press > Two River Film Festival and Monmouth University proudly present the NJ Premiere of MIRA NAIR’S new film, “THE NAMESAKE” on March 15, 2007 for immediate release: Beverly Peterson 732.923.4751 trff@monmouth.edu february 28, 2007  “A Glory on a huge colorful canvas.  Strikingly original, heartfelt, superbly acted and profoundly satisfying.”  - Joe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal West Long Branch, N.J., February 28, 2007 Two River Film Festival partnered with Monmouth University’s Global Understanding Project will co-host the New Jersey premiere of Mira Nair’s new film, THE NAMESAKE, at Monmouth University’s Pollak Theatre on March 15, 2007 at 7:30pm. Following the screening will be a Q & A session with seven-year-old Marlboro resident, Soham Nick Chatterjee, who plays the role of Gogol at age 4.  Soham will be joined by his mom, Sashwati Chatterjee, a radio show host/ actress/ singer.  This special screening of the Fox Searchlight Pictures release is free and open to the public.   Due to limited seating, confirmed reservations are required and can be requested at 732-923-4751 or TRFF@monmouth.edu. In her most personal film to date, acclaimed director Mira Nair (VANITY FAIR, MONSOON WEDDING) brings to the screen a poignant and transporting version of Jhumpa Lahiri’s best-selling novel, which won reader’s hearts across the world with its exploration of the ties that can both tangle and bind global families as they brave the modern vicissitudes of change, conflict and disaster. Spanning two generations, two clashing cultures and two very different ways of life that crash into each other only to become lovingly intertwined, THE NAMESAKE is ultimately about that imminently relevant question: what does it mean to be an American family? On the heels of their arranged marriage, Ashoke (Irrfan Khan) and Ashima (Tabu) jet off from steaming Calcutta to a wintry New York where they begin their new life together.  Virtual strangers to one another and now living in what is to them a very strange land, their relationship quickly takes a turn when Ashima gives birth to a son.  Under pressure to name him quickly, Ashoke settles on Gogol, after the famous Russian author – a name that serves as a link to a secret past and, Ashoke hopes, a better future.  But life isn’t as easy for Gogol as his parents might wish.  As a first-generation American teenager, Gogol (Kal Penn) must learn to tread a razor-thin line between his Bengali roots and his American birthright in the search for his own identity.  As Gogol attempts to forge his destiny – rejecting his given name, dating a rich American girl (Jacinda Barrett), heading to study architecture at Yale – his parents cling to their Bengali traditions.  But their paths keep crossing with both comic and painfully revelatory consequences… until Gogol begins to see the links between the world his parents left behind and the new world that lies in front of him.