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Inspired by FRIGID - dabba’s surreal science fiction,whose imagination I cannot match.
Encouraged by CURED - Subrat’s style of 80s locally flavoured memoir, my literary Guru!
Written for Arun Prakash who specifically demanded this, Thank You.One reader like you is enough.
Dedicated to VOLGA, a Telugu writer who also runs the NGO Asmita in Sec’bad, her ‘Ayoni’ is my all time favourite.

I walk towards the two room official accommodation that has been our house for the past one year and smell the aftershave of death hovering over the front gate, it has visited once again. I hear the familiar crying. My steps falter. I see a crowd of women around my mother. She is crumpled with grief. My father is fussing about uncharacteristically.
This time it is my grandfather.

Thank God! I am not an orphan. Thank God! She is alive.
It would be horrible to spend a lifetime without …

Author’s note:This is the original version of the precis-ed Ronin submission.
If it does get selected you will see how one ‘edits’ and if it does not then, well, you know why!!
And since I will be traveling in a few days time and won’t be back till Feb I want to avoid the ‘deadline danda’ of one-post-per-month by posting now.

Happy New Year All!!

“The function of education is to help you from childhood not to imitate anybody, but be yourself all the time.” — Jiddu Krishnamurti

Alas! We will never learn.
A repeat of the SWADES [Ashutosh Gowariker, 2004] scenario.
We ooh and aah when we are preached to.
Education must be better than Entertainment, No?

Developmental Reading Disorder aka Dyslexia is better than AIDS, not as heart wrenching not at all fatal and better still curable.
This new dis-ease of choice, is a fad to be afflicted with. A very …

A story, some questions and a lot of Home Work for 2008!

Once upon a time in the Washington DC Area…
I was in Thai Corner Bethesda having a quick lunch, before catching a film at the Landmark Theatre and in my hand was “The Ultimate Film Festival Survival Guide”.
I was yet to make a foray into films, even my shorts or documentaries were a long ways off but that did not deter me from sprinting before I learnt to crawl!
My waiter kept throwing curious glances at me. He was Thai and I sighed.
What is it about Asian Men; can’t they leave a woman alone?
He comes upto me
“Are you in the movies?”
“I wish!”
“I am reading something really interesting too”
Abay khaana la [insert thought bubble] / GET THE FOOD man.
Some waiters have no sense of etiquette,this was too forward of him.No tip.
“Really. How nice”
It is not everyday …

Reading in the musty cold college library in Jodhpur,
at the beck and call of the Attendant,
who took his job very seriously,
not allowing us to shift our chairs towards the sun, I dreamt of Algeria.

“The rebel undoubtedly demands a certain degree of freedom for himself; but in no case, if he is consistent, does he demand the right to destroy the existence and the freedom of others. He humiliates no one. The freedom he claims, he claims for all; the freedom he refuses, he forbids everyone to enjoy. He is not only the slave against the master, but also man against the world of master and slave. Therefore, thanks to rebellion, there is something more in history than the relation between mastery and servitude. Unlimited power is not the only law. It is in the name of another value that the rebel affirms the impossibility of total freedom, while he claims …

Methinks I have to start a coconut breaking session each time I venture out into the snow/rain/sleet and thus dangerous roads for a hat-kay movie.
It happened with No Smoking and it has happened yet again.
Rahu Kalam emo? ‘Iron Leg’ anukunta.
The Gults will get that but you get the gist right?

So I finish a rushed edit with Amina and offer her Pakistan-say-visiting
Khaala, Maamoo, Aapa , saara Khan Khandaan a treat, to watch KKC with moi.
“Ji, 50s kay Film Industry pay bani hai…..
Soha Ali Khan bhi hain…..”
[As an afterthought and bait, they are related in a longwinded Nawabi way]
“Hum nay suna ki Aaja Nachle is good…Madhuri ko daykhay bahuth saal ho gaye”
They must be very very Very distantly related to the Pataudis. No loyalty here.

Good thing they did NOT take up my offer coz as often happens in baday baday shahars:
My ticket counter man unhappy. Yet again. Portending …

Part Deux.

…Apart from a little respect, here goes.

The first time I was ever slapped was for singing
“ Aaraysu ko boi paaraysu kunnanu……kOkaythukeLindi konDagaali… ”
This song is basically a very clothes weary heroine’s ostensible lament ruing her blouse flying away leaving her bereft of raiment with a very eager hero.
Despite the breezy tune, All that innuendo!

At 5 I did not understand the seething anger that led my mother to award me with a
One Tight Slap since the whole of Barkatpura could be heard humming it.
My audience constituted of some neighbourhood friends, boys of course. At their egging, I went on singing and acting with a lot of feeling and emotion, hoping someone would notice my talent.

But for a very protective grandmother, I would have been beaten black and blue AND gotten locked up in the bathroom as would happen often if I made mischief [which …

“Am I speaking to Kavita?
This is Nagesh Kukunoor.
I am making a documentary on Arranged Marriages.
Would you be interested in a screen test?”

1997.
Hyderabad, India.

If I had known anything about film making 10 years ago I would have wondered why Nagesh needed to ‘screen test’ for a documentary!! Being naïve has its benefits; one has a truckload of stories to share in the future.

My parents who would make it a point to listen in on every phone-con I had [and those being days of a LANDLINE, no, not even a cordless] went ballistic.
First you said Television now you are saying Films,
“Who will marry you?” being the unsaid, unmentionable, underlying dreaded big Q.
Aap log bhi na…..he said he will give me a script to read first. Let’s see uskay baad.
Where? How? Alone? No way.
Of course not.
Nice Telugu girl meeting unknown US boy making movies?
[his accent on …

OPINION NOT REVIEW.

The past fortnight has been extremely trying on the personal front. A much advertised dance performance was cancelled at the nth hour after three months of practice. To get me out of my funk Amina and Kulsoom decided to lend me some comedies straight from the pirated pavements of Pakistan. Having given ‘Hulchul’ and ‘Bhagam Bhag’ a very conscious miss, I found myself actually smiling at the foolishness of it all. I work hard, give my best, injustice is done, and no one gets to see what I am capable of, who cares, really?

Catching up with the all those much missed movies seemed a sensible option. Manorama SFU, on DVD. Suddenly I am sitting up seeing the fabulous art work and authentic props. The Indira Gandhi Canal and its ramifications, Marvelous Marwar and its colourful people, MSFU got it all so right. I did 11th and …

After a swinging international Id party at Amina’s I am rested and ready for some Garba and Dandiya.

Starting with Varalakshmi Vratam in Shravan, followed by Krishna Janmashthami, Rakshabandhan, Ganapati Pooja, Ramzaan, Dusshera, Durga Pooja, Navratri, Diwali, the Indian Almanac accords such importance to Gods and Goddesses, Prophets and Messengers, that I pity anyone who has only one festival to celebrate, these months are a fabulous time to be an Indian! All that will end with Christmas of course.Six months of colour and costume, song and dance, food and festivity. What gaiety we Indians are capable of!!

Hence I find it disturbing that some blokes from Bareilly should take offence at Salman Khan’s joyous participation in the Ganesh Festival. The Film Industry, along with the Defence Forces is the last bastion of ‘Secularism’ [ despite all rivalries and camps ]. By virtue of being in the public eye and therefore capable of …

The United States celebrates October 8th, as Columbus Day with a holiday, few of us are aware however that it is also the Indigenous People’s Day.
While we Indians continue to populate the land that is not ours for financial benefits, we could assuage our guilt a little if we made ourselves aware of the stories that are being silenced. In the name of English , in the name of the Dollar, in the name of Globalization and in the name of Nothing.
After all we are the Generation X and we do not care to know what came before and what will come after. We are here and now and we are ME. Only.
A little knowledge of History and a little more sensitivity would not have us scream Columbus ! Columbus!! to a peppy beat or call our Heroes HITLER and STALIN. And If I remember right GHAZINI …

In the ensuing cacophony of losing two great giants of world cinema [ Antonioni and Bergman ] and deservedly so, we seem to have forgotten that another one passed away very quietly just a few moons ago. On June 9th 2007 the first ever African Director to have made a feature film left us bereft of an authentic African voice.

Sembene had been on the jury of various prestigious film festivals over the years. Cannes [1967], Berlin [1977], Venice [1983]. Apart from being the first African Director to have given director’s lessons at Cannes he was also the grand old littérateur from Senegal giving voice to the marginalized African Woman. He was working on the “Brotherhood of Rats” when he passed away after a long illness.

In many countries in Africa, high schools, libraries, and amphitheaters bear his name. Even in Paris, where his work is far from meeting official …

Right after I read “THE LAND OF A THOUSAND HILLS by Rosamond Carr”, about Rwanda and her life there since the early 30’s to the present,I felt some sort of kinship with that country.It also took me to “SUNDAY BY THE POOL IN KIGALI by Gil Courtmanche and “LEFT TO TELL by Immaculee Ilibagiza”. These are real life accounts of lives lived under conflict. FIRST THEY KILLED MY FATHER by Loung ung about the Khmer Rouge followed and soon other books on Genocide and Conflict Resolution.

It made me think of the whys and hows of such shameful happenings, the aftermath and the post conflict trauma. Maybe one could help alleviate such horror by documenting facts, recounting them for public benefit and re-living them via empathy and art? Films?

After the shameful incident at MS University in Baroda last month I have been pondering about the meaning of Art. If …

With this film,Philip Groning has been compared to Vermeer. To Bresson,Trakovsky,Dreyer,Mallik and to the Dardenne bros.Doing away with cinematic trappings to such an extent that the bare soul shines through,he has been able to present the film as the subject itself instead of a ‘representation’.Watching INTO GREAT SILENCE is as good as being physically in the Grande Chartreuse,high in the French Alps.

Having formally studied medicine and psychology, he has worked as a sound assistant, prop master and assistant director before embarking on being a film maker. He has also worked as an actor and screenwriter. Philip Groning is an alumni of the MUNICH FILM SCHOOL [ HFF ]

Coming out of the theatre,Kulsoom,a Pakistani lawyer, said to me “You so totally owe me a treat, a Hindi Film. Make sure it has lots of dances with lots of costume changes!”
On the other hand Amina,a film …

[oz note: bumped to Exclusive]

Fascinating FARSI films! How I love them.
Be it Iron Island [ Mohammad Rasoulof ] or The Day I Became A Woman [ Marziyeh Meshkini ], Secret Ballot [ Babak Payami ] or Offside [ Jafar Panahi ], Father[ Majid Majidi ] or Beneath the Skin of the City[ Rakshan Bani Etemad ] they have all succeeded in enthralling us with their tales, the way they tell these tales.

None I admire more than the Director of TURTLES CAN FLY. So when I ran into Mr Bahman Ghobadi at the Toronto Fim Festival last September, in a chance encounter, I could not have asked for a better ‘festival’ treat.

He proved to be a very unassuming man, with a perpetual twinkle in his eye and a lovely handsome clean shaven appearance.His easy charm belied his struggle to make films in a harsh region where …

An Indian Film is like a bejeweled Indian Bride, there can never be enough ornamentation and accessories, the more the better. The colours of Haldi, Henna and Sindoor vie for special attention while the heady scents of Mogra and Gulab distract the groom into trusting that his bride is definitely beautiful. There can be no doubt about the spectacle she offers, not after the melodramatic Bidai.

Where as if you watch a Scandinavian Film, you wonder if this lady will ever get married! Where is the colour, where is the scent? The drama, the grand passion that will make a marriage? On the face of it be it Bergman or Dreyer they tend to be austere, this starkness eagerly lapped up by ‘bachelor boys’ who took a Vow of Chastity as late as 1995 to keep up the monastic order. Not just Lars von Trier or Thomas Vinterburg, every single one …

First of all Rajnesh, Congratulations!

From all of us here at PFC.This is a wonderful win especially since Berlin is one of the older and most respected film festivals along with Venice and Cannes,basically one of the top three right now.
I am given to understand that the press coverage for such a feat was abysmal,while you continue to win more such awards,eg in Cairo [ at the Children's festival 2007 ] etc

Thank you for your time.Here at PFC we are mostly film makers, writers, critics and film buffs, so whatever you say might also help us in our own endeavours.

Q1.
How do you write your story? The mechanics of it. Is it plot first , characters you want to portray or simply capturing a time and place for posterity [ such as the Burra Katha/ Janapada folk arts ]? Do you know when you start how it will end? Or do …

Latin America is riding a cinematic high, what with the Mexican triumvirate, Del Toro, Innarittu, Cuaron capturing the imagination of the world, helping each other, working on one another’s films , producing for the other etc while Argentina continues its saga of dancing the pictoral Tango but what is really worth looking into is the Brazilian resurgence.

We have seen Walter Salles’s Motorcycle Diaries,Fernando Meirelles’s City of God,Hector Babenco’s Carandiru and now we see Andrucha Waddington’s THE HOUSE OF SAND, he is also connected in that strange triangular way to SALLES and BABENCO,having assisted them.

CASA DE AREIA won the Alfred P. Sloan Prize at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival.

Andrucha Waddington started out serving coffee for Brazilian auteur Carlos Diegues (”Orfeu”). He soon graduated to work on films with Walter Salles and Hector Babenco, moved up the ladder to assistant directing, and by his early 20s, began …

A wonderful celestial positioning since 2005 has helped the Telugu Film Industry to wake up from its slumber and look at itself with renewed interest. From ChandraShekhar Yeleti’s Anukokunda Oka Roju to this year’s Berlin win Rajnesh’s Vanaja we have within reach a horizon that beckons towards serious,thought provoking and finally world class cinema.

One saw A Film By Arvind [ Shekhar Suri ] , GrahaNam [ Mohan K Indraganti ] and Godavari [ Shekar Kammula ].
All three as different as Bleu Blanc Rouge,nevertheless connected,as if by a tenuous thread.Of wanting to try innovative themes.What started with Nagesh Kukunoor a decade ago has been left to this handful of directors in the state of Andhra Pradesh,to take up cudgels on behalf of the Telugu language,culture,literature and most specifically deal with the glaring dearth of original ideas in its mainstream persona.

Despite starting very early,as far back as 1922 with Bhishma …

“Film is more than the twentieth-century art. It’s another part of the twentieth-century mind. It’s the world seen from inside. We’ve come to a certain point in the history of film. If a thing can be filmed, the film is implied in the thing itself. This is where we are. The twentieth century is on film….You have to ask yourself if there’s anything about us more important than the fact that we’re constantly on film constantly watching ourselves.”
–Don Delillo (The Names)
What do we ‘feel’ as soon as we view a film? Lots of emotions or lack thereof. And these promptly get written up into blogs and opinions, lapped up by thousands eagerly waiting to be told what to watch and how to think. These are impressionist accounts; they have their place in this universe. Within such a context the ‘voyeur’ is justified in leaving the theatre as soon or …

Some wonderful films have come out in recent years by women. Their perspectives, their natural flair for storytelling and receptivity to emotions have all added an extra dimension . Since Otar Left [ Julie Bertucelli ] , Look at Me [ Agnes Jaoui ], Rachida [ Yasmina Bachir ], Whale Rider [ Niki Caro ] , Red Road [ Andrea Arnold ], Away from her [ Sarah Polly ] , Grabavica [ Jasmina Zbanic ].These and many others have been following in the tradition of women film makers since 1896 when the first narrative feature in the world was made by a woman, ALICE GUY. It took India till 1981 and an Aparna Sen to give us a taste of the feminine EYE.

To the question of why there are so few women in the upper echelons of power one has always heard the same answers. Biology, the Body …

The moment one talks of Russian cinema one thinks of Eisenstein or Tarkovsky.

These stalwarts, no doubt, did wonders not just for Russian Cinema but also for cinema as an Art. They contributed to and evolved a language of film that was both path breaking and unique. Editing as it were owes its existence to Eisenstein and Mood/Atmosphere to Tarkovsky.

A few adjectives can sum up the typical Russian Film easily:
poetic, ponderous, philosophical, mystic and metaphysical.
Is it their history you might ask. Is it their political belief? Is it Communism?
Or Socialism in its benign form that brought out these facets in its sons.

Whatever the cause, the humility of these Directors cannot be denied. The reverence with which they approach the camera and the extreme excellence with which they handle it can only point to their training, their education, and their overall development as human beings which lends itself so …