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Amitava Kumar's Bollywood Crash Course

<em>Monsoon Wedding,</em> from 2001, was directed by Mira Nair.  The film was nominated for a Golden Globe award.
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Monsoon Wedding, from 2001, was directed by Mira Nair. The film was nominated for a Golden Globe award.

*Sholay is the biggest hit in Bollywood history. Kumar says it has "melodrama, violence, sex and dance," all the "characteristic marks" of a Bollywood film.

*Satya is a Hindi crime film from 1998.

*Ankur, or The Seedling, started "the new wave of Indian cinema," according to Kumar, with its "eye for social observation and injustice."

*The Bandit Queen is the fictionalized story of Phoolan Devi, a modern day, female Robin Hood in India.

*Monsoon Wedding was moderately successful in the U.S. Kumar believes it "in some ways reflects some of our (Indian) diasporic identities, and also still has lots of songs and dance."

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