Hilltop hosts first Indian Film Festival (Photo by The Daily Campus)

The first Indian Film Festival at SMU was held in McCord Auditorium March 23-26.

The festival began on Thursday afternoon with a question and answer session with director Sanjeev Sivan, who showed his documentary on pirating media in India.

Sivan said his documentary was shown on public television in India, and before his film aired, there were not many laws dealing with piracy. He said pirated movies were being played on cable.

According to Sivan, after his documentary aired, “Many new laws were made.”

The next event of the festival was Thursday night, when “Dil Chahta Hai,” a movie about three friends and their lives and love experiences after graduating college, was shown.

First-year English major Ian Winston said he liked the film.

“I enjoyed the way that it could go from lighthearted to very serious without losing any of the credibility established by the narrative structure of the piece,” Winston said.

The next film was “Alai Payuthey” (“Waves”) and revolved around a couple’s relationship.

“I liked the movie, even though it was a bit serious,” junior Liz Barrett said. She also felt that it adequately demonstrated Indian culture.

The third movie was “Thenmavin Kombathu,” a movie in the Malayalam language. Set in southern India, the film detailed the country’s battle for a large establishment and won several national and state-level awards for art direction.

The final movie in the film festival was “Mr. and Mrs. Iyer,” a film primarily in English with some Hindi. This film portrayed Mrs. Iyer, a woman traveling alone with her 9-month-old son. Through a number of problems and hard times on her journey, Iyer falls in love with Raja, a photographer who took care of her on her journey.

Prashant Patil said he had seen this movie before its release in India.

“It turned out to be an unforgettable movie,” he said. “Despite the show of violence, there were some beautiful movements.”

Patil also enjoyed the rest of the festival.

“The whole event was brilliant – the coordinators did a great job,” he said.