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iView Author: Suprateek Chatterjee (Mumbai, India)

Email: supchats [at] gmail [dot] com

In Bruges

In Bruges. Directed by Martin McDonagh

Rating: 3.5 on 5

In Bruges does for the comic-hit man genre what several Guy Ritchie capers could not - elevate it to a film which deals with real human emotions, risqué humor and a tantalizing premise. Featuring a getting-better-with-each-film Colin Farrell who turns in one of his best performances, a brilliantly sympathetic Brendan Gleeson (Mad-Eye Moody from the Harry Potter series) and the inimitable Ralph Fiennes playing one of his most memorable roles as a psychotic mob boss, this Sundance Film Festival crowd-pleaser packs quite a punch. If only the ending wasn’t as forced as it seems, but more on that later.

The premise is appetizing – two hit-men from England need to cool their heels for …

From Fernando Meirelles, (director of City of God, The Constant Gardener) Blindness is a story where a sudden plague of blindness devastates a city, a small group of the afflicted band together to triumphantly overcome the horrific conditions of their imposed quarantine. The movie stars Don McKellar, Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo and Danny Glover and releases this Friday, Oct 3rd.

iView Author: Ratnakar Sadasyula (Bhubaneshwar, India)

Email: ratnakar.techie [at] gmail [dot] com

A trip down Masala Lane

I am one of those who grew up on a steady diet of 70’s, 80’s and 90’s masala movies. Even to date, i have no compunctions in sitting through a good old masala flick on TV. Yeah even some of the torture series ones, just for the campy fun. I was one of those movie goers, who thronged the single screen theaters, standing in the queue, jostling for tickets, watching movies in theaters, with no proper air conditioning or fans and gorging on the watery snacks. Even now, i prefer to watch a movie, in a theater, i just don’t get the same kind of experience in a multiplex. Anyway the masala movies of yore had …

We are publishing here the list of entries that we will be receiving for the 2008 One Minute Film Festival. Please note this list will be updated often as and when we receive and approve new submissions.

Important Dates to note:

October 15th: Last date for receiving entries without an entry fee

October 31st: Last date for receiving entries with late fee. (Closed)

November 15th: Films admitted to the Competitive section will be announced in this post.

December 1st to December 5th: All submissions, both in the Competitive and Non Competitive section will be shown on PFC.

December 5th: Winners will be announced.

#

Film Title, Synopsis

Made by

Competitive / Non Competitive (C*/NC)

75.

The Shining
A very late night at the office.

K Adeep (Trivandrum, India)

74.

The Raven
Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s poem of the same title.

Shekhar Shimpi (Pune, India)

73.

Minute …

Interviewed by IBN for their “Rising Talent” series, here’s the hotshot director of Khosla ka Ghosla, Dibakar Banerjee, who’s ready with his next whacky movie that everyone who’s seen is raving about - Oye Lucky Lucky Oye. Dibakar talks about Khosla ka Ghosla, his association with Jaideep Sahni, the weird ending he designed for Khosla and which was changed later, Ray, Scorcese and many other things. A treat for Khosla fans! Here’s Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 of the interview. Tip : DPac

How Shyam Benegal has managed to handle such a vast and loosely scattered subject and presented such a fine piece of cinema? How he has managed to present so many differently looking and behaving characters in a single film? How he has managed to give so different physical gestures and psychological understandings to different characters?

As its known he was born in Hyderabad then how he managed to take that kind of performance from Ila Arun, which could be completely alien for a non-hindi speaking person? Vijay Tendulkar was not present in his team, Pt Satyadev Dube was not writing dialogues for this film and still he has managed so well in characterization department. From where comes, his deep and vast understanding about the people?

Socio-political commentary has been an integral part of almost all the films of Shyam Benegal since the time of Ankur. His films could have some …

An announcement that might be handy to you:

The GSMA, the global trade group for the mobile industry, and Mofilm, a pioneer of short films for mobile and on-line distribution, has announced the first Global Mobile Film Festival at the Mobile World Congress in 2009, with an official ‘call for films’ to international film-makers today.

The Global Mobile Festival follows the success of the GSMA’s previous collaborations with the Sundance Film Festival to create the Global Short Film Project, which debuted at the Mobile World Congress in 2007; and this year, showcasing with Mofilm, the work of short film directors representing the Cannes, Locarno, Shanghai and Sundance Festivals supported by the actor, director and film maker Robert Redford and the actress, writer and director Isabella Rossellini.

The GSMA and Mofilm are seeking films up to five minutes in length, made both using traditional film making techniques by established and upcoming film …

An announcement that might be handy to you:

Deadline: 24/10/2008

Region: Worldwide

The World Bank has launched a worldwide competition of 2-5 minute documentaries that highlight social aspects of climate change. The deadline for submissions is October 24.

Titled “Vulnerability exposed: Social dimensions of climate change,” the competition is a follow-up to the bank’s March 2008 international workshop on climate change.

The competition consists of two categories:

1- Social dimensions of climate change: This category is open to both amateur and professional filmmakers.

2- Young voices of climate change: This category is open to filmmakers who are under 24 years old.

The award winners will recieve an all expenses paid trip to Washington D.C. for a screening of their film.

For more information, visit www.worldbank. org/sdccfilmcont est or contact Megumi Makisaka at mmakisaka@worldbank .org

Mumbai Meri Mehbooba Hain
(Mumbai through its plays)

Its a poignant line in Vishal Bharadwaj’s MAQBOOL. Mumbai meri mehbooba hain.

Its a mehbooba you love. And irrevocably hate.

The great poets (Narayan Surve, Namdeo Dhasal, Annabhau Sathe, Amar Sheikh) and their ballads have celebrated this city. Then there were the Kamgar centres in Andheri, Worli, Naigaum, Kala Chowkie, Vikhroli. In the finest tradition of theatre, they deployed thumris, dholkiwallahs, petiwallahs, lavanis, bharood, songi and now films songs and tv serial plots.

If its Mumbai, then anything and everything goes. As a road side artiste stated: that being remembered makes you live for ever. … And does living in infamy count?

That was the fate of performances staged in open-air grounds like Jambori Maidan with audiences of 1000+. The plays are publicised through word of mouth or handbills outside Lower Parel or Currey Road station. Stagings include JWALA and SAKHARAM BINDER. Sometimes there’s something new and innovative …

Spoilers- You might not want to read if you are planning to see the movie.

Before the movie started, I saw the name ‘Mahadev Ka Sajjanpur on the Censor Board Certificate (?). Probably the distributors didn’t like the original name, I thought. Did anything else change in the movie because of commercial pressures, I wondered. We will come back to that later. I went to see the movie with a sense of trepidation as I had seen the promotional trailors and didn’t like any of them. I had thought that the humor would be too loud and in your face. But I was pleasantly surprised.

Director Shyam Benegal wields a masterly narrative and lets the viewer find the irony and satire in the movie if he pays heed. He starts us off on the deep end as Ramsingh authoritatively played by Yashpal Sharma tries to defend his wife from a murder charge …

In the widening gyre of material desires that threatens to envelope my everyday life, Lata offers me an oasis of serenity. To the Godless in me, she provides spiritual succour. Like she has provided to many millions before me and like she will continue to do for many years hereafter. Artists like Lata come once in a lifetime of a nation; they shape its identity, its aspirations and ultimately its culture.

As Lata enters the eight decade of her life today, we seem to take the legend in our midst for granted. She remains among the last links to that age where through sheer happenstance of history great composers, lyricists and singers came together to create magic. We take her for granted because we find her so commonly in our daily lives. There’s only a single degree of separation between Lata and us. We are only a song, a channel, a …

Mahendra Kapoor is no more.. One of the most powerful voices in hindi, punjabi and marathi film music passed away today due to a heart attack. He was 74. He would be remembered for putting up amazing energy levels in his songs. Considered a Rafi clone by many, he could prove he was the best when it comes to singers of Rafi-genre… Here are a few interesting nuggets on his prolific career :

*Not many people know that he was a big big fan of Rafi saab and ran away from the home to meet him as he wanted to learn music from Rafi saab and Rafi saab accepted him as a formal shishya (infact his only formal student).

* Rafi saab did train him for sometime but then asked him to learn classical music. [caption id="attachment_7044" align="alignright" width="200" caption="One of his recent Pics "]…

first, the obstacles.

Boy girl meet-cute.
Girl boy make cute.
Happy song. The End.

That’s what a romcom would be without the hurdles. Movies would end in 30 minutes, and the productivity of most nations would increase. To the chagrin of HR managers around the world, we have to deal with an additional 2+ hours of misunderstandings, personality mismatches, neuroses, and finally a concept that would warm the cockles of even the stodgiest economist’s heart.

Aukaat.

For the longest time I thought it meant class. But, it can also mean gumption. And intellectual inferiority. Or superiority. And beauty. Or divinity. In other words, it’s like the word fuck. You can use it to mean anything.

Allow me to illustrate with some examples, but keep in mind that aukaat is something one aspires to, and can never attain. Like Tennyson talks about the horizon in Ulysses. Like the predicament of Tantalus.

Say someone cuts in front of …

Paul Newman, actor, director, race car driver, man with the famous blue eyes R. I. P. News of Paul Newman’s passing away… his filmography…

Shyam Benegal is one name that commands attention and respect. And, his recent film proved it. Welcome to Sajjanpur can at best be called a highly mediocre film, which had it been from any other director, would have trashed left, right and center. But, you don’t do that with Shyam Benegal. So, you have all the reviews in the country sounding extremely vague on the film. They definitely cannot trash it for sure (after all Benegal!), and they also can’t praise that bad a film.

I was rather conned into going for the movie. And, it would be an understatement to say that the movie was BAD. I mean, while watching a Benegal film, if you are actually reminded of Daviv Dhawan humour - you can imagine the plight! The film is crude, crass and vulgar in stages. Benegal tries to weave in social messages (like education, eunuchs given their rights, …

After covering the festival last year, I had greater expectations this time around. And rightly so, I stood vindicated. The films that were covered as a part of this year’s festival not only satisfied an avid film-viewer, but went beyond the essential duties of an event of such stature – the selection of films, the issues that it touches upon, the domains it explores, and more importantly the ambitions it aspires at, make the whole effort worthwhile.

There is always going to be a huge number of films that might look intimidating if you are looking at covering all of them in a festival or event like this. But you slowly settle down with the plan, and look at the films not as an objective but as a wholesome entity, each existing in its broader existential sense, breathing and sprawling in their own individualistic entirety, and an acute …

iView Author: Evelyn Tu (Princeton, U.S.)

Email: withheld

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Unfolding “Amélie” scene analysis
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Can it be only seven years since Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s “Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain” was released? Despite valleys and peaks and valleys in its fortunes, “Amélie” has grown so large in my estimation that it’s hard to believe it hasn’t always existed.

A while back, I had to write up an analysis of an impressive scene for my directing class. I don’t know why I thought I’d find something written on this aspect of “Amélie,” but that wasn’t to be. It’s very lucky that Jeunet included a generous amount of background and commentary on his DVD. As I studied the care he lavished on every detail, it occurred to me that the deeper subtext of “Amélie” is his love letter to the unlimited possibilities of …

This is kind of a continuation of my last post about film projection in Indian theatres (http://passionforcinema.com/film-exhibition-in-india/).

Sound in Indian cinema has come a long way. Today we have sound designers like Resul Pookutty, Nakul Kamte, Kunal Sharma, Dwarak Warrier, Sanjay Maurya, Baylon Fonseca, A. Lakshminarayan and the trendsetting H. Sridhar all doing some exceptional work. If Indian cinema is able to reach out globally, these people have a huge hand in it.

People underestimate the importance of sound in a film. In Indian cinema, we are traditionally used to watching films with blaring scores going wall to wall. Sound in our cinema, at the mainstream level at least has never been about subtlety or detail. That along with the fact that for ages, dialogs in our films have been dubbed in post. Dubbing strips the realism in a movie. Most Indian viewers are not affected because our ears have been …

At the end of the movie “A Wednesday” a few weeks ago, I suddenly found a few people in the upmarket audience of Globus, Bandra standing up and clapping. Gladdened my heart for the maker, his movie and the response. That also set me thinking about what would be the right response to a movie.
Then, today morning I read RGV’s blog in which he has mentioned the response to Shiva when it hit the screens one Friday. He says that his colleague informed him that they were quiet. This response mystified him and so he found out more. They were quiet because they were stunned. I was too, if I do remember correctly. But that also is a significant response.
I was similarly stunned when I first saw “Suraj ka Saatvan Ghoda”. I keep remembering the last scene of a poor Rajat Kapoor pushing that handcart and that desolation o his …

(5/5) Jack Nicholson shines with mad brilliance in this work of pure genius. A masterpiece that scared the s**t out of me.
IMDB

iView Author: Anand (Chennai, India)

Email: withheld

Golden Silences

Ram Gopal Varma – a lover of basic instincts – Powerful Men; Sexy
Women – has said that he uses background score to heighten the impact
of his story telling. One of the reasons that Phoonk did not scare was
the loud use of BGM (background music). Remember the scene in Bhoot,
where Urmila wakes up in the middle of the night, goes to the kitchen,
takes out a bottle of water from the fridge and drinks, and returns
back to bed. We see the ghost for the first time in that scene. It was
a truly scary scene and everything including the camera angles,
lighting worked out well in its favor. One of the main reasons why it
worked out so well was the BGM – or the lack of it! The silence was
deafening in …

Hari Ananta Hari Katha Ananta

and that is so true about India also. India that is Bharat : That is Hindustan, That is this and that and what not.

What is in the world, that all can be found in India. India exists in contradictions because everything survives here. Entirely opposite faiths, facts and things easily grow here and entirely different thoughts and happenings exist at same time in this part of the world.

Here one can find all possible things available anywhere in the world. Every kind of person will be found in India. A person could be born in India but his habits can match with a person born and brought up far away in other parts of world.

Even if there is a trial to count people having sight only in one eye then they will end up in millions, same will happen to number of people who …

(4 out of 5) - Throw it into the same genre as Memories of Murder, this is one fucking taut, engaging, and masterfully acted and crafter Korean psycho thriller, with some splendid dark, twisted humor, and brilliant editing.

IMDB Link for The Chaser

Sometimes I look back at the late 1980s as cable TV first crept into India. Or at least that was when we got a connection at our home. From 1988 to early 1994, I can’t remember watching a single film in a theatre. Every Sunday afternoon, the cablewallah would show the latest release without fail. Imagine watching Khuda Gawah and Hum on a 21-inch TV set. The biggest lot of the audience, the middle class who could afford cable TV kept away from the theatres. But I also remember my mom telling me that only rowdies go to the theatres nowadays. And the mosquitoes would bite and that it would get really hot because the A/C wouldn’t be turned on. And today, here we are in India, so many of us, who despite having access to the latest pirated DVDs at the street corner, will still go watch movies the …

iView Author: The Narcissist

Email: withheld

City/Country : Goa, India

Movie Review – Find me Guilty

Movie - Find me Guilty

Directed by Sidney Lumet

Its a pity that this never made it to the theatres in India. Atleast not in Hyderabad where I was based when it was released. Or I wouldn’t have been deprived of watching this beauty for so long. Chanced to pick up the DVD a couple of months ago as the premise looked interesting and it was directed by Sidney Lumet. And have watched it thrice since.

The movie is based on a true story to the extent that even some of the dialogue is actual testimony from the court records. The scene is the longest ever trial in the history of the US….one that lasted for 21 months. And the main …

Coen’s strike back with a story which fucks you up. Psychedellic orgasm!!

4/5

Burn After Reading

2008 has been a particularly good year for debutant directors.. I was particularly impressed by Raj Kumar Gupta(Aamir) and Neeraj Pandey( A Wednesday). Last Friday, Jaideep Verma, a fellow novelist, released his first film, Hulla, which I’m told is fairly impressive. Have to watch it soon!

This post, however, is for my friend Girish Joshi, another debutant director, whose film Zor Laga Kar Haiyaa should release in December.

Last Monday, Girish held a special screening of his movie at Fun Republic. This was a movie I had been eagerly waiting for, as Girish had narrated the script to me in the days when he would pitch it to producers. This was a subject we all believed in- it delves into the need for tree conversation and has children enacting pivotal roles.

Prior to directing this film, Girish had assisted Raj Kumar Santoshi on Khakee and Shaheed Bhagat Singh. He was also the …

We are resilient by force, says Naseeruddin Shah in the recently released ‘A Wednesday’. I had often read and heard Mumbai being congratulated for its resilience and wondered what this quality of ‘resilience’ is? I live in Delhi and had no way to observe the phenomenon first hand. Things changed two years back. A couple of days before Diwali there were blasts in Sarojini Nagar and Paharganj. The popular market in Sarojini Nagar saw entire families being wiped out, in some cases the blast left behind a young girl or a crippled father. Photographs of grieving relatives and charred bodies of children were enough to drive one crazy. However, I noticed that from the next day our markets were far from deserted, there were people all around, many of them excited about the ‘sale’ signs on shops. The newspapers and TV channels announced with pride that Delhi was no less …

RGV wields the royal finger instead of the much-touted indulgence in what-could-be the Aag trip of the year.
3.5/5
IMDb

A contemporary companion from Shyam Babu in the streak of Mandi & Hari Bhari, nice to see the master break the divides we put so comfortably on cinema.
4/5
IMDb