ITM

My first film at NYU, IN THAT MOMENT, has been selected to be showcased on the NYU Grad Film website. You can watch the entire movie on the site.

If you are thinking of applying to Grad Film, the Showcase site lists some examples of all the films we make while we are at school. The MOS, Observational Documentary, and Adaptation from the First Year, the one key Second Year film, and then the Thesis film.

The really cool thing about the Grad Film program is that it keeps evolving – till recently, the third year was mainly devoted to writing, planning for life after grad school and doing your own projects, but due to curriculum opportunities in my year, we made a lot of films in the third year too. Everyone made at least one film and some people made as many as three. I’m sure some of these films will start showing up in the Showcase in the future.

The 2011 Palm Springs International ShortFest just announced their lineup and I’m excited that In That Moment is an Official Selection.

The film will screen on Sunday, June 26th at 2:30PM, as part of the Unexpected Connections set of short films.

If you’d like to hear more about the films we are working on and the festivals they get into, see the posters, the behind the scene pictures and other fun stuff, join Tatvam’s Facebook page for regular updates.

In That Moment is in the deadCenter Film Festival in Oklahoma City. The first show was on Thursday night and it plays again tonight at 7:30PM.

deadCenter has been named one of the 20 coolest festivals by MovieMaker Magazine and it seems like it’s a blast. This is even more of a special festival for the film because one of the leads, Jennifer Laine Williams, is an Oklahoma City native. I wish I could have made it, but for those of you there, I hope you can go.

Danny Marroquin over at OKC.net has a nice review of the film and an interview on how it came about.

In a nod to the silent eras of yore, NYU trained Shripiya Mahesh films her short exchange in Central Park between a beautiful blond and one of those frozen statue models.

The statue’s regular routine of beguiling passerbys is interrupted when this girl captures his attention. She sees him when a boy and his balloon catch her eye.

Mahesh actually found Oklahoma City native to complete the film.

“Casting the right actors for the role is such a huge part of the process,” Mahesh says. “I got lucky because I found Jennifer Laine Williams (an Oklahoma City native) very quickly and she was perfect for the part.”

For the frozen trickster, she went straight to the source.

“For the role of the living statue, I wanted someone very authentic,” Mahesh says. “Someone who knew how to do that ‘job’ and so I ended up meeting many of the people who are living statues in NYC and David was an instant fit. I loved the fact that he had a strong acting background in addition to his skills as a living statue.”

Mahesh likes to work with narrative. She is currently working on a feature. But this film reflects her tendency to think in images.

“I love films where things are communicated visually,” Mahesh says. “And I try to keep dialog to what’s needed. I do adapt the approach to the film, but usually a visual concept will stay in my mind for a while and that will lead to characters and then story development.”

Mahesh is a filmmaker with a past life in other industry. The idea to film came after a long break, and she’s continuing on with it.

“I’ve always wanted to do something visual, but I spent the first part of my professional life in the technology/product marketing world in Silicon Valley. I made the switch to film in late 2005 when I took a sabbatical and made a couple of shorts. That propelled me to apply to the grad film program at NYU. At NYU I’ve made 3 narrative shorts, 2 of which have done nicely on the festival circuit and the third is in post-production.”

This is the first review of the movie that I’ve seen.

Shripriya Mahesh’s film about a brief romantic, mysterious and yet quite an ordinary encounter between a performance artist whose still poses are meant to attract both small donors and admiration and a woman who seems to be the attention of his gaze. Without words and with ample richness of images in B &W, the film is a short and sweet surprise.  If short films were to make statements of grandiose proportions, we would we would come away very dissatisfied most of the time. But if they were meant to lead you to affective and then the levels of thought, then they carry the force of their form. This film is a good example of what the form claims the idea that brevity is the wit of the soul.

This was my first movie at NYU. There were several project constraints – it had to be shot in B&W, it had to be all daylight exteriors and, most importantly, it could have no dialog. In the end, I think each of those factors helped make this film better. Funny, how constraints can do that…

The film’s trailer is here.