Film Festivals

AADUM KOOTHU, by director T V Chandran started the first full day of SAIFF . This is the Malayalam director’s first Tamil film. At the core, the film has an interesting premise — a director is making a movie about an injustice that occurred in his village when he was a child. A landlord tortured and tonsured a lower-class woman publicly since she refused his advances. As the director is making the film, the actual landlord’s son shows up with his goondas and beats up the crew and stops production of the film. Ok, we have something to work with. Then it gets melodramatic – the actress of the film is so depressed that she actually tonsured her head for the scene and the production was stopped that she hangs herself. Isn’t that a little extreme, dear? This then leads to a crazy sequence of events where the director becomes an activist and then reemerges to avenge her suicide by killing the landlord.

But there’s the best part — that was only the second half of the film!! The director found a very, very odd need to encase this story in some fantastical wrapping that took the entire first half of the film. Manimekhala is a college student. Her cousin (and later fiancé) buys her a bangle/bracelet from the fair that has some black and white film embedded in it (yes, a bangle with a film inside it). As Mani is doing random tasks like washing clothes, reading or getting married, the bangle shoots beams at her, projecting out a film. The film is about two gypsy performers and how a landlord lusts after the woman and tries to forcibly have his way with her. Everyone is convinced that Mani has lost her marbles until her fiancé discovers that the film she is seeing was actually made. Aha – yes… that film that we talked about in part two! Mani and her fiancé trudge off to discover what happened and then we get to part two. Anyway, the film concludes with Mani finishing the unfinished film as a documentary and shaving her head. Err… okay then. Enough said.

ANURANAN: THE RESONANCE didn’t resonate at all. In fact, it was cancelled. Yikes. Snafu number two. Apparently (yes, the famous apparently re-emerges), the filmmakers had trouble getting censor board approval and had to pull the film. So, instead they showed Omkara. Good film, but having seeing it already, I passed.

PLAYING THE NEWS by director Jigar Mehta was an excellent documentary short. Jigar seems to have made this in his journalism program at UC Berkeley and it was a well-constructed doc that asked some very interesting questions. It covers a game called Kuma War that is an online massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) that simulates the latest wars that are happening. Three weeks after the battle for Fallujah in Iraq, gamers were fighting the same missions in the game. Kuma War scans all military updates and gets feeds from all the news organizations to design the most realistic locations and scenarios. As soon as an attack is publicly described, Kuma builds it into the game. They even have a news channel within the game to update the players on the situation and their missions. The short raised the question of what’s considered news and what’s considered a game and where the line is drawn. It also highlighted how civilians safely ensconced in their homes played games that are so similar to reality, but so far from reality at the same time. By juxtaposing a real killing of an Iraqi militant with a game killing, he brought home the fact that despite Kuma’s best efforts, the reality is far, far worse. Very thought provoking.

MY CULTURAL DIVIDE by director Faisal Lutchmedial was a first person account of his visit to Bangladesh. He explores the economics of global trade and visits sweatshops with appalling conditions on his journey of discovery. He weaves the story in with personal accounts and a good dose of humor to make it a compelling and touching effort.

The last film of the night was QUARTERLIFE CRISIS. Since it is so late, I’ll post the review tomorrow.

This evening was the opening night premiere of the film festival. The organizers did a great job of getting a ton of press to attend and the AMC movie theater at Lincoln Square was packed with about 500 attendees.

The evening started off with the press interviewing some of the filmmakers. The marketing manager did a good job of getting the shrinking violets in front of the press, talking about their films. Pitching my film on camera was an excellent learning experience.

And then we waited for the opening film, Hope And A Little Sugar (HAALS), to start. And waited. And waited. The organizers were having technical difficulties with the projector and seemed to be working furiously to fix it. But when the 8:30 PM screening time eventually became 10PM, they cancelled the screening and offered to refund everyone their money.

It was a very tough situation for the organizers. Everyone was tired and hungry and this seemed to be an issue that was truly beyond their control. I’ve heard that the festivals last year and the year before were superbly run so I am sure they’ll get past this glitch and have smooth and timely showings going forward.

Update (Oct 5): Here’s the skinny. SAIFF required filmmakers to submit in one of three formats – Beta SP, DVD and 35mm. Apparently HAALS was in digibeta. So SAIFF had organized a special projector, making an exception for this film. Apparently the first lens was not the right one, so they got another lens. With the new lens, apparently the film, instead of taking up 100% of the screen, took up only 75% of the screen. So it was not that the film was distorted in any way, it would have been like seeing the film on a smaller screen. Okay then. But no, not okay. Apparently the director, Tanuja Chandra, was ready to move forward. Great news, smart lady — there are 500 people who are getting grumpier by the minute! Oh, not so quick — the producers refused to let the film be shown.

Are you kidding me?? You are getting to be the opening night premiere of SAIFF. The organizers have done a ton of marketing and you have 500 people who will see your film. And you refuse to let them screen it? Bad, bad call. The producers, Glenn Russow and Scott Pardo, don’t seem to have produced before (per IMDB). To me, the cardinal rule of producing is to do what’s best for the film. In my opinion, it would have been so much better to let 500 people see the film on a slightly smaller screen size than to have no one see it.
[Note: the surfeit of “apparently”s is due to the fact that this is one version of events and I didn’t get a chance to confirm this with the filmmakers]

It’s my guess that it was fully within SAIFF’s legal rights to force them to screen the film, but they played nice. Not sure they should have – most people left for the night annoyed that SAIFF didn’t have its act together. If the reality was different, it is in SAIFF’s best interests to protect its brand name – festivals are the ones that dictate the rules, not the filmmakers.

The South Asian International Film Festival (SAIFF) is one of two South Asian film festivals in New York. They pride themselves on focusing on emerging directors who are not yet famous.

I certainly fall squarely into that demographic. I’d like to think I am “emerging” and I am definitely “not yet famous”. And so, it was with excitement that I learned a few weeks ago that my film got into SAIFF 2006.

UNTITLED was made as my final project of the 12-week Intensive Filmmaking program at NYU. It was shot in 3 days, with a crew of just 4, on 16mm film. It was a complete blast. My experience with the course and that film is what got me to quit my day job and to do this full time (my experience with the course is fodder for another post).

But I digress. When I finished the film, I put it away thinking that I’d got what I wanted from it — the learning of how to write, direct, produce and edit a film under severe constraints. [Well, that is not quite true, I did submit it to Ms Films in North Carolina where it got accepted and one other festival where it got dinged, but I did not spray it around to every festival in sight]. But when one of my cast sent me the SAIFF request for submissions, I tossed it in the mail on a lark.

Lo and behold, it got selected! This will be the first time I see my work in a real theater. That is exciting and scary all at the same time. Exciting because this is what filmmakers live for – to see their film released (or screened). And I am nervous as all heck because it was a class project – an experiment, a learning exercise, an amazing experience. And now it will be shown to friends and strangers. I feel the desperate need to yell out — “Don’t expect it to be amazing, it is just my first little short”. But I am doing my best not to. I want it to be judged. That’s the only way I’ll get better.

So, here we go!

SAIFF got underway today for filmmakers with the press conference. The key feature-length films were highlighted and it was fun to mingle and meet other aspiring filmmakers. It is great to see the energy and passion for film in the South Asian community.

Since I am now self-employed (ahem, no, no, not unemployed!), I am looking forward to seeing as many of the films as possible, starting with tomorrow’s opening night premiere.

— To see UNTITLED on the SAIFF site, click here and scroll towards the end of the page.

— Synopsis: Sanjay and his wife lead a cookie cutter existence in Manhattan. One day, as he returns home, he is handed a flyer to a gallery opening and on a whim, decides to attend. Siddharth, the gallery owner, educates Sanjay on art and introduces him to a captivating painting. With Siddharth, as his bodhisattva, leading the way, Sanjay is more ensnared with each successive visit. Has Sanjay found what he has always been looking for?

— Note: UNTITLED will be uploaded to this site shortly