On the road again
My laptop packed up a few days ago and I have been cut off from the world and from PFC. I have also been busy working on my documentary script that I am going to ‘pitch’ in front of commissioning editors and funders at the FIPA in Biarritz, France next week. My project has been selected along with ten other poor sods (directors) like me who will try and attract the attention of the biggest funders in Europe. And my kitchen has been fitted.
I was thrilled to hear from my ‘borda’ Sudhir Mishra who called me to tell me that he would be in Rotterdam for the festival. Sudhir and I met in 1988 (I think) when he was going to make his first film, ‘Yeh woh Manzil to Nahin’ in Lucknow. I was supposed to be the art director and we had agreed on the terms ( a cutting chai, I think and 500 rupees). He told me to come to the Santa Cruz East cheap hotel (where he was writing his script) and collect my first class train ticket to go to Lucknow. I arrived at two o’clock as decided, but he wasn’t there. So I waited for a while and in true Bengali spirit said FO and walked away. Those days we didn’t have mobile phones or landlines.
Sudhir made his film without me. But we met again when he made his second film ‘Mein Zinda Hoon’. This time it was 5000 rupees (off which I donated 2500 towards more film stock) and we worked together. It was a great experience. we used to work hard in the day and drink hard in the night. (or vice versa). We became good friends… we used to meet everyday at Neelam restaurant in Khar (has vanished) and drink till the cows came home. Sometimes there would be fights, fist fights between us or against others. (sorry no names).
Anyway, though I moved away, we still remain friends…
So we will meet again at the Rotterdam film festival where a selection of Indian films ( including Hava and Hazaroon) are being shown in a special program called :
‘Time and Tide-filmmakers with commitment ‘
there are 9 films in the ‘Hinglish’ section
Check out the films
We have come a long way since the Santa Cruz east Hotel and the Neelam days, but we still have a lot of fun.
We drink much less than before ;)
More from Rotterdam…
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
Hi Parthoda,
Nice Hinglish list,.
I would love to see “Beware Dogs” (Indian Ocean is my favourite band) and “Freaky Useless Spicy Story”,.
and ofcourse “Let the Wind Blow”:)
about “A Flowering Tree”, is it Animated Movie?
cause on the thumbnail it shows drawn image,.
Good luck Partho!
arey Partho da! pehle batana tha na, I would have come. I haven’t seen any of the films being shown except HKA :((
I had collection of folk tales called ‘A flowering tree’ by A K Ramanujan where he explains that the metaphoric connections between a tree and a woman are many and varied in the culture and a relevant one here(in the book) is that the words for
I haven’t seen any of these films except, English August, Hazaron & Hava ofcourse.
Am looking forward to seeing the others.
@Neerraja Sorry, I just got to know about the other films. Hope you can still make it.
@ Neeraja, wow you have ‘Flowering Tree’.,
What a Collection of folktale ,..
@PSG
Is ‘Hava Aane De’ coming to Paris some time?
It’s ok, next time
@Shekhar
Here is the link:
Yes I have it at home. I just found out that it’s also available online
http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft067n99wt/
@ Neeraja
No, ‘Hava Aney Dey’ was produced out of Paris but it is not coming there soon. But who knows… Will let you know.
@ Mainak
thanks bro!
@ Mumbaikars
‘Hava Aney Dey’
is going to show in Mumbai soon. At the Kala Ghoda festival. ( Sudhir just asked me for the DVD)
Will let you know of the dates…
Good luck, Partho. Would love to hear more on the festival(not a great selection I must say, but depends on what the criterion was) may be a review on The Last Lear, I do fear the bangali FO tendency though.. ;)
sorry, missed ‘hinglish’ is the criterion. wonder why would someone want to do that…
All the best PSG.
@PSG
thanks and good luck