Schedule:

February 21, 2025

4:30 pm
Opening Remarks and Welcome Address

4:45 pm
Agent of Happiness - Documentary Film
Director: Arun Bhattarai, Dorottya Zurbo
Duration: 94 minutes
Language: Dzongkha, Nepali (English subtitles). English
Synopsis: Primed to be the happiest country in the world, Bhutan invented the Gross National Happiness Index. As Amber embarks on a cross-country road trip with a colleague, Agent of Happiness reveals itself to be an ingenious, absorbing ethnographic portrait of a society reeling under the weight of its own loneliness.

6:20 pm
Free as a Bird - Short Film
Director: Aditya Khude
Duration: 16 minutes
Language: Hindi (English subtitles), English
Actors: Ashish Vidyarthi, Shrikant Yadav. Varsha Dandale, Parna Pethe, Siddharth Menon
Synopsis: Set in the bustling city of Mumbai, the story is about a lower-middle-class family living in a small one-room kitchen. Raj and Priya, who aspire to a more prosperous future, go through a humiliating incident on their anniversary at the beach, where they become entangled in a police raid.

6:40
Entertainment by Moodafaruka and Reception
Mixing Flamenco, Middle Eastern, Spanish and Western motifs, Moodafaruka creates a tapestry of sound that is both familiar and new. The Global community is burgeoning into a multicultural, multicolored, multilingual village. Moodafaruka seeks to remind people of the common values we share, to honor our differences, and promote the celebration of life through music.

February 22, 2025

5:00 pm
Opening Remarks and Welcome Address

5:15 pm
The Ancient (Puratawn) - Feature Film
Director: Suman Ghosh
Duration: 100 minutes
Language: Bengali, Hindi (English subtitles)
Actors: Sharmila Tagore, Rituparna Sengupta, Indranil Sen
Synopsis: Ritika and her husband Rajeev return to her ancestral house in West Bengal to celebrate her mother’s 80th birthday. The film deftly braids in questions of failing memory, cherishing the past, a fear of obsolescence and reconciliation into a haunting, moving story that is at its heart about burying the ghosts of the past in order to make peace with what has happened so that one can move on.

7:30 pm
Special Event

Date: February 21 - 22, 2025

Location:

Asia Society Texas Center
1370 Southmore Boulevard
Houston, TX 77004

Click Here For More Information