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a) Hi Folks,

Refer the below judgement. Affects positively, filming in NYC. Thanks to that brave documentary filmmaker Rakesh Sharma.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: NYPD settles suit with Indian film maker Rakesh Sharma
Link (for links,
copies of the new rules, etc)

New York City has agreed to change how it issues permits to film makers
and photographers, as part of a settlement to a lawsuit filed by Indian
documentary maker Rakesh Sharma and the New York Civil Liberties Union.
The lawsuit came about because Sharma (”Final Solution”) was detained after
taking photos of buildings in New York two years ago. Here’s today’s press
release, from the NYCLU…

May 23, 2007 — In a settlement released today New York City has
agreed to create, for the first time, written rules governing the issuance of
permits for film makers and photographers. Under the new rules, which are to be
published Friday in the City Record, film makers and photographers using
hand-held equipment no longer will be required to obtain city permits or to have
$1 million of insurance.

The settlement comes in response to a federal lawsuit brought by
the New York Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Rakesh Sharma, an Indian
documentary film maker who NYPD officers detained for several hours in May 2005 for
filming on a city sidewalk in midtown Manhattan with a handheld video camera.
During his detention Sharma was told he had to have a film permit, but when he
subsequently applied to the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theater and
Broadcast (MOFTB) for a permit to film with a handheld camera, his application
was denied.

Continue reading “CIVIL LIBERTIES: NYPD settles suit with Indian film
maker Rakesh Sharma” - and post your comments, please…
Link

b) Secondly for any PFC’s wanting to hook up in Washington DC, I will be in your neighborhood this long weekend, staying in downtown, at the Hotel L’Enfant Plaza, right above the METRO station with the same name

c) Thirdly after seeing Nishabd, I am truly and fully convinced that there is no difference left between Ram Gopal Varma and Dev Anand, both have totally lost it as far as filmmaking is concerned. The latter due to the senilty with old age, the former with the senility of “trying to hard to be different.” It is crass, crappy and classless. I compare this to the Lamhe, which also dealt with the “emotion’ of the younger woman , older guy, both did not do well in the box office, but one (Lamhe) is still remembered as a classic and for one (Nishabd), even the dustbin is an overachievement. Nothing against the actors, they all did their part, but where was the emotion here? Probably because one filmmaker had class (Yash Chopra) and one ….well I needen’t say more.

Hopefully Shootout At Lokhandwala will be a savoring experience (by White Feather and Balaji, out on 5/25), cause the RGV films are becoming more and more acts of random behaviour in the guise of filmmaking and RGV was once touted as intelligent cinema…..you can’t be serious!

Sincerely,

Vivek “it’s a pity when filmmakers start to take themselves, as opposed to their craft, too seriously” Kumar