NEW YORK - The newly founded Indo-American Arts Council announces a special screening of internationally renowned director Deepa Mehta's fourth feature film, Earth, on Wednesday, September 9, 1998 at 6 p.m. at the Manhattan Twin Theatre, 220 East 59th Street ( between 2nd and 3'd Avenues ). Earth, based on Bapsi Sidhwa's critically acclaimed novel, Cracking India, is the second film in Mehta's trilogy of the elements, Fire, Earth, and Water. Set during the South Asian subcontinent into India and Pakistan in 1947, Earth is a story about the destruction of innocence in the name of nationalism and religion. Massacres co-exist with a luminous love story, betrayals of friendship walk alongside individual heroics, riots and kidnappings open innocent eyes to the Deepa Mehta began her cinematic career writing scripts for children's films. Her first feature film, Sam & Me, won the very first Honorable Mention by the Critics in the Camera D'Or category of the 1991 Cannes Film Festival. Her second feature, Camilla, starring Jessica Tandy and Bridget Fonda, had an international release in 1995, and her third feature film, Fire, has won 14 international awards to date. Earth features the actor, Aamir Khan, one of the most prominent stars of contemporary Indian cinema, in the leading role of Ice Candy Man. Khan, who established his career with the blockbuster love story, Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak ( 1988 ), has had a hit film every year since then, and most recently played the celebrated role of a small town taxi driver in Raja Hindustani ( 1996 ). The Indo-American Arts Council is a secular, not-for-profit service and resource organization dedicated to promoting the awareness, creation, production, exhibition, publication, and performance of Indian and cross cultural art forms in North America.