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.
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Since none of us are getting much time to write posts these days, i thought let’s at least compile cinema related interesting news bits that we come across on the net everyday and put it in a post. Otherwise it just gets lost in the timeline flood.
When i first heard the term “cockumentary”, i had no clue how to react. But that’s how Patrick Moote branded his film “Unhung Hero” – a cockumentary. And it started because of his cock size and because of which he was publicly rejected by the girl whom he proposed. The film is premiering at the ongoing SXSW Festival.
Indiewire has got a clip. Click here to read more about it and watch the clip.
Twitchfilm has reviewed the film. Click here to read.
But does size matter? Well, this isn’t the first time that the million dollar question has bothered men. And this won’t be the last. You can’t deny that it’s a serious issue. Problem is the moment one tries to talk about it, the reactions goes in all extreme directions.
And like Moote, filmmaker Lawrence Barraclough also has mini-me issue. And he made two docus on it, putting the camera on his dick. First one is called “My Penis and I” which was made for BBC. The second one is called “My Penis and Everyone Else’s”. Both the films are quite funny, sad and serious. He even talks to his girlfriend and parents about it. If not big dick, this surely needs big balls. Do watch.
And that’s not all. If you were offended by Seth MacFarlane’s “We Saw Your Boobs”, Ladies, here’s your revenge – we saw your junk. Have fun.
With this post we come to the end of the year and it’s the last post in our “2012 Rewind” Series. Hope you guys enjoyed the series. To give a quick recap, you can click here (for “Coming of age for desi indies – Miss Lovely and Ship Of Theseus”), here (So what happened to Agent Vinod? Part 2. Now read the script), here (What kind of bird are YOU?), here (A for Allah duhayee hai, B for Bakchodi, C for Chutiyapa), here (Top 10 Musical gems that you probably haven’t heard), Script of Kahaani is here and Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu is here, and “20 Things we discovered at the movies and 10 unanswered questions” post is here.
So over to Sumit Purohit now who has created this video and whom you most probably know because of all his famous mash-up videos.
I started creating mash-up videos for fun, and to brush up my editing skills, but this year, it seems it got serious. Never thought that something you upload on YouTube casually, at least in India, can get you serious jobs.
So, I thought it would be fitting to end the year by creating a mash-up of the Hindi films I enjoyed watching in 2012. There are many films that I haven’t seen this year, so they might be missing from the mash-up, and like any other list the films in the mash-up are open for debate. The reasons why I liked them are entirely random – great story telling, wonderful visuals, brilliant performances or because friends or people I know were involved in the making.
Of the 17 films in the mashup, Peddlers, Shahid and Ship of Theseus are yet to get theatrical release. But this year they represented the best of Indian cinema in the major film festivals internationally. Hope they get as big a release as possible in 2013. I have included Eega/Makkhi too even though it’s a Telugu film because I saw it in Hindi and also because it was one of the most unique films of the year. And you can kill me for adding those few visuals from Jab Tak Hai Jaan, but then no list is complete without an honorary mention. Also, the mash-up gives little tribute to the finest actor this year who was seen everywhere possible – in a blink-and-you-will-miss role to being the lead.
Hope you enjoy looking back at some of the finest films from 2012.
Toronto International Film Festival’s focus in this year’s ‘City To City’ program is Mumbai and its showing Manjeet Singh’s Mumbai Cha Raja (The King of Mumbai), Anand Gandhi’s Ship of Theseus, Mohit Takalkar’s The Bright Day, Hansal Mehta’s Shahid along with Anurag Kashyap’s two-parter Gangs of Wasseypur, Ashim Ahluwalia’s Miss Lovely, Habib Faisal’s Ishaqzaade, Dibakar Banerjee’s Shanghai and Vasan Bala’s Peddlers.
TIFF has made the presser video online where are all the directors were present and they talk about various subjects – festival, female directors, reviews, bollywood vs indies, changing film making scenario,
16:50 onward – On reviews. Waah, Vasan!
19:80 onward – Ha! Good try, Mr Habib Faisal to defend the regressive Ishaqzaade.
39:15 – Balaji took bits and pieces from Miss Lovely and made The Dirty Picture – Ashim Ahluwalia.
40:15 – If you send a script like this, i will file a criminal complaint with the police.
We are premiering a short film on our blog for the first time. A short i saw during Mumbai Film Festival and liked it. It starts with an intro by its director Mihir Desai. Over to him.
It’s been a year, almost since our short film Aakra-Man first screened at Mumbai Film Festival in 2011. We’ve been dying to post it online but weren’t allowed due to its festival run. Here it is, finally the online premiere of our DIY superhero short, Aakra-Man.
I am never really keen on writing intros or ‘making – of’ posts before my film is watched. Anyone wanting to criticize my work should have the freedom to do so without thinking about how much I struggled to make a film, because frankly everyone goes through that struggle. Most importantly it’s always fun to let the film speak for itself and to see how the audience reacts and interprets my vision. (Ed – and so i am stopping him right here. Watch the film and then read the rest.)
So I decided to write about something else. Let me jump right into it. (This may or may not be directly related to Aakra-Man so feel free to skip it)
‘Rogue methodology’ is a myth. As filmmakers we are constantly involved in the process of making films, we see our film over and over again. When I put a shot in my film, it’s there for a reason. It’s by choice I’ve added or removed something. You don’t shoot a film with multiple cameras just because you can. The format you shoot a film on is as important as the screenplay of your film. Aakra-Man is essentially a mockumentary. Shooting with a slightly faster shutter speed on digital SLRs helped me achieve what I wanted. It looks more “video” than “film” because ‘videos’ like this would usually come on television and not in theatres. From what I’ve seen, it seems like ‘rogue methodology’ has zero thought behind using a certain format or camera therefore shots end up looking like mistakes or ‘NG Takes.’ The first rule of DSLR filmmaking is, to understand the flaws of these cameras. Only then can you come up with innovative ways to adapt to this new technology. It’s really annoying when popular filmmakers make use of this technology without educating themselves. This is a big threat to smaller filmmakers because once a DSLR feature flops not a single investor will trust its potential. I’ve been working with video DSLRs for a long time and I know a lot of great independent filmmakers making such good use of these cameras. Unfortunately it’ll go unnoticed; DSLR filmmaking in India will continue to be discouraged.
Overwhelmed by the size of these cameras, followers of rogue methodology have probably forgotten that films are first and foremost an emotional experience. If the audience is only talking about how the film has been shot, the filmmaker has failed. Struggles and techniques should be invisible because all of that adds up to the story one is trying to say. That is of utmost importance. Although I agree with Mr. Rogue when he says the cameras should be invisible to the actors but in that process the director shouldn’t become invisible too!! There is only so much an actor can bring to the table. If he or she is a ‘good’ actor they’ll come prepared with the look, body language, research, back story, accent, etc but the rest is how the director moulds their performance. The “why” is the director’s job and the “how” is the actor’s job. Rogue method seems to completely disregard this fact.
If rogue methodology wasn’t enough we have studios trying to put a ban on Vimeo. The reason I make short films is because I get the freedom to experiment. I am aware that when I make a short film I’ll be distributing it online only. My investment is always very low because I won’t make any money after releasing my film online. However, what I will get instead is an audience. This audience of mine, will hopefully support me when I eventually make a feature in the future or make more shorts for the Internet. By banning a distribution site like Vimeo the studios are not only putting an end to creativity but destroying the niche we independent filmmakers have created for ourselves. I can confidently speak for a lot of my fellow indie filmmakers and say that our intent has never been to compete with studios. We just want to co-exist. Vimeo is not just a distribution website, we can use it to share footage and collaborate globally. With the consent of my filmmaker friends abroad I’ve used footage they’ve shot in my documentary Common Thread and they can do the same with mine. Collaboration without increasing production cost! Banning Vimeo is just taking all these privileges away from independent filmmakers. When I was re-cutting Aakra-Man I never thought it would end up becoming ‘just another YouTube video.’ Sadly that’ll be my primary source of distribution here. Social media is a really powerful tool, see what you can do by getting the hashtag #SaveVimeo to trend. It’s really important to the indie film community.
Aakra-Man is just a film about someone who is struggling to ‘fit in.’ Rahul Desai has written and acted this part. We hope this video is worth your time. Our plan for the future is to make a feature length version of this film so please help spread the word and share your thoughts, rate/review it on IMDb. For best quality, watch the film on Aakra-Man’s official website (this is a Vimeo embed, if your network allows it watch it here) Those in US or Canada can download a full HD version for free on iTunes. The rest can watch an embedded version below (please watch it in full HD)
Download Alex Marianyi’s soundtrack for free:
Lastly, please bookmark http://www.aakraman.com . It’s a work in progress website we will be allowing free download of the screenplay and if people are interested to know about the making of the film then a possible commentary by Rahul and me.
If you are not active on social networking platforms, you might have missed the two videos which are getting lot of attention. First came the mash-up of The Dark Knight Rises and Gangs of Wasseypur as “The Dark Knight Rises in Wasseypur”. Great fun!
It was suppose to be Vikram’s big bollywood debut. But what actually happened? Well, we all know the story. The general feedback was that the Tamil version was better than the Hindi one. In the Tamil version, Vikram played Beera, the same role which was played by Abhishek Bachchan in the Hindi version. And a film buff cut a very cool video – put Vikram in double role. Watch the video.
And he has a cut a new trailer of the film in the same way
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Guillermo Del Toro and Alfonso Cuaron – are these three names enough to sell the post? Try it. It’s a great interview. These three filmmakers talk about their cinema, life, Mexican roots, what’s common between them, friendship, criticism, competition and much more. It’s a Must Watch.
If you haven’t seen Kamal Swaroop’s cult classic Om dar badar, you still haven’t seen the best of Indian cinema. And if you are friends with him on FB, his wall is like a pandora’s box for visual art.
Tehelka Tv has been doing an interesting series called “Cinema & Me” where they talk to filmmakers of life, cinema and philosophy. The new video features Kamal Swaroop. Must Watch.
Since none of us are getting much time to write posts these days, i thought let’s at least compile cinema related interesting news bits that we come across on the net everyday and put it in a post. Otherwise it just gets lost in the timeline flood.
F.i.g.h.t C.l.u.b 