Archive for the ‘Film Festival’ Category

Mumbai Film Festival, 2017 – Day 3

Posted: October 16, 2017 by moifightclub in cinema, Film Festival, Movie Recco, movie reviews, Mumbai Film Festival
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24 Frames

An image speaks a thousand words. Abbas Kiarostami however finds a million words to say in a still image. I entered the film with complete fatigue after watching almost 4 films on Day 2 at Mumbai Film Festival. Within 30 minutes of the film, almost 10-15% of the audience walked out and a few slept off. Somewhere I could imagine the smile on Abbas Kiarostami‘s face as he would always say, “Some films have made me doze off in the theater but the same films have made me stay up at night, wake up thinking about them in the morning, and keep on thinking about them for weeks.”

Abbas Kiarostami uses 24 inanimate pictures or paintings and creates spellbinding visual magic by sprinkling these images with music, sounds, and ,movement. An ice cold masterpiece from the auteur who takes a curtain call with the dedication of a student. These frames are intoxicating, melancholic, sleep inducing, and a fitting tribute to Kiarostami’s craft.

One of my favorite frames in the film is a frame where logs of freshly cut wood are stacked in the foreground, while two trees gracefully fall down over a few minutes over a mesmerizing track in the background. The added sound effect of wood cutting machines further make this frame a breathtaking visual. Tigers fornicating in the wild, cows loitering on beaches, a horse running in a snow clad forest, and a herd of deers migrating with the season make every frame look like a priceless greeting card. Kiarostami, you have left a void which can only be filled by re-watching your films. Thank you for the films.

Village Rockstar

Finally, a positive Indian indie film dealing with puberty, village customs, childhood, and the beautiful music scene in Assam villages. Rima Das passes the debut test with flying colors as she blurs the line between fiction and documentary while working with a bunch of complete non-actors. The usual village scenes like kids cycling on raw dusty roads, kids jumping into the water, and kids running around in beautiful grass landscapes are filled with new and fresh energy as the kids in the film are already woven into the milieu of this village.

Fascinated by music, these kids are often seen using old cans, thermocol sheets, and wooden planks to enact live music performances. These musical ambitions are a contrast to the landscape of the village where girls are still raised differently than boys. In an engaging tale narrated by a grandfather about Mahabharat’s Yudhisthir’s answers to tough questions; the 10 year old central female character is enchanted to know that her mother is larger than the sky. And rightly so, we end up discovering one of the most beautiful mother-daughter relationships ever witnessed whereby the mother defends her daughter who wishes to start a rock band, wants to buy a guitar, and even wants to climb those trees with the boys. The role of the mother and the daughter are essayed with rustic perfection creating beautiful images.

Rima Das has her named engraved across departments in the credits of the film accomplishing what very few can. Village Rockstars is a commendable attempt and yet another story from the Indian roots which is worth watching.

– Harsh Desai

(Tweets: @iamharshdesai, Senior Partner, Lowfundwala Productions – http://www.lowfundwala.com)

Mumbai Film Festival, 2017 – Day 2

Posted: October 14, 2017 by moifightclub in cinema, Film Festival, film review, Movie Recco, movie reviews, Mumbai Film Festival
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S. Durga

Sexy Durga or S. Durga as it is now known to be in censor obsessed India. This is a psychedelic thriller, a documentary, a dark trippy film, a social commentary on state of women and goddesses in India. It tries to be so much that it ends up being nothing but a claustrophobic watch. The start of the film itself throws us on to a terrorising ritual practised in Kerala to offer respect to Goddess Durga. This gruesome ceremony is unsettling, discomforting, and very difficult to sit through. However, I am sure there are viewers for this real life gore too. Because these scenes however horrifying they maybe are shot with class, dedication and, with a passion to tell a story which is already said but still needs to be told again and again.

However, there is some very clever use of camera and street lights which makes the film watchable in parts. The best scenes in the film are scenes where the goons are trying to misbehave with a couple trying to elope in a omni van turned into a death metal psychedelic lounge with make shift lights and indie grunge music. This trippy Maruti Omni would put to shame the mystery machine in scooby dooby doo. The film has a story worth exploring regarding Kerala’s patriarchal society. Although, Kerala also happens to be the most literate state in India.

Besides the trippy van, horrifying opening scene, fantastic score; the film is also a hallmark of the hopeless nihilistic world we are trying to live in. It is a testimony to the fact that we are all perpetrators of cruelty towards woman. We are all stuck in lope just like the couple in the film who keep going back to the van inspite of trying to run away from the same.

Relang Road

“Weed is a plant and not a drug, I am Garden and not a criminal”

I have no idea why I have started with this quote. However, this is one of the quotes which is scribbled on a bus stop in a scene from Ralang Road. The quote, although interesting sets up a dark undertone which is waiting to explode in this atmospheric cross between Lynch’s style and Edgar Allan Poe’s cold poetry.
The thicker the blanket, the colder the surprises underneath it. The dense, thick fog reverberating in the opening shots of Takapa’s Sikkim is like an ice cold blanket which seems tranquil to look at
but hides the darkest of the secrets. The opening shots are hazy -almost confused me between the streetlight and the moon. The blanket in this film is full of how poetry, beer, weed, and candy crush
have pervasively influenced the landscape of an otherwise small town -nature resists consumerism in all forms. Beneath the blanket lies, a new in town math teacher who seems look a total misfit in the film (which actually works well in the favour of the character), kids wanting to even scores with the math teacher, a man wanting to commit a murder for a bag, and a vengeful woman. This sets multiple layers to the movie which strips itself scene by scene creating a ticking time bomb which is waiting to explode as the paths of the central characters cross each other.
The director succeeds in creating an original atmosphere with clever selection of visuals and composition in the film. A scene where people are packed into a jeep like cattle could have been shot in many interesting ways, however Takapa focusses on the eerie silence in the nature through the front view mirror of the car when the car is attempting its best to trash the forest peace. The scene also has one of the best claustrophobic conversations of the film whereby a person keeps convincing the central math teacher’s character to arrange his daughter’s admission in the school in exchange of pure Sikkim cow’s milk. In another scene, the math teacher gets into a fight with the barber while a small kid is busy enjoying his facial in the background. These scenes although very general and mundane, explode with eccentrically tense results for the audience. Sikkim definitely is no longer a touristy space for me after watching Ralang Road.
The clever use in the film of masked kidnappers, folklore grandma, trippy streetlights, drunk men, lottery addicted men, and even a cat are never your first thoughts about a small town film.
However, Takapa decides to take our judgements, turn them upside down, and fry them over a pan. In return, Takapa presents us with an unknown force or feeling from nature in this small Sikkim town which seems to resisting or getting far too comfortable with the new changes in the demographics and culture of the milieu- I am a nature’s baby and I felt somewhere so responsible to see how and what we have done to nature and the ecosystem of Sikkim. I am not sure whether this is what the film intended to address but I was moved to chills by experiencing the change in the ecosystem represented so casually in this film which absolutely works in favour of the film.

Ralang Road is one of the better films to have come out of independent circuit in India handling a fine balance between humour and acute coldness of a atmospheric thriller intact.

– Harsh Desai

(Tweets @iamharshdesai, Senior Partner, Lowfundwala Productions www.lowfundwala.com)

Mumbai Film Festival, 2017 – Day 1

Posted: October 13, 2017 by moifightclub in cinema, Film Festival, film review, Movie Recco, movie reviews, Mumbai Film Festival
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The Day After

“I think you still love me, but we can’t escape the fact that I’m not enough for you. I knew this was going to happen. So I’m not blaming you for falling in love with another woman. I’m not angry, either. I should be, but I’m not. I just feel pain. A lot of pain. I thought I could imagine how much this would hurt, but I was wrong.”
― Haruki Murakami

Never had I ever thought that Infidelity as a film topic could be dealt with such poise, patience, and, character. However, when Auteur Hong Sang-soo handles a subject this delicate, the result is a poetic, meditative, melancholic, and a boozy drama.

In competition for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes this year, this is the 4th film by the Korean master in the past 8 months – and oh boy, he seems to be operating at the prime of his career.  Set around the life of a morose publisher and his affair with a woman, Bong-wan (Kwon) spends most of his screen time discussing love and life getting over shots of Soju. Little does the new employee Ah-reum (Kim) knows that she is replacing Bong-wan’s flame Chang-sook (Kim Sae-byuk). When Bong-wan’s wife (Cho yun-hee) finds a love poem written by Bong wan, she assumes that the mistress is Ah-reum. Ah-reum on the other end is almost a conscious reflection of bong-wan asking him strange and unsettling questions over, again some shots of soju. However, not all the characters in the film seem as layered as Bong-wan.

This film is moody, painful, and a nuanced understanding of infidelity. Barring the sudden zoom shots, this movie can surely get you drunk on mid-life crisis without the shots of Soju.

The Florida Project

Florida Project will remind you of Short Term 12. This is a gem from Sean Baker who proves that he is a seamless storyteller with fresh sensibilities to tackle complex issues with simple narratives. The colourfully lit frames of the film have dark underlying tensions which suck you into the milieu at the outskirts of Disneyland in Florida. As an audience, you enter the film with shots of kids creating havoc with their mischief and abuses but you are left weeping in the end.

There is something about kids, something about their innocence which has the power to fill the entire screen up. Moonee played by the young kid Brooklyn Prince will win laughs and break hearts across borders with her performance of a brash kid who is always upto adventures with her rebellious mom and ragtag buddies. Willem Dafoe gives a nuanced performance, speaking volumes about his maturity as an actor in top form. A scene where Willem Dafoe is seen requesting the birds to clear the drive way is an endearing sight which speaks for the wrinkles he has developed on his neck over the years.

The Florida project, CO-written, directed, and edited by Sean Baker is a very special film. The screenplay is incredibly fresh, believable, and breathing with Florida vocabulary. Tangerine filmmaker Baker again uses dynamic shots resulting into a charismatic storytelling technique. The Florida Project is an unmissable experience.

– Harsh Desai

(Senior Partner, Lowfundwala Productions (www.lowfundwala.com)

Mumbai Film Festival 2017 Lineup Announced

Posted: September 15, 2017 by moifightclub in cinema, Film Festival, Mumbai Film Festival, News
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Siddharth Roy Kapur, Rohan Sippy, Ajay Bijli, Kaustubh Dhavse, Anurag Kashyap. Joined by MAMI Co-chairperson Kiran Rao, Festival Director Anupama Chopra and Creative Director Smriti Kiran

Mumbai Film Festival (MFF) has announced its lineup for this year’s edition of the fest. It’s a much awaited big cinema event for film lovers. The fest will run from 12 to 18th October and will screen 220 films from 49 countries in 51 languages. Anurag Kashyap’s Mukkabaaz will open the fest.

For segment wise details, do check out the embedded document

If you want to attend, click here, and do register. Don’t miss this one!

First Look : Devashish Makhija’s Ajji (Poster + Trailer)

Posted: September 12, 2017 by moifightclub in cinema, Film Festival, first look, Indie, News, Poster, Trailer
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Devashish Makhija’s new film Ajji will have its world premiere at the Busan International Film Festival’s (BIFF) ‘New Currents’ section. And with the fest line up unveiled, the makers have just released the first look of the film. Check out its poster and the trailer.

Here’s the official BIFF program note  on the film –

When society fails to provide justice for the rape of nine-year-old Manda, her ailing and arthritic grandmother Ajji tracks down the perpetrator, the son of a local politician, and plots a brutal revenge to serve as a deterrent to all men.

Cast

Sushma Deshpande, Sharvani Suryavanshi, Saadiya Siddique, Abhishek Banerjee, Vikas Kumar, Smita Tambe and Sudhir Pandey

The 104 min film has been written by Makhija and Mirat Trivedi. Interestingly, Saregama ventures back into filmmaking with their new brand – Yoodlee Films.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbkW1WQvQw0&app=desktop

First Look : Anurag Kashyap’s ‘Mukkabaaz’ (Stills + Synopsis)

Posted: September 12, 2017 by moifightclub in cinema, film, Film Festival, first look, Indie, Stills, Story / Plot / Synopsis
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With Anurag Kashyap’s latest film, Mukkabaaz, having its premiere at the ongoing Toronto International Film Festival, more details are out now.

Here’s fest director Cameron Bailey’s note on the film, which tells you more about the film

A lower-caste boxer struggles to make his mark on the boxing world, in the highly anticipated film from Anurag Kashyap.

Vital, insightful, and thoroughly cinematic, Anurag Kashyap’s The Brawler follows in the tradition of the great boxing films of the past. But the director of Gangs of Wasseypur gives his take on the sweet science a boldly Indian spin. The set-up offers the genre’s familiar underdog hero, but this film lands a satisfying punch against the injustices and hypocrisies that keep India’s sporting underdogs exactly where they are.

Shravan (Vineet Kumar Singh) is a lower-caste boxer with a tempered edge, struggling to leave his mark and making the case with his fists that he deserves a chance to compete. His career is threatened after he delivers a nasty right hook to the face of Bhagwan — his employer, the local kingpin, and the top boxing promoter in the region. Following this melee, Bhagwan does everything he can to stop Shravan from ascending up the ranks, including preventing him from pursuing the woman he has fallen in love with, Sunaina. Bhagwan will go to any length to punish and humiliate Shravan. But what he doesn’t count on is Shravan’s tough-mindedness. He’s been an underdog all his life and will stop at nothing to go all the way to the Indian National Boxing Championship.

Based on a true story, The Brawler is an enthralling, action-packed tale about corruption and crime in Indian sports. But at the heart of Kashyap’s narrative is a smart and complex love story anchored by Zoya Hussain’s Sunaina.

Cast + Credits

  • director – Anurag Kashyap

  • cast – Vineet Kumar Singh, Zoya Hussain, Ravi Kissan, Jimmy Shergill, Sadhana Singh

  • Cinematography – Rajeev Ravi Shanker Raman Jay Patel Jayesh Nair

  • Editing – Aarti Bajaj Ankit Bidyadhar

  • Executive Producers – Ajay Rai, Kanupriya

  • Producers – Aanand L. Rai Vikramaditya Motwane Madhu Mantena Anurag Kashyap

  • Production Companies – Colour Yellow Productions, Phantom Films

  • Production Designer – Shazia Iqbal

  • screenplay – Anurag Kashyap, Vineet Kumar Singh, Mukti Singh Srinet, K.D. Satyam, Ranjan Chandel, Prasoon Mishra

  • sound – Kunal Sharma

  • Original Score – Rachita Arora

  • music – Nucleya, Prashant Pillai

First Look : Assamese Filmmaker Rima Das’ Film “Village Rockstars”

Posted: September 12, 2017 by moifightclub in cinema, Film Festival, first look, Indie
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Rima Das’ Assamese film, Village Rockstars had its World Premiere at the ongoing Toronto International Film Festival. Interestingly, Rima is also the writer, cinematographer, editor and producer on this one.

Village Rockstars is the only Indian film to be screened in the competition section, DISCOVERY, which features directors from across the world to watch out for. The movie is about a girl, Dhunu, who has grown up in deprivation. She learns to fend for herself in the hostile surroundings while nurturing her dream to own a guitar someday.

The film was selected among the Film Bazaar Recommends at NFDC Film Bazaar 2016. From Film Bazaar the film got picked up by Matthew Poon and was officially selected for the 2017 Marche du Film (Cannes) Work-In-Progress Lab at the 15th Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum and won the WIP Lab project.

Long SYNOPSIS

Dhunu, a 10 years old girl lives in a remote village in Assam, India amidst raging deprivation. She is a free spirit and her mother, a widower, who struggles daily to bring food to the table and raise her children. However, that does not prevent her from having unrealistic dreams like owning a guitar for her tiny band of village Rockstars boys. Dhunu is a girl who considers herself as capable as boys her age. She and the gangs of boys want to form a rock band. But later the boys slowly stop perusing their dream, whereas Dhunu continues dreaming to own a guitar. Her faith becomes strong when she reads about the law of attraction in a newspaper article. Her unconventional and nonconformist mother raises her with steadfast determination, giving her full freedom of expression and encouraging her to fulfill her dreams. After her father’s death, her mother taking all the responsibilities realizes that it is important that a girl should be qualified herself.

But beyond the poverty of her living, attacks nature’s fury as her village is flooded and worse than that: the societal restrictions that assail her from the day she reaches puberty. Can Dhunu achieve her simple dream or will she, like hundreds of millions of girls in her situation across the world, have to give up on it!

CREDITS

CAST

Bhanita Das, Basanti Das, Kulada Bhattyacharya, Boloram Das,Rinku Das,Bishnu Kalta,Bhaskar Das, Manabendra Das

CREW

DIRECTOR- Rima Das

DOP-  Rima Das

EDITOR-Rima Das

SCREENPLAY-Rima Das

SOUND-Amrit Pritam

PRODUCER-Rima Das

C0-PRODUCER-Jaya Das

PRODUCTION COMPANY-Flying River Films

INTERNATIONAL SALES-Asian Shadows

LANGUAGE-Assamese

DURATION- 87 MINS, INDIA, DRAMA, HD, COLOUR

Anurag Kashyap’s Mukkabaaz, Hansal Mehta’s Omerta, & Bornila Chatterjee’s The Hungry To Premiere At TIFF, 2017

Posted: July 25, 2017 by moifightclub in cinema, Film Festival, first look, Indie, News, pics
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Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has unveiled the first set of film titles premiering in the Gala and Special Presentations programmes in this year’s edition of the fest. Three Indian films will have there world premiere at Toronto. All the three films are part of Special Presentations.

Anurag Kashyap’s latest film Mukkebaaz is titled The Brawler for the fest edition. The 145-min long film is about a lower caste boxer struggling to make his mark on the boxing world. The film stars Vineet Singh in the lead role.

Hansal Mehta’s Omerta recounts the story of infamous British-born terrorist Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who kidnapped and murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002. It stars Raj Kummar Rao in the lead and is 96 minutes long.

The third one is Bornilla Chatterjee’s The Hungry. It relocates Shakespeare’s bloody tragedy Titus Andronicus to modern-day India, where corruption, greed, and revenge run rampant at an extravagant wedding.

Ritesh Batra’s ‘Our Souls At Night’ at Venice, Anup Singh’s ‘The Song of Scorpions’ at Locarno

Posted: July 17, 2017 by moifightclub in cinema, Film Festival, News
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Ritesh Batra’s new film, Our Souls at Night, will have its world premiere at Venice International Film Festival in an out-of-competition slot. The film stars Robert Redford and Jane Fonda. Both the actors will also be honored with Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement at the 74th edition of the fest.

Based on the novel by Kent Haruf and adapted for screen by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, Our Souls At Night is set in Colorado, and begins when Addie Moore (Fonda) pays an unexpected visit to a neighbor Louis Waters (Redford). Her husband died years ago, as did his wife, and in such a small town, they’d been neighbors for decades but had little contact. Netflix is launching the film globally next year. (via Deadline)

The fest will run from Aug. 30 till Sept. 9, 2017

The Song of Scorpions directed by Anup Singh, starring Irrfan Khan and Golshifteh Farahani will have its world première at Locarno Film Festival. The festival is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year.

The Song of Scorpions is a story of twisted love, revenge and the redemptive power of a song. Nooran, carefree and defiantly independent, is a tribal woman learning the ancient art of healing from her grandmother, a revered scorpion-singer. When Aadam, a camel trader in the Rajasthan desert, hears her sing, he falls desperately in love. But even before they can get to know each other better, Nooran is poisoned by a brutal treachery that sets her on a perilous journey to avenge herself and find her song.

The Locarno Film Festival runs from Aug. 2-12, 2017.

Abhishek Verma’s “Maccher Jhol” Bagged “City Of Annecy” Award

Posted: June 17, 2017 by moifightclub in animation, Film Festival, News, short film
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Abhishek Verma’s 12-minute long animated film Maacher Jhol (The Fish Curry) has won the “City Of Annecy” Award at the prestigious Annecy International Animated Film Festival. The award was started last year and was set up to support new filmmakers or films from emerging film markets, collaborative films or films that offer unique perspectives on the world we live in or the state of animation. It was selected in the “Perspectives” section of the fest. It also bagged the best short film award at the 8th Kashish Mumbai International Queer Film Festival.

Here’s the fest synopsis of the film –

Lalit, 28, decides to come out to his parents. In order to reveal his sexuality, seeking acceptance, he cooks his father’s favourite fish curry. Will his dad love the delicious dish?

Click here to read an interview of the filmmaker. And here’s the film’s trailer –

 

 

 

 

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