''Flavors'' is a 2003 romantic comedy film written and directed by

Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D.K. Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D.K., collectively known as Raj & DK, is an Indian filmmaking duo known for their works in Hindi cinema, Hindi and Telugu cinema, Telugu films. They write, direct, and produce feature films and original series, under th ...

, concerning Indian immigrants in America.

Plot

''Flavors'' tells the stories of 13 different main characters in five parallel story lines. The marriage of

NRI NRI or Nri may refer to : * Kingdom of Nri, an Igbo kingdom that flourished between the 10th century and early 20th century * National Radio Institute, a now defunct post-secondary vocational correspondence school * National Resources Inventory * N ...

Rad (Anupam Mittal) to his American fiancée (

Jicky Schnee Jicky Schnee is a Scottish model and a film, television and stage actress. Schnee was named after the Guerlain Guerlain () is a French perfume, cosmetics and skincare house, which is among the oldest in the world. Many traditional Guerlain frag ...

) brings his family to the US where they quickly adapt to American ways. Meanwhile, Kartik (Reef Karim), tries to maintain a long-distance relationship with his friend Rachna (Pooja Kumar) and bored housewife Sangita (Sireesha Katragadda) is neglected by her workaholic husband (Gaurang Vyas).

Cast

* Anupam Mittal as Rad *

as Jenni *

Reef Karim Reef Karim is a television personality, international speaker, author, and osteopathic physician. He is best known as the host of the Court TV television show '' House of Clues'', the host of the Discovery Fit & Health television show Broken Mi ...

as Kartik *

Pooja Kumar Pooja Kumar is an American actress of Indian descent who works in Tamil, Hindi, and English-language Indian films. After winning Miss India USA in 1995, she pursued a career as an actress and producer. She has appeared in a number of American f ...

as Rachana * Sireesha Katragadd as Sangita * Gaurang Vyas as Sangita's husband *

Anjan Srivastav Aanjjan Srivastav (born 2 June 1948) is an Indian film, television and stage actor, associated with Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA) in Mumbai of which he remained Vice-President for several years. Outside theatre, he is best known as ...

Bharati Achrekar Bharati Achrekar is an Indian Marathi and Hindi theatre, film and television actress. She has been a part of several films in Indian cinema and was celebrated as Mrs Wagle from the doordarshan show, ''Wagle ki Duniya''. She is currently starri ...

* Rishma Malik

Release

''Flavors'' was an official selection at the

Cairo International Film Festival The Cairo International Film Festival ( ar, مهرجان القاهرة السينمائي الدولي) is an annual internationally accredited film festival held in Cairo Opera House. It was established in 1976 and has taken place every year si ...

, the

Hamptons International Film Festival The Hamptons International Film Festival (HIFF) is an international film festival founded in 1992, by Joyce Robinson. The festival has since taken place every year in East Hampton, New York. It is usually an annual five-day event in mid-October a ...

, the Milan Film Festival, the

Hawaii International Film Festival The Hawai'i International Film Festival (HIFF) is an annual film festival held in the United States state of Hawaii. HIFF has a focus on Asian-Pacific cinema, education, and the work of new and emerging filmmakers. HIFF’s primary festival is ...

, the

Bangkok International Film Festival The Bangkok International Film Festival (BKKIFF) ( th, เทศกาลภาพยนตร์นานาชาติกรุงเทพฯ) is an international film festival held annually in Bangkok, Thailand, since 2003. In addition to fi ...

, the

San Francisco International Film Festival The San Francisco International Film Festival (abbreviated as SFIFF), organized by the San Francisco Film Society, is held each spring for two weeks, presenting around 200 films from over 50 countries. The festival highlights current trends in in ...

, the Asian American International Film Festival and the Mumbai Film Festival.

Reception

Critical reception

''Flavors'' received mostly positive reviews form critics. Vivek Kumar of

Rediff Rediff.com (stylized as ''rediff.com'') is an Indian news, information, entertainment and shopping web portal. It was founded in 1996. It is headquartered in Mumbai, with offices in Bangalore, New Delhi and New York City. , it had more than 300 e ...

said that "Filmmaking is all about captivating your audience; it is the business of filmmaking and Flavors succeeds in this business venture." ''Screen'' called it "innovative" and "entertaining" while Dave Kehr of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' termed it "bright, good-spirited and blissfully short".

Box office

In India, ''Flavors'' averaged per print and was the second top grosser in metro theatres for its opening week behind '' Vaastu Shastra''. In the US, the film grossed around $150,000 on 14 screens.

Awards

For their work on ''Flavors'', Nidimoru and Krishna DK received a nomination for Best Emerging Directors at the Asian American International Film Festival in New York. The film also won the President Award at the 2003

Fort Lauderdale A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

International Film Festival. Pooja Kumar received the

Screen Actors Guild The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) was an American labor union which represented over 100,000 film and television principal and background performers worldwide. On March 30, 2012, the union leadership announced that the SAG membership voted to m ...

Emerging Actor Award for her performance.

References

External links

* *
Review
by Chitra Mahesh of the ''

Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism.Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...

'' 2003 films 2003 romantic comedy films Films about Indian Americans American romantic comedy films Films directed by Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D.K. 2000s English-language films 2000s American films {{2000s-romantic-comedy-film-stub