Vivek Renjen Bald

In Search of Bengali Harlem follows Ullah from the streets of New York City to the villages of Bangladesh to uncover the pasts of his father, Habib, and mother, Mohima. Alaudin discovers that Habib was part of a rich lost history of mid-20th century Harlem, in which Bengali Muslim men, dodging racist Asian Exclusion laws, married into New York's African American and Puerto Rican communities - and in which the likes of Malcolm X and Miles Davis shared space and broke bread with immigrants from the subcontinent. He also unearths the hardships and trauma that his mother overcame to become one of the first women to immigrate to the U.S. from rural Bangladesh. In Search of Bengali Harlem is a transformative journey, not just for Alaudin Ullah, but for our understanding of the complex histories of South Asians and Muslims in the United States.

Shot on video and film over seven years, American filmmaker Vivek Bald's absorbing examination of the Asian Underground movement in English rock in the 90s combines interview and performance footage of all the key players-Talvin Singh, Fun-Da-Mental, Cornershop, Joi, and Asian Dub Foundation. Nearly every musician interviewed talks about experiencing anti-Asian racism while growing up. Bald shows how defensive identification with England's black population led them to embrace reggae and hip-hop in addition to Indian sounds like Bollywood sound track music, bhangra, and Indian classical music. A passing moment of attention from the mainstream media and major record labels has embittered some of the performers but left others more focused and still hopeful.

A documentary exploring the experiences and attitudes of Indian and Pakistani taxi drivers in New York City while also questioning the filmmaker's relationship to these South Asian immigrants and to his mixed-race heritage.