Prolific Indian Actor Discusses Career, Screens New Movie at Moving Image Museum

He played the leader of a militant Sikh sect in the 1996 Indian film Maachis. He portrayed a Pakistani immigrant in England who struggles with his westernized children in the 1999 British flick East is East. And he even had roles in Hollywood productions with Patrick Swazey (City of Joy, 1992), Jack Nicholson (Wolf, 1994), and Val Kilmer (The Ghosts and the Darkness, 1996). Now, he’s coming to the Museum of the Moving Image. This Sunday, Om Puri (seated, above) will watch clips of his finest acting moments and chat about his roughly 50-year career with Indian actress and food expert Madhur Jaffrey. Then the museum will host a special preview screening of his newest work, The Hundred-Foot Journey (below), a Steven Spielberg-Oprah Winfrey production that also stars Helen Mirren. In this adaptation of a book by Richard C. Morais, Puri is the patriarch of proud family that opens an Indian restaurant next to a famous Michelin-starred eatery in the south of France. An all-out war ensues.

Details: Om Puri Tribute and The Hundred-Foot Journey, Museum of the Moving Image,36-01 35th Avenue, Kaufman Arts District, August 3rd, 6 pm, $20.

For information about another screening and live event — Not to Be Missed: Chinatown — at the Museum of the Moving Image on August 3rd, go to the jump page.

Kenneth Turan is a film critic for The Los Angeles Times and National Public Radio’s Morning Edition. He has just published a new book, Not to Be Missed: Fifty-Four Favorites From a Lifetime of Film, which covers 100 years of great movies with cultural criticism, historical anecdotes, and inside-Hollywood controversy. On August 3rd at 2:30 pm, Turan will present Chinatown, the 1974 Roman Polanski film starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway, at the Museum of the Moving Image. Turan will then participate in a discussion and a book signing in the Moving Image Store.

Top and bottom photos: Museum of the Moving Image; middle photo: The Hundred-Foot Journey