KAUFMAN - "Or cramming in sex, or car chases, or guns. Or characters learning profound life lessons. Or characters growing or characters changing or characters learning to like each other or characters overcoming obstacles to succeed in the end. Y'know ? Movie shit."
Kaufman is sweating like crazy now. Valerie is quiet for a moment - from "Adaptation".
We are all about CINEMA. That movie shit.
NOTHING is sacred.
NOBODY is spared.
Because we talk about films, dammit.
Not your sex life.
Films, fests, unsung, indies, undiscovered - all that and some fun. If you have dope on anything related to cinema or you would like to share something, do write to us at moifightclub@gmail.com.
The views, opinions, reviews, articles, or positions, expressed by the authors and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, positions or strategies of ANY OF THE EMPLOYERS, FRIENDS, RELATIVES, PR agencies, Production houses, Media group and such third parties associated with the authors. The latter make no representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information on this site and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use.
In short, if you have an issue with us or any post we've written, write to us at moifightclub@gmail.com
Aha, this is what you call a break out film. First, premiere at Cannes Film Festival in International Critics Week. Followed up by rave reviews. Then the Grand Rail d’Or Award. And now, the big news – Sony Classic Pictures picks up the US rights of the film.
According to this report in Variety,Sony Pictures Classics has acquired all U.S. rights to Ritesh Batra’s feature debut “The Lunchbox”, a Cannes Critics’ Week standout.
Copy-pasting excerpts from the report…..
Repped by Germany’s The Match Factory, the Mumbai-set crowd-pleaser got a standing ovation following its Cannes unspooling.
At Cannes, SPC also acquired all U.S. rights to Iranian helmer Asghar Farhadi’s Paris-set drama “The Past,” starring Berenice Bejo and Tahar Rahim, which is vying for a Palme d’Or.
SPC has a strong track record when it comes to acquiring foreign arthouse films with strong Oscar potential. Last year, it nabbed Michael Haneke’s “Amour,” which was nominated for five Oscar nods and won best foreign-language film.
Gaul’s Happiness Distribution also picked up ”Lunchbox.” It is one of four Indian entries that bowed at Cannes, which is celebrating 100 years of Indian cinema.
No wonder many critics already termed it as a film with crossover appeal. Click here to read the reviews here.
Also, the film recently bagged the Grand Rail d’Or Award at Cannes. According to DearCinema, since 1995, a group of rail worker film enthusiasts presents the Golden Rail awards to two films in Cannes Critics’ Week: Petit Rail d’Or for best short film and Grand Rail d’Or for best feature. So it’s kind of viewers choice award.
Written and directed by Ritesh Batra, the film stars Irrfan Khan, Nimrat Kaur, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Denzil Smith and Bharati Achrekar. To read its official synopsis and full cast/crew details, click here.
With UTV and Kiran Rao in the picture now, Ship Of Theseus is getting a new campaign. It started with UTV and Kiran’s branding all over, then a new teaser came out, and now finally the full trailer is out. Have a look.
3.16! That’s quite long. They have put out almost a smaller version of the film. As we have been shouting out from rooftops, it’s easily going to be one of the best films of the year. Mark the release date – 19th July.
To read it’s official synopsis, cast & crew list, and our take on the film, click here.
We have been hearing about the news since last few months. Finally, the official announcement is out. Kiran Rao loved the film and she is now releasing Anand Gandhi’s film Ship Of Theseus with the help of UTV.
This is a great initiative. Hopefully she will continue to release more such films. And we need more people like her because they can make it happen. Because making films have become easier but releasing them in theatres seems like an impossible task. Especially when there’s no alternative platform or venues for non-mainstream films. And when the focus is only money and opening weekend collection, nobody wants to think beyond that. A film like Ship Of Theseus deserves to be seen.
Here’s the official synopsis….
If the parts of a ship are replaced, bit-by-bit, is it still the same ship?
An unusual photographer, celebrated for her intuitive work, successfully captures the essence of her experience in her photography. However, she also struggles with insecurities over authorship in the context of larger questions about subjectivity and intent in art.
An erudite monk, who is an ideologue and practitioner of non-violence, and involved in animal rights activism, is forced to make a choice between death and medicine – medicine that is either derived from, or tested on animals. As death closes in, he re-questions all the ideas that he has always taken for granted.
A young stockbroker has a frictional relationship with his grandmother, whom he nurses in a hospital. When it is discovered that a neighbouring patient has had his kidney stolen, he starts out on a trail that leads him to a kidney tourism racket. Altruism and concern leads him to confront the recipient of the kidney, eventually making him discover how intricate morality could be.
Following the separate strands of their philosophical journeys, and their eventual convergence, Ship of Theseus explores questions of identity, justice, beauty, meaning and death.
And a new teaser trailer of the film
The cast and the credit list…
Director: Anand Gandhi
Language: English, Hindi, Arabic
Runtime: 139 minutes
Exec. Producer: Mitesh Shah, Ruchi Bhimani
Producer: Mukesh Shah
Production Co.: Recyclewala Films
Principal Cast: Neeraj Kabi, Sohum Shah, Aida Elkashef, Faraz Khan, Vinay Shukla, Amba Sanyal
Screenplay: Anand Gandhi
Cinematographer: Pankaj Kumar
Editor: Adesh Prasad, Sanyukta Kaza, Satchit Puranik, Reka Lemhenyi
Sound: Gábor Erdélyi, Tamás Székely
Music: Rohit Sharma, Naren Chandavarkar, Benedict Taylor
Prod. Designer: Rakesh Yadav, Pooja Shetty
Int. Sales Agent: Fortissimo Films
The film is a MUST WATCH. Here are the links to some of our previous posts where we have written about it
– “2012 Rewind : Coming of age for desi indies – Miss Lovely and Ship Of Theseus” post is here
– A small recco post on the film in “2012 Rewind : What kind of bird are YOU?” post. Click here.
For those who have been curious about Ritesh Batra’s Dabba, we have got the first look of the film. Here are some of the stills from the film which look really impressive. We do also have all the cast, credit and official synopsis details.
The film will have its international premiere at Cannes Festival in International Critics Week section.
(Click on any image to start the slide show in hi-res)
Though Nawaz was also in Paan Singh Tomar, but it looks like this film finally brings together two of the finest actors of our generation in full fledged roles. And is Irrfan Khan in Namesake avatar again? Bring it on!
Official Synopsis
A mistaken delivery in Mumbai’s famously efficient lunchbox delivery system connects a young housewife to an old man in the dusk of his life as they build a fantasy world together through notes in the lunchbox. Gradually, this fantasy threatens to overwhelm their reality.
Mumbai, a city of miracles.
One of Mumbai’s miracles is Mumbai’s Dabbawallahs – a community of 5000 dabba (lunchbox) deliverymen. It is a hereditary profession. Every morning the Dabbawallahs deliver hot meals from the kitchens of housewives to the offices of their husbands, and then return the empty lunchboxes back to the homes in the afternoon. For 120 years they have provided Mumbaikars with a taste of home in the office. They navigate through the overcrowded local trains and chaotic streets – that often have a namesake or more than one name. The Dabbahwallahs are illiterate, and instead rely on a complex coding system of colors and symbols to deliver dabbas in the labyrinth that is Mumbai. Harvard University analyzed their delivery system, concluding that just 1 in 8 million lunchboxes is ever delivered to the wrong address. Dabba is the story of that one lunchbox.
A mistakenly delivered lunchbox connects a housewife, Ila Singh, to Saajan Thomas, a lonely man in the dusk of his life. Ila lives in Dadar, the conservative middle class Hindu enclave. And Saajan lives in Ranwar village, Bandra, an old Christian neighborhood that is threatened by the new high rises in Mumbai. Very soon Saajan will retire and bid goodbye to a Mumbai that has crushed his dreams, took away his loved ones one by one, and turned his hair white. Just then Ila comes into his life. In the big city, that crushes dreams and recycles them every day, both find a dream to hold on to. Ila begins a fantastical affair with a mystery suitor, pouring her heart into cooking meals for him. And Saajan looks forward to lunch box deliveries from a mystery woman every day. They exchange notes via the lunchbox and create a fantasy life. As the lunchbox goes back and forth, this fantasy becomes so elaborate that it threatens to overwhelm their reality. The characters of The Lunchbox exist on the line between the Mumbai of reality and the Mumbai of fantasy.
The Lunchbox is the story of the life we dream of versus the life we live in, and of the courage it takes to turn out fantasies into reality.
Credits
director: Ritesh Batra
screenplay: Ritesh Batra
cinematography: Michael Simmonds
editing: John Lyons
sound: Michael Kaczmarek
production design: Shruti Gupte
music: Max Richter
Cast:
Irrfan Khan
Nimrat Kaur
Nawazuddin Siddiqui
Denzil Smith
Bharati Achrekar
Nakul Vaid
Yashvi Puneet Nagar
Lillete Dubey
Sada (Dabbawala)
The film is produced by Sikhya Entertainment (India), Dar Motion Pictures (India), and co-produced by National Film Development Corporation (India), ASAP Films (France) and Roh Films (Germany).
Btw, Michael Simmonds? The DoP of Ramin Bahrani’s films? Chop Shop, Man Push Cart, Goodbye Solo and Plastic Bag. That’s a great talent to have on board.
To know more about the film and the filmmaker, click here to read his interview on DearCinema.
Director
Ritesh Batra is a writer/director based in Mumbai and New York. In 2009, Batra was selected for the Sundance Writers and Directors labs for his feature project “The Story of Ram”. He was also named the Sundance Time Warner Storytelling Fellow and an Annenburg Fellow. He was part of the Graduate Film Program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, from which he dropped out in 2010. His short films have been presented in many international film festivals and fine arts venues. His recent short “Café Regular, Cairo” was featured in the 2012 Inter- national Film Festival of Rotterdam and 2012 Tribeca Film Festival. His upcoming short ‘The State of Siege’ is currently in post-production.
His feature screenplay THE LUNCHBOX was part of the 2011 Binger-NFDC Screenwriting Lab, it won an Honorable Mention from the Jury at the 2012 edition of the Cinemart at the International Film Festival of Rotterdam and was part of the Berlinale Talent Project Market.
(Cast/credit/synopsis/Director’s bio taken from various co-producers’ site)
The Cannes Film Festival recently announced its 2013 official list, and it features two Indian films – Bombay Talkies and Monsoon Shootout. Guess what’s common between the two? Nazauddin Siddiqui. It was the same scenario last year, he was at Cannes for Gangs Of Wasseypur and Miss Lovely. That’s quite an achievement – to have four films at Cannes in two years. And that’s not all. If our sources are to be believed, there’s more. Keep watching this space.
So we thought it’s a good time to look back and search for Mister Siddiqui. It started on Twitter, as a cheap thrill – to spot him in all those blink and miss roles that he has done over the years. Thanks to internet and youtube, it’s all just “click and play” game now. Try it. You will be surprised, and it’s great fun. Also, it defines what “perseverance” really means. Over to @SilverlightGal who went searching for Siddiqui and wrote this post.
In 1999, he was featured in a scene, that of a waiter, sharing screen space for a few seconds with Manoj Bajpayee. That 13 years later, he would feature as a leading man in a movie, playing Manoj Bajpaee’s son, and dominate the screen space was perhaps something that no one had envisioned. Not even the guy himself. That’s Nawazuddin Siddiqui for you.
It was on this blog, MFC (moifightclub), that I first heard of his name. Nawazuddin Siddiqui? Sure didn’t sound like the names we’d been used to hearing in Bollywood in recent times. Year after year it was either a Kumar or a Khan that made news in Bollywood. But this new guy was being written about with awe and respect. Curious, I read up as much as I could about him and that’s when I understood why he was being awed, despite not having a single release at that time. With unbridled excitement, I looked forward to seeing him on the silver screen, in Gangs of Wasseypur. And he didn’t disappoint. Gow-I, Gow-II, Kahaani, Talaash, it was just one powerhouse performance after another.
By now, reams have been written in media about his struggle from the days he worked as a watchman to now when he is acting alongside the likes of Aamir Khan and Vidya Balan. So, this post will not cover any of that. For those unfamiliar with his back story or his long struggle or his various media interviews, there is a bunch of links at the bottom of this post.
This article instead attempts to list all his work from 1999 to the present. (Note, at Wikipedia, there are just 23 listings. At MFC, we have discovered 46, collated from various sources on the Net) And you can spot him in some of the clips listed here.
VIDEOS
Sarfarosh
He played a criminal named Nawazuddin and was featured in a police lock-up scene that lasted for approximately 130-140 seconds. That was the first time he shared screen space with Aamir Khan. 12 years later, he played the second lead in an Aamir Khan movie, Taalash. Notice how scrawny and nervous he looks back then. But, far more than that, notice the way he gets under the skin of the character. It may have been a miniscule role but one that he can still be proud of.
Jungle
He played one of the dacoits in Sushant Singh’s gang. This again was a very short role, lasting a few seconds.
Black Friday
He played the role of Asgar Muqadam, Tiger Memon’s manager. In the movie, he is arrested shortly after the bomb blasts and is beaten in the lockup until he provides whatever information he has about the bomb blasts, which then leads to a police inquiry. Again, despite the extremely short time he got on screen, Nawazuddin managed to put in his best and make a mark for himself. Legend has it (okay, I just couldn’t resist this starter) that Anurag Kashyap saw his Sarfarosh scene and also a few of his plays and then signed him up for Black Friday.
Munnabhai MBBS
Remember, the thief who stole Sunil Dutt’s wallet and was good-naturedly hauled to beta Sanjay Dutt’s “clinic”? That was Nawazuddin Siddiqui. He was very lean back then and his face still looked young and fresh.
“OP” Stop Smelling Your Socks (short)
In this little-known short film, he plays one of the production guys.
The Bypass
In this award-winning 2003 short film, he played the role of a desert robber, who in conjunction with another guy, killed and looted people travelling on the bypass route.
Summer of 2007
(Trailer, between 1:59 to 2.00)
Again a blink and miss role, that of a villager in the village the protagonists go to fulfill their internships. The movie was a box office disaster.
Firaaq
He played the role of Hanif, a young Muslim man who finds his home looted and burned in the aftermath of the 2002 Gujarat riots and wants to retaliate against the violence.
********************
If you are interested to know more about him, here’s the list of some of the news reports and features.
– “Now Starring NS : The life and struggle of an unlikely hero” Open magazine feature is here
– “The late but unstoppable rise of Nawazuddin Siddiqui” Caravan magazine’s feature is here
And these listings are not in exact order of his appearances, they are just sorted by year
Sarfarosh 1999
Shool 1999
Jungle 2000
Bindiya Mange Bandook 2000
The Bypass 2003
Mudda 2003
Munnabhai MBBS 2003
Black Friday 2004
Elephant Boy 2005 (short)
Adharm 2006
Family – Ties of Blood 2006
Manorama Six Feet Under 2007
EK Chaalis ki last local 2007
Salt N Pepper 2007
Recycle Mind 2007
Aaja Nachle 2007
Safar 2008
Black and White 2008
Summer 2007 2008
Dev D 2008
Meridian Lines 2009
New York 2009
Firaaq 2009
New York 2009
OP Stop Smelling Your Socks (short) 2010
Peepli live 2010
Mehfuz (short) 2011
Dekh Indian Circus 2011
Kahaani 2011
Paan Singh Tomar 2012
Miss Lovely 2012
The Owner 2012
Talaash 2012
Chittagong 2012
Patang 2012
Gangs of Wasseypur 2012
Liar Dice 2012
Gangs of Gardulley 2013
Black Currency 2013
Monsoon Shootout 2013
Mountain Man 2013
Dabba 2013
Aatma 2013
HaraamKhor 2013
Bombay Talkies 2013
Anwar Ka Ajab Kissa Filming
If we have missed anything interesting or if you managed to spot him in some film, do let us know in comment section.
(@SilverlightGal is passionate about cinema and is always eager for any discussions pertaining to cinema.)
PS – To make life bit simpler, now you don’t need to fill in all the details to post comments. If you are already logged into Facebook or Twitter, just log in with your FB/T account. Click on comment box, you can see the small (FB/T) icon below the comment box, click on FB/T, a pop up will appear, authorize the app and you are done)
We don’t have a culture of documenting our history.
We don’t have a history of making great documentaries.
We don’t have documentaries on our “real heroes”.
And this is why Shivendra Singh Dungarpur’s Celluloid Man is such an important film, which stands tall on those three parameters. It’s about a real hero who has documented our cinematic history, and it’s a documentary on his life and passion.
I had missed the screening few times in the past and finally managed to catch it recently. The name is P.K.Nair. His designation sounds even boring – Archivist. Sounds almost clerical – someone who archives stuff. What separates Mister Nair from his designation and the rest is just one thing – passion. And this film does complete justice to that man and his undying passion for cinema.
Chances are you might not have heard his name if you have not been to FTII or not friends with FTII graduates. He is the man responsible for National Film Archive Of India, popularly known as NFAI. Starting literally from scratch, P K Nair built it up slowly – reel by reel, can by can, film by film. No wonder that you ask him about a scene and he can tell you which reel and which can has it. Celluloid Man is his story – how he built NFAI, the way he travelled to various places in search of those rare films which most didn’t care about.
The film runs on two tracks. One traces Nair’s personal story – starting from Nair’s childhood in Kerala to how he wanted to become filmmaker and how he landed up at FTII and started NFAI. Some of the well known faces from FTII recount their younger days at the Institute and talk about Nair saab. And then you realise that his contribution is much more than just being an archivist. It’s about shaping up those young bright minds.
The other one is about building NFAI – this has intersecting anecdotes about collecting those precious films by travelling to remote places, and sometimes even opting for illegal routes for a greater cause. Dungarpur balances it well by scratching the uncomfortable surface too – was it one-upmanship, why NFAI is hostile to Nair now and such.
It feels bit long at the running duration of more than 2 hours (2:24 exactly i think, not sure which version is releasing), and the director’s sudden voice-over feels odd which doesn’t gel well with the film as the rest of it is through Nair saab’s words. But those are just minor issues in this mammoth task of documenting this important part of our cultural history so beautifully. If you are film lover, WATCH IT. If you are not, watch it just to know how to define Passion and Commitment.
The initial portions of the film is shot gorgeously, almost like a dream, feels some kind of daze. And then there’s a heartbreaking surreal sequence of silver being extracted from film reels by those who understand only commerce. The horror! Horror! i shouted in my head.
And this film could not have come at a better time. If there’s one person who needs to be celebrated at the occasion of 100 years of cinema, it’s Nair saab. If nothing else, at least this documentary serves that purpose. Thanks, Shivendra.
– The film is being released by PVR Directors Rare on May 3rd. Don’t Miss this one.
Most probably you haven’t heard about any of these titles mentioned in the header of the post. But they seem to be interesting films, and hopefully we will get to hear more about them in the coming months. So here’s the official synopsis of all these films.
DEKH TAMASHA DEKH
Away from any media attention, Feroze Abbas Khan has completed his next film titled Dekh Tamasha Dekh. He had earlier directed Gandhi, My Father.
Synopsis : The story revolves around the search for the religious identity of a poor man crushed under the weight of a politican’s hoarding. A social and political satire, the film explores the impossible India, where bizarre is normal.
Directed by Feroze Abbas Khan.
India 2012, 108 Minutes, Hindi with English subtitles.
Cast: Satish Kaushik, Tanvi Azmi, Vinay Jain, Sharad Ponkshe, Ganesh Yadav, Apoorva Arora, Alok Rajwade
CHENU
Manjeet Singh’s directorial debut Mumbai Cha Raja did a good round of film fests and now he is working on his next film titled Chenu. It has been selected for the 9th edition of L’Atelier organized by the Cinéfondation of the Cannes Film Festival.
Synopsis : Chenu, a low caste Dalit boy living in rural North India, is drawn into an ongoing war between the extremely violent leftist “Naxal” militia and the fascist landlords’ gang. One day his younger sister Chano’s fingers are chopped off by landlord Teer Singh for plucking mustard leaves from his farm. When Chenu’s family is denied justice, the Naxals come to their rescue. They huntdown Teer Singh forcing him to take refuge under the protection of Bhagwan Sing, the leader of a landlord gang who has just cremated a cart full of dead relatives killed by the Naxals. The Naxals then involve Chenu in their operations and he comes to know where their weapons are hidden. When physically beaten by the rich village kids for playing on their turf, Chenu learns to fire a handgun himself. Meanwhile Bhagwan Singh, in thirst of revenge, consolidates other landlord gangs to form a powerful private army. A bloody cycle of violence unleashes, engulfing Chenu’s innocence while setting him on the cours of his own journey.
OONGA
I have been hearing about Devashish Makhija for a long time. Good to know that he is ready with his debut feature.
Synopsis : Little Oonga missed his village school trip to the faraway big city Lohabad to see a play called ‘Ramayan’. Unable to handle the pressure of being the only kid around who has not seen the fantastic warrior-king ‘Rama’, Oonga runs away. He goes on a perilous journey across forest, river, mountains and roads – bigger than any he’s ever seen, and valleys lain to waste by the mining industry… until he reaches the large, cold, chaotic, blinding city. When he emerges from the play he believes he has become Rama! But he is now returning not to the warm confines of his little village, but to a battlefield where the ‘company’ will do anything to take the adivasi’s land away from them. Only, Oonga doesn’t know it yet.
Directed by Devashish Makhija.
India, 2012, Feature Film, 98 Minutes, Hindi and Oriya with English subtitles.
Cast – Alyy Khan, Anand Tiwari, Nandita Das, Priyanka Bose, Salim Kumar, Seema Biswas, Vipin Sharma
FILMISTAAN
2012 was a good year for Bollywood. But beating all those films, Nitin Kakkar’s debut feature Filmistaan bagged the National Award for the Best Feature Film in Hindi Language. And if you read the synopsis, you might know why. It sounds delicious.
Synopsis : This National Award winning movie is set in Mumbai where, affable Bollywood buff and wanna-be-actor Sunny, who works as an assistant director, fantasizes on becoming a heart-throb star. However, at every audition he is summarily thrown out. Undeterred, he goes with an American crew to remote areas in Rajasthan to work on a documentary. One day an Islamic terrorist group kidnaps him for the American crew-member. Sunny finds himself on enemy border amidst guns and pathani-clad guards, who decide to keep him hostage until they locate their original target. The house in which he is confined belongs to a Pakistani, whose trade stems from pirated Hindi films, which he brings back every time he crosses the border. Soon, the two factions realize that they share a human and cultural bond. The film shows how cinema can be the universal panacea for co-existence.
Directed by Nitin Kakkar.
India 2012, 117 Minutes, Hindi with English subtitles.
Cast – Sharib Hashmi, Kumud Mishra, Gopal Datt, Inaamulhaq
FIREFLIES
Synopsis : ‘Fireflies’ is the story of two estranged brothers – Shiv and Rana. Shiv, a successful banker, lives in the superficial glitter of corporate Bombay. The younger brother, Rana, is a law school dropout who lives by the day. Though worldly experiences and illusions briefly illuminate the brothers’ journeys, a tragedy that befell them fifteen years earlier seems destined to repeat itself, just in new incarnations. Flames suddenly extinguish again, in an eerie heartbeat. The journey ahead echoing with voices and visions from the past, and the magic realism of the years gone by, beckons the brothers to find each other again. And the picture in the puzzle that was scattered so long ago. Fireflies come out in the night, just to light up the darkness. They live as long as the glow lasts. Even if it is a lifetime, being lived in a day.
Directed by Sabal Singh Shekhawat.
India, 2012, 102 Minutes, Hindi & English.
Cast – Arjun Mathur, Monica Dogra, Rahul Khanna, Shivani Ghai, Aadya Bedi
Manjeet Singh’s next feature Chenu has been selected for the 9th edition of L’Atelier organized by the Cinéfondation of the Cannes Film Festival. 15 projects from 14 countries have been selected for 2013 edition of L’Atelier which invites directors/producers to meet potential partners during the Festival. So far, out of 126 projects presented over the last eight years, 83 have been completed and 29 are currently in pre-production. From May 17 to 23, L’Atelier will arrange meetings with the directors for film industry professionals interested in investing in their projects.
DearCinema has more info on the film – Chenu is the story of a young dalit boy in the northern Ganges belt. He is drawn into ongoing war between the naxals and upper caste militia, when his younger sister’s fingers are chopped for plucking mustard leaves from a landlord’s field. The script explores various factions existing in the northern Ganges belt and delves into the humiliating lives of the underprivileged dalits.
Manjeet Singh’s directorial debut Mumbai Cha Raja premiered at TIFF and have been doing the fest rounds since then. Last year Shivajee Chandrabhushan’s project The Untold Tale was selected for L’Atelier.
Tribeca Film festival has released the list of 12 documentaries that will premiere at the fest and will compete in the World Documentary competition section. Fahad Mustafa and Deepti Kakkar’s Powerless, which recently premiered at the Berlin Film festival, will have its North American premiere at Tribeca. Here’s the official synopsis from the Tribeca release..
Would you risk your life to flip a switch? In Kanpur, India, putting oneself in harm’s way to deliver electrical power is all too common. Powerless sheds light on the opposing corners of this political ring, from an electrical Robin Hood tapping wires for neighbors to the myopic utility company whose failure to understand economics forces it deeper into financial disarray. This vibrant exposé gives a whole new meaning to the words “power struggle.” In English, Hindi with subtitles.
To know more about the film, watch its trailer/teaser and for its credit roll, click here.
The 2013 film selection includes feature films from 30 different countries, including 53 World Premieres, 7 International Premieres, 15 North American Premieres, 6 U.S. Premieres and 8 New York Premieres. A total of 113 directors will present feature works at the Festival, with 35 of these filmmakers marking their feature directorial debuts. Among these directors, 26 are women. The 2013 film slate was chosen from a total of 6005 submissions.
Fahad Mustafa and Deepti Kakkar’s documentary Powerless was selected to premiere at the ongoing Berlin Film Fest. The first look of the film is out with three interesting trailers.
Powerless is set in Kanpur, a city with 15-hour power cuts, where a nimble young electrician provides robin-hood style services to the poor. Meanwhile, the first female chief of the electricity supply company is on a mission to dismantle the illegal connections, for good. The documentary recently received a grant from Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program and Fund.
To read the Hollywood Reporter’s review of the film, click here.
Production companies: Globalistan Films, ITVS International
Directors: Fahad Mustafa, Deepti Kakkar
Producers: Fahad Mustafa, Deepti Kakkar, Judy Tam, Leopold Koegler
Directors of photography: Maria Trieb, Amith Surendran, Fahad Mustafa
We are starting a new segment on the blog – Fund A Film (FAF). With social media changing the way we communicate and crowd-funding in vogue, we thought it would be nice to highlight the projects that we find interesting. So if you want to contribute and fund a film, you know where to look.
Today’s Project is “The Tiger Hunter” by Lena Khan.
Over to Lena for an intro..
Years ago, if I had told somebody about the idea of my film, they might have asked, “Is this for Bollywood?” So, for that reason, when I came up with the idea for it…I put it aside. “Who wants to see a movie with brown people,” I thought.
But now, things are different. In America, at least, Indians are the new cool. Sure, we always had a few stand-out successes—the success of The Namesake or the popularity of Bend it Like Beckham. But the market is changing.
Now, we’re mainstream. We’re popular. Sure, we all knew about the popularity of Slumdog Millionaire, but now we’re cool even when we aren’t playing characters that revolve around our skin color. People stand in line to go see Aziz Ansari’s comedy tour. Kal Pen can still headline a Harold and Kumar sequel and stay on How I Met Your Mother for nearly an entire season. Kunal Nayyer is one of the stars of the most popular sitcom on television, The Big Bang Theory. And I’m not sure if you’ve watched FOX lately…but there’s a brown girl named Mindy Kalin heading up her own show there!
My movie, The Tiger Hunter, is about a young Indian man who comes to 1970s America on a quest for success. Is it a story for Indians? Sure. But mostly, now that times have changed—it’s a story for everyone else, too. And I’m moving forward at full speed to get it made.
And here’s more on the film :
The Tiger Hunter is the story of Sami Malik, an ambitious young man with an engineering degree who travels to 1970s Chicago to impress his childhood crush and live up to the legacy of his father, a local legend and tiger hunter. When Sami ends up living in a tiny co-op with two oddball roommates and taking a job as a lowly mail clerk, what ensues is a series of adventures involving outlandish schemes, an arch-nemesis in an absurd office environment, and a variety of misfits that Sami may soon call friends.
– Click here to go its Kickstarter page where you can read more about the film, people attached to it and watch videos. And if you can, contribute. If you can’t, do spread the word.
– She is also blogging about her entire experience. Her blog is Lena Makes A Movie.
– Scott Myers of that awesome blog GoIntoTheStory has also given his endorsement for the film. Click here.
– Click on the play button to watch the pitch video.
F.i.g.h.t C.l.u.b 