IFFLA 2007: Day 2: A pleasant surprise by Anurag and Nishikant
Two days before the start of IFFLA, I received a call from Anurag that he was gonna show up at IFFLA and surprise everyone. Until that call, it had been confirmed that he wouldn’t be able to make it to the Indian Film Festival this year.
Yesterday t! and I drive to LAX and there he is. AND VOILA! Out of the blue Nishikant walks out of the doors behind him…
The only thing they wanted to do right after getting out of the airport is drive straight to Arclight Theater – where IFFLA is being organized.
But Anurag, it’s 2pm… no one’s gonna be there… the shows start around 7 in the evening
Nothing doing… Nishikant and Anurag arrive at the Arclights and just stand there for a few minutes, breathing in the air of the place, where things started working out so positively for them. Very emotionally attached to IFFLA, the hall at Arclights is their Mecca, and this – their yearly pilgrimage.
And what do you do when you are with two crazy, intense, passionate lovers of cinema… ?
You watch a movie!
Two hours after they flew to the other side of the world and landed at the airport, the two dudes and us, end up watching the lovely movie “Lives of Others”
The people and volunteers of IFFLA start trickling in and everyone is shocked and surprised to see Nishikant and Anurag there.
As the evening progresses, I notice, how the festival has grown manifold in terms of quality movies and the rapidly increasing audience that shows up. The other fact is the amazing size of non – Indians in the audience. From simple cine-philes to film-makers – everyone there had one focus the films from Independent film makers of India.
Pan Nalin’s movie “Valley of Flowers” was being shown. As I entered the hall to watch the show… the whole damn thing was full!!!! I think the hall had a 200 – 300 seating capacity – but it was full to the last seat.
The American sitting next to me was an agent (name witheld on request) who for the last few months was completely focusing on the Indian movie scene.
Saw Nandita Das and was pleasantly surprised by her affable nature. Very approachable. Didn’t get a chance to talk more than a minute. Atlast got to see Uma Da Cunha, who I’ve always read about, her name being attached to so many international products. It was one lovely conversation. t! stayed with Uma longer and may have her inputs.
Later that night, t!, Vijay, Nishikant and me along with a few others had dinner at a Brazilian restaurant, where Nishikant probably tried for the first time a “Corona” (desis in US may get the joke)
A lot of discussions flying around, when a middle aged man walks to our table and starts talking to Vijay, who introduces the person to me as “Bala”.
A few seconds later I receive a further clarification on “Bala”
It’s fucking “Bharath Bala”
Hair stands out. DARN!!! Have a short chit chat, business card exchange and some talk on his future projects (specially requested to not talk about it)
Later t!, Nishkant and I drive to pick Anurag from another party, where he’s desperately trying to stay awake and not crash before reaching home.
But at home, it’s countless cups of tea of discussions on story design and writing. Nishikant’s knowledge, his philosophy and his sensibilities of cinema are simply a treat to hear. Some I’ll filter out in later days to put up here while some I simply may not be able to. But good news for Nishikant and Dombivili Fast – fans… the Tamil version is complete and will be released in a few months. Nishikant has started work on his next project which – DARN WHY CAN’T I SAY ALL THAT I SOAKED IN LAST EVENING – has an amazing star cast (and they are not the regular run of the mill stars)… More tea, more amazing discussions with Scary Movie 2 playing in the background.
By the time we were done, it was almost 5 in the morning.
Woke up an hour ago and took pictures of both of them sleeping. The next time they make any shitty movies these are the pictures I’ll stick with the reviews under the headlines “Were you sleeping?”… hopefully the day will never come.
What happens on Day 3?
Fun pure fun and excitement. Will blog in more detail tomorrow IF I can avoid another round of cine-talk till 5am, with 2 good guys from India who make great movies… well at least most of the time ;)
Tags: IFFLA 2007
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
It’s because of the faith and friendship of people like Nishikant and Anurag that we remain motivated to continue supporting Indian films and filmmakers. While it may be nostalgic and emotional for them to be back at the ArcLight after the success of their films here, it’s equally emotional for all of us to have them back here again. They rightfully feel that this is THEIR festival and we hope all our filmmakers always feel the same way. You guys rock!
And Oz…you da man! As always!
“it’s all about loving your parents” – karan johar
“it’s all about loving your filmmakers” – gabbarsingh
“it’s all about loving oz” – PFCites
“it’s all about loving IFFLA” – filmmakers
Will anurag be present for the entire week of the festival? I would love to meet him in person.
Sounds like all the actions in LA this week… wish more of us (like ummm ME) could be there…
Tony Bhai, I will be your Aatma at IFFLA…don’t worry will update with everything…
Many many sookriyas Om bhai…
Red hot stuff, oz! Thanx a lot…
Running to catch a flight to Denver, and oz’s post only partially captures how wonderful the evening was. I don’t think any post truly can. Only wish I could be there for the next three evenings!!!
Uma is my new hero, part class, knowledge, humour, a woman who leads a life that I aspire to. Hope to fill you in more on her later.
And, hope to write a review on The Lives of Others on the plane. Never caught this in the theater because of all the bad reviews (it got panned in the press here, even though it won the Oscar), which is a shame because it is one of the best, most moving movies I have seen in AGES. I can’t get this film out of my head.
Anurag, Nishikant, Nandita, iamoldboy, all of the festival volunteers that I met, and everyone else I met were all so wonderful. My only regret is that I have a really bad cold and I burnt out early and I wasn’t as social as usual. I hope that everyone at the after hours didn’t mistake my quietness as something else. Sunday night I should be my bubbly self again to enjoy the company of so many amazing people.
Ran into two old friends. That is one of the reasons that film festivals rock, meeting friends in the context of how you became friends – bonding over movies.
The only thing that got me through a painful eight hour meeting today after only three hours sleep was the high from such a great night.
And, I hope all of you in LA enjoy the rest of the week, I will be at the Starland Film Festival for the next three nights and can’t wait to catch up with everyone in LA on Sunday!!!
Life of Others got panned in the press?
What are you reading t!? OC Times? or Zombie times?
It got fantastic reviews in everything here. Its a amazing film.
t! glad we’ll get to meet on sunday after all!
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OZ, if u make any shitty film then we will put the picture on pfc and write…what were u doing ? watching them sleep ? ha ha ha. nice post.but missing ur reviews. why dont u put one on ta ra bum bum ya. its been long time.
Mainak,
I tend to read the Elitist Alternative Press for my movie reviews (to fit my elitist artsy persona).
And, sometimes those oh-to-hip reviewers disappointment me greatly, as they did in the reviews of The Lives of Others, a nearly perfect film. Still need to write about it, but going to do so after I see it on video because one viewing cannot do it justice…
phoenix, I’ve reviewed Ta Ra Rum Pum here. Didn’t post it on PFC cause Saurabh has already done a nice one.