welch