On November 27, the Vancouver International South Asian Film Festival kicks off for its 5th year.

The festival is made up of the best films in contemporary South Asian cinema.This year’s theme: Bollywood & Beyond, celebrates stories that engage, educate, and inspire audiences by promoting free expression, cross-cultural interactions, and understanding.

The festival serves up a host of feature films, as well as a number of shorts.
To help get you in a cinephile mood for this year’s lineup here are seven feature films to look out for at VISAFF 2015:

Ugly
Anurag Kashyap’s psychological thriller is a dark emotional drama that tackles corruption, indifference and violence.

Petals In The Dust
Directed by Nyna Pais Caputi, Petals in the Dust explores the cultural origins of female genocidal crime. It includes the voices of activists and gender experts as well survivors of gender crimes who have struggled to build meaningful lives. With escalating violence against women in India, this film shares the director’s personal journey as a filmmaker to understand and shed light on the enormity of the problem of gender discrimination and violence.

Miss India America

Ravi Kapoor’s coming-of-age comedy, Miss India America’s genuine charm and particular emphasis on cultural continuity helps to connect widely dispersed South Asian communities worldwide. It’s underpinned by the inherent curiosity we all seem to share about pageant life — in its campaign to take home the tiara.

Journey Of A Dream
A feature-length documentary by Shenpenn Khymsar, Journey Of A Dream takes audiences on an epic, global exploration into heavy metal music, exile, Buddhism and Tibetan roots; in what’s possibly the most unique juxtaposition ever seen on a rockumentary.

Dheeyan Marjania
A compelling story that seeks acknowledgement of the female foeticide reality happening in India and globally. Director, Ashok Tangri, sheds light on various misconceptions and social constructs that create the pathway to commit this crime and how to a change in personal and community constructs will lead change.

Zubaan
Zubaan is a coming-of-age musical drama directed by Mozez Singh, which stars Vicky Kaushal and Sarah Jane Dias. The film is about a young boy (Vicky Kaushal) who loses his faith and develops a fear of music. and details his journey in fighting that fear and thus finding himself.

Dukhtar
An illiterate mother sets out to rescue her 10-year-old daughter from an arranged marriage in an adventurous tale set in the mountains of Pakistan. Director, Afia Nathaniel, has dramatically crafted a great against-all-odds adventure tale, abetted by spectacular location shooting and an outcome that is never a foregone conclusion.

VISAFF 2015: Bollyood & beyond
When: Friday, November 27 to Sunday, November 29
Where: SFU Woodward’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts
Website: www.visaff.ca