Posts Tagged ‘sundance’

Ritesh Batra’s Photograph To Premiere At Sundance

Posted: December 1, 2018 by Amit Sharma in cinema, film, Film Festival
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The Sundance Institute has announced the showcase of new independent feature films selected across all categories for the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, to be held in Park City, Salt Lake City and at Sundance Mountain Resort, from January 24 to February 3, 2019.

Ritesh Batra’s Photograph has been selected for the festival and is having its World Premiere there. Ritesh has directed and written the screenplay of the film, and the producers are Neil Kopp, Vincent Savino and Anish Savjani.

Synopsis
Two lives intersect in Mumbai and go along together. A struggling street photographer, pressured to marry by his grandmother, convinces a shy stranger to pose as his fiancée. The pair develops a connection that transforms them in ways that they could not expect.

The film stars Nawazuddin Siddiqi and Sanya Malhotra.

Six Scripts Selected For Drishyam-Sundance Scriptlab, 2016

Posted: March 16, 2016 by moifightclub in News, Screenwriting
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Drishyam-Sundance Screenwriters Lab has announced the six scripts selected for this year’s edition. The second edition will take place in Udaipur between April 4-8, 2016.

The 6 screenwriting fellows and project names selected for the 2016 Screenwriters’ lab are as follows:

  1. Barren Land by Neeraj Narkar
  2. Manto by Nandita Das
  3. Nisar (Sacrifice) by Karan Tejpal and Gaurav Solanki
  4. Ram ji ka Ghoda by Bishnu Dev Halder
  5. Shame, Shame Puppy Shame by Batul Mukhtiar and Vivek Shah
  6. Reincarnation by Gaurav Bakshi

The applications for the next edition will be open from October 2016. Enquiries can be emailed to drishyamsundancelab@sundance.org and drishyamsundancelab@gmail.com or posted to official Facebook page.

To find out more about the Drishyam | Sundance Screenwriters’ Lab 2015, click here.

7 Scripts Selected for Drishyam-Sundance Screenwriters Lab

Posted: April 9, 2015 by moifightclub in cinema, Indie, News, Screenwriting
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After Mahindra’s Mumbai Mantra ended their tenure with Sundance, Producer Manish Mundra’s company Drishyam has tied up with them to bring the first edition of Drishyam-Sundance Screenwriters Lab. What Mahindra could not do – convert the scripts into films, hopefully Drishyam will be able to do. Otherwise just selecting the scripts and mentoring them becomes useless if there is no funding for such scripts.

Sundance Institute and Drishyam have announced the 7 scripts selected for this year’s lab which will run from April 12-16. The Lab supports emerging filmmakers in India, as part of the Institute’s sustained commitment to international artists, which in the last 25 years has included programs in Brazil, Mexico, Jordan, Turkey, Japan, Israel and Central Europe.

The projects and fellows selected for the 2015 Drishyam | Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab are:

Geetu MohandasGeetu Mohandas / Mulakoya

From the Lakshadweep Islands of the Arabian Sea, a young boy sets off on an adventure to the mainland in order to find his older brother.

Geetu Mohandas’ debut feature Liar’s Dice, premiered in competition at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. Liar’s Dice has currently played 35 film festivals and won 5 international awards for best film and 2 National Awards, the highest honor in India. It was also the official Indian entry for the 2015 Oscars. Mohandas, along with filmmaker Rajeev Ravi, formed  the production company Unplugged in 2009, which produced her short film, Kelkkunnundo? The film premiered at Rotterdam International film festival and won 3 International awards for Best International Short Film and the National Award for the Best actor in India.

 

Raj Rishi MoreRaj Rishi More / Pirates

Amidst the economic downturn, a young illustrator struggles to balance supporting his struggling family with his dream of becoming a professional cartoonist.

Raj Rishi More started his film career as an assistant director on RiteshBatra’s Sundance Institute-supported The Lunchbox (winner of Grand Golden Rail, Cannes Film Festival 2013, nominated for BAFTA 2015). He worked as First Assistant Director to RiteshBatra on his short Masterchef, a commission by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. Currently Raj is working with RiteshBatra on the feature film Khoya, while developing Pirates, his first feature as director.

 

Atanu MukherjeeAtanu Mukherjee / Unknown Faces

When eighteen year old Dhruv returns home from boarding school, eager to reunite with his family and friends, he instead finds that his father has disappeared after a bankruptcy scandal. While his mother attempts to protect him from discovering his family’s hardships, Dhruv decides to find his father himself.

Atanu Mukherjee is an alumnus of Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute Kolkata. He has worked as Editor on four feature films: Achal (The Stagnant), Blemished Light, Shortcut Safari and Monsoon Shootout, the last of which premiered at Cannes in 2013. He has directed the documentary My House Is Not So Far, and has also written, directed and edited short films Ekanko (The Monologue), The Gatekeeper and Stray Dogs, which won Best Short Film at the 2014  Cinema City Film Festival in Serbiaand was a part of the 2014International Documentary And Short Film Festival in Kerala. Most recently, he participated in the 2015 Berlinale Talents Program.

 

Tenzing & Ritu against wallRitu Sarin & Tenzing Sonam / The Sweet Requiem

A young Tibetan woman living in exile in New Delhi unexpectedly sees the man she holds responsible for her father’s murder on a high Himalayan pass. Long-suppressed memories of her traumatic escape from Tibet are reignited and she is propelled on an obsessive search for reconciliation and closure.

Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam have been making films on Tibetan subjects for more than 20 years. Through their work they have attempted to document, question and reflect on the issues of exile and cultural identity that confront the Tibetan diaspora. Working through their film company, White Crane Films, they have produced and directed several documentaries, including: The Reincarnation of Khensur Rinpoche (1991); The Trials of Telo Rinpoche (1993); A Stranger in My Native Land (1997); and The Shadow Circus: The CIA in Tibet (1998). In 2005, they completed a dramatic feature film, Dreaming Lhasa. The Sun Behind the Clouds: Tibet’s Struggle for Freedom. Ritu and Tenzing are married and have two children.

 

 Sandhya SuriSandhya Suri / Santosh

When a widow receives a “compassionate assignment” and assumes her husband’s former role as a police investigator, she confronts a brutal case of gang rape of a young woman.

After graduating with a first class honours degree in Mathematics and German, Sandhya Suri received a scholarship to study documentary at The National Film and Television School. Her graduation film “SAFAR” was shown at a number of international film festivals, receiving the Jury’s special mention at Cinema du Reel and the award for Best Short Film at the British Film Institute’s Imagine Asia festival. Currently based in London, she has lived in Germany, India and Japan and worked on documentary projects in Africa, South America and Polynesia. In 2005 she directed I for India, her first feature length documentary, which played at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and won Best Documentary at the Asian Festival of First Films.

 

Anay Tarnekar headshotAnay Tarnekar / Untitled Tiger Project

In southwest China, animal trader Jin, struggling to support his family, works in the potentially lucrative but illegal private market of young male tigers. In central India, former poacher Raghav now works at a small reserve where he protects the wildlife. Their two stories converge with the appearance of a new pair of tigers on the reserve.

A mechanical engineer turned filmmaker, AnayTarnekar has worn several hats as a writer, director, producer, editor and director of photography. In 2002 he moved to the US to pursue a Masters degree in Cinema from San Francisco State University. After graduating, he co-produced and edited a documentary calledCachao: Uno Mas that premiered on the multiple Emmy-winning PBS series, American Masters. He is currently producing the TV interview series Hollywood Masters, which examines the careers of filmmakers including Alfonso Cuaron, David O. Russell, Michael Mann, Sean Penn and Clint Eastwood. Anay is also an amateur painter and wildlife photographer.

 

Dnyanesh ZotingDnyanesh Zoting / The Monster

When a young girl’s father goes missing while on a documentary film shoot in a tribal village, she and her mother go to the jungle to find him, relying on clues from the Raakshasfairytale in order to find him.

DnyaneshZoting assisted Satish Manvaron the Marathi film The Damned Rain. He is presently assisting film director Satish Manvar as co-writer for the Hubert Bals funded film projectWhat’s Your Religion?Zoting holds a degree in video-production from the University Of Pune.

– The Lab is a five-day writer’s workshop that gives independent screenwriters the opportunity to work intensively on their feature film scripts in an environment that encourages innovation and creative risk-taking. The Lab is centered around one-on-one story sessions with the creative advisors. Screenwriting fellows engage in an artistically rigorous process that offers lessons in craft, a fresh perspective on their work and a platform to fully realize their material.

– Creative advisors for this year’s Lab represent a diverse mix of Indian and international filmmakers, including: Srdan Golubovic (Circles), Erik Jendresen (Band of Brothers), Rose Troche (The Safety of Objects, The L Word), Habib Faisal (Do Dooni Char), Sriram Raghavan (Badlapur, Ek Haseena Thi), Shridhar Raghavan (YennaiArindaal) and Kasi Lemmons (Eve’s Bayou, Talk To Me).

 

Vasan Bala’s “Side Hero” selected for Sundance Screenwriters Lab

Posted: May 9, 2014 by moifightclub in cinema, Indie, News, Screenwriting
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VBSundance Institute has announced the 13 projects which have been selected for Screenwriters and Directors Lab. Set at the Sundance Resort in Utah, the Directors Lab will run from May 26 to June 19 and the Screenwriters’ Lab will run from June 21-26. Vasan Bala’s new script Side Hero has been selected for the Screenwriters Lab.

Here’s more on the film (from the official statement) –

Vasan Bala (writer/director) / Side Hero (India): A teenager who lives by the codes of his beloved kung fu movies must find his own way when he discovers that he may never get to be the hero.

Vasan Bala was born and raised in Mumbai. Both his father and grandfather were film buffs whose love of film inspired his own. Bala has collaborated in various capacities with filmmakers including Anurag Kashyap, Michael Winterbottom, and Danis Tanvoic. His debut feature as a writer/director, Peddlers, screened in Critics Week at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.

The Directors Lab fellows are: Gabriela Amaral Almeida, The Father’s Shadow (Brazil); Jordana Spiro and Angelica Nwandu, Night Comes On (U.S.A.); Sofia Exarchou, Park (Greece); Geremy Jasper, Patti Cake$ (U.S.A.); Oorlagh George, Stranger with a Camera (U.S.A. / Northern Ireland): Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Swiss Army Man (U.S.A.); Johnny Ma, Ten Thousand Happiness (U.S.A. / China / Canada); Jeremiah Zagar and Daniel Kitrosser, We the Animals (U.S.A.).

The Screenwriter Lab fellows are: Ana Lily Amirpour, The Bad Batch (U.S.A.); Karrie Crouse and Will Joines, Dust (U.S.A.); Fernando Frias, I’m Already Not Here (U.S.A. / Mexico); Hong Khaou, Monsoon (Vietnam / UK); and Vasan Bala,  Side Hero(India).

Creative Advisors include Robert Redford, Michael Arndt, Miguel Arteta, John August, Walter Bernstein, Kathryn Bigelow, Scott Z. Burns, Joan Darling, Deena Goldstone, Keith Gordon, Catherine Hardwicke, Ed Harris, Azazel Jacobs, Brian Kates, Christine Lahti, Kasi Lemmons, Josh Marston, Pamela Martin, Walter Mosley, Howard Rodman, Ira Sachs, Marjane Satrapi, Susan Shilliday, Peter Sollett, Dana Stevens, Wesley Strick, Chris Terrio, Joan Tewkesbury, Athina Tsangari, Tyger Williams, and Erin Cressida Wilson.

The Oscar-nominated Beasts Of The Southern Wild was a 2011 Screenwriters Lab participant. January 2012 Screenwriters Lab alumni Ryan Coogler saw his Fruitvale Station, which debuted at the 2013 Festival, attract awards and acclaim. (via Deadline)

Eight scripts selected for Mumbai Mantra I Sundance Screenwriters Lab – all the details

Posted: March 19, 2014 by moifightclub in cinema, News, Screenwriting, Story / Plot / Synopsis
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Mumbai Mantra Sundance Institute Screewriters LabMumbai Mantra, the media and entertainment division of the Mahindra Group, in collaboration with Sundance Institute, has selected eight Indian Screenwriters and their feature film projects for the third annual Mumbai Mantra | Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab, to be held from March 16-21 at the Club Mahindra Resort in Tungi.

– This year’s Screenwriting Fellows, selected from submissions from India and the Indian diaspora around the world, are: Navneet Behal (Experiments with Truth); Ashvin Kumar (Noor); Bornila Chatterjee (Nuclear Hearts); Gaurav Madan (Shaktipur Crude); Deepanjali B Sarkar (Svadharma); Dylan Mohan Gray (The Last Day of Winter); Sanjay Talreja (The River Murder); and Neeraj Ghaywan and Varun Grover (Ud Jayega / Fly Away Solo).

– Creative Advisors include: Naomi Foner (Running on Empty, The Bee Season), Michael Handelman (The Ex, Night At The Museum), Dante Harper (The Delicate Art of the Rifle), James V Hart (Contact, August Rush, Dracula, Tuck Everlasting), Malia Scotch Marmo (Hook, Madeline), Anjum Rajabali (The Legend of Bhagat Singh, Raajneeti), Elena Soarez (City of Men, House of Sand), Rose Troche (Go Fish, The Safety of Objects) and Sooni Taraporevala (Salaam Bombay!, Mississippi Masala, The Namesake).

– Mumbai Mantra received over 500 applications for the Lab from Indian screenwriters across the globe. After a rigorous deliberation and consultation with Sundance Institute, the final eight projects were chosen.

– The Selection Advisory Committee included Advaita Kala, Anjum Rajabali, Deven Khote, K. Hariharan, Kanika Luthra, Mahesh Samat, Meenakshi Shedde, Neeru Nanda, Prakash Kovelamudi, Ram Madhvani, Ravina Kohli, Uma Da Cunha and Vikramaditya Motwane.

PROJECTS AND SCREENWRITERS SELECTED

EXPERIMENTS WITH TRUTH

LOGLINE: Following three children over the course of eighteen years, Experiments With Truth explores a recent history of state-sponsored violence.

Writer/director: Navneet Behal

While pursuing his Masters in Film at the New York Institute of Technology, Navneet Behal started work in New York as a camera operator. Upon his return to India, Navneet worked as Associate Director on a Hindi feature film, produced by Wild Elephant Motion Pictures. He is currently directing his first feature film, produced by M.A.S Universal Fin & Intra, due for release in 2015.

NOOR

LOGLINE: A six year-old girl sets out to find her missing father and stumbles upon mass graves, implicating the Indian army and putting herself in danger.

Writer/director: Ashvin Kumar

Ashvin Kumar is the youngest Indian filmmaker to be nominated for an Academy Award, for Little Terrorist, which played at 130 film festivals, winning 25 awards, including Honourable Mention at BAFTA/LA and a nomination by the European Film Academy. In 2012, his documentary Inshallah Football was awarded the National Award, India’s highest honor for cinema. Its sequel Inshallah, Kashmir won the National Award for best investigative film in 2013. His other work includes Dazed in Doon and The Forest.

NUCLEAR HEARTS

LOGLINE: A Bengali lounge singer who becomes involved with two French expats living in Calcutta, India.

Writer/director: Bornila Chatterjee

Bornila Chatterjee graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with a BFA in Film and TV in 2008. Her debut feature film, Let’s Be Out, The Sun Is Shining, premiered at the 2012 New York Indian Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award and received a Best Actress nomination for lead Lipica Shah. Bornila was previously Managing Director of Stone Street Studios, a screen acting school and advanced conservatory in the Department of Drama at Tisch. Bornila is a curator and essayist for Vyer Films, a Brooklyn-based film streaming service, and a writer for Overdose Art Pvt. Ltd, a progressive art platform and production company in Calcutta, India.

SHAKTIPUR CRUDE

LOGLINE: When oil is discovered, a small village at Indo-China border suddenly becomes the most important place in the country and changes the lives of its people forever.

Writer/director: Gaurav Madan

Gaurav Madan grew up in a small town in Haryana. He received his Masters in Communications from University of Pune. He has won several awards for his commercial work, and owns an advertising production company based in Mumbai. His first screenplay was 3 nights 4 days, which was completed in 2009.

SVADHARMA

LOGLINE: The true story of an army officer who is betrayed by his government and sentenced to eight years of solitary confinement.

Writer/director: Deepanjali B Sarkar

Deepanjali B Sarkar is a digital media content specialist with experience ranging from internet and telecom content to corporate communications. She has worked with ITC, Indiatimes.com and Mobifusion. An alumnus of Presidency College Kolkata and Jadavpur University, she blogs regularly at http://filmandbookclub.blogspot.com/.

THE LAST DAY OF WINTER

LOGLINE: Condemned by a thuggish political regime as the son of a traitor, a 15-year-old boy faces a torturous set of choices as he reluctantly leaves childhood behind.

Writer/director: Dylan Mohan Gray

Dylan Mohan Gray is an award-winning producer, writer and director. His documentary Fire in the Blood was presented at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and set a record for the longest theatrical run by a non-fiction feature film in Indian history. Fire in the Blood has won major awards in Washington, Hamburg and Vancouver and also received the award for Best Debut Film at the 2014 Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF). Trained as a historian, Dylan founded the production company Sparkwater India in 2005 and has worked in various capacities on feature films, including collaborations with directors Fatih Akin, Peter Greenaway, Paul Greengrass, Deepa Mehta and Mira Nair.

THE RIVER MURDER

LOGLINE: A small town cop investigates whether a body found floating on the river is one of four missing local men.

Writer/director: Sanjay Talreja

Sanjay Talreja is an award-winning writer, director and editor of narrative features and documentaries, whose work has appeared on television and at film festivals. He most recently wrote and directed the feature film Surkhaab, which won Best Director, Foreign Language Feature at the 2013 London International Film Festival. Sanjay also teaches at various colleges and universities in Canada, the US and India. He has a MFA in Film.

UD JAYEGA (FLY AWAY SOLO)

LOGLINE: Four lives intersect along the Ganges river, each yearning to escape the constrictions of a small town.

Writers-director: Neeraj Ghaywan / Varun Grover (co-writer)

Neeraj Ghaywan worked with Anurag Kashyap on the veteran director’s two-part opus Gangs of Wasseypur and as second unit director on Ugly. His short films as writer-director include Shor and The Epiphany. Shor won the grand jury prize at three International film festivals.

Varun Grover grew up in Dehradun and Lucknow. He has written stand-up comedy for various TV shows and currently performs stand-up comedy at the biggest venues in India, writes fiction and graphic series for children in Chakmak (published from Bhopal, by Eklavya), and has written lyrics for Anurag Kashyap’s Gangs of Wasseypur (2012), Vasan Bala’s Peddlers (2012), Rajat Kapoor’s Aankhon Dekhi (2013), and Fahad Mustafa/Deepti Kakkar’s Katiyabaaz (2013).

Eight scripts selected for Mahindra-Sundance Screenwriters Lab – all the details

Posted: March 11, 2013 by moifightclub in cinema, News, Screenwriting, Scripts, Story / Plot / Synopsis, writing
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screenwriting-215x300Mumbai Mantra, the media and entertainment division of the Mahindra Group, in collaboration with Sundance Institute, has selected eight Indian Screenwriters and their feature film projects for the second annual Mumbai Mantra | Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab scheduled from March 10-15.

– This year’s Screenwriting Fellows are: Sarthak Dasgupta (The Music Teacher); Pratim D. Gupta (Ink); Nitin Kakkar (Black Freedom); Abhijit Mazumdar (Delirium); Terrie Samundra (Betamax); Renuka Shahane (Tribhanga); Kavanjit Singh (Television); and Neha Sinha (Forgiven).

– Creative Advisors include: Bill Wheeler (The Reluctant Fundamentalist, The Hoax), Joshua Marston (Maria Full of Grace), Asif Kapadia (The Warrior, Senna), Habib Faisal (Do Dooni Chaar, Ishaqzaade – Born to Hate… Destined to Love), Sabrina Dhawan (Monsoon Wedding), Anjum Rajabali (Rajneeti, Aaraakshan), Marti Noxon (Mad Men, Glee), Carlos Cuaron (Y Tu Mama Tambien, Rudo Y Cursi), and Malia Scotch-Marmo (Hook, Once Around).

– Mumbai Mantra received over 500 applications for the Lab from Indian screenwriters across the globe. After intense debate and deliberation and consultation with the Sundance Institute, the final 8 projects were decided.

– The Selection Advisory Committee included Dev Benegal, Ira Bhaskar, Pubali Chaudhuri, Uma Da Cunha, Rashmi Doraiswamy, Habib Faisal, K. Hariharan, Deven Khote, Prakash Kovelamudi, Ram Madhvani, Neeru Nanda, Sriram Raghavan, Anjum Rajabali, Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury, Mahesh Samat, Meenakshi Shedde, and Anahita Uberoi.

PROJECTS AND SCREENWRITERS SELECTED

The Music Teacher / India

LOGLINE
The life of a small town music teacher takes a sharp turn when one of his ex-students, now estranged, a big celebrity in the far-away city today, is slated to visit the town after many years. The teacher, now lovelorn, prepares to meet her not knowing if she still bears the same feelings about him as she did those many years back.

Writer/director: Sarthak Dasgupta
With a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, a Master’s degree in Business Management, and five years in the corporate world of Mumbai, Sarthak Dasgupta realized life needed a different definition than the one he was living. Sarthak left his cushy job and set out to become a filmmaker. His debut feature The Great Indian Butterfly has screened at various international film festivals.

Ink / India
LOGLINE
A struggling journalist chances upon a scandalous story which has the potential to rock the world of showbiz.

Writer/director: Pratim D. Gupta
Pratim D. Gupta has been the resident film critic for The Telegraph newspaper in Kolkata, the largest selling English daily in east India, for eight years. His screenplay The Deaths of Ray was selected from India for the Binger Script Lab at the 2009 Locarno International Film Festival. Paanch Adhyay (Afterglow) was Pratim’s first feature film as writer-director.The 2012 romantic drama was selected as the Centrepiece Premiere at the South Asian International Film Festival in New York and was picked as the New Voice in Indian Cinema at the Mumbai International Film Festival. It also won the Best Film Award at Kalakar Awards, one of the oldest and most prestigious award ceremonies in India.

Black Freedom / India
LOGLINE
Black Freedom is a collection of five short stories woven in one film. It is dedicated to the memory of Saadat Hasan Manto. It’s about his dream of a sub-continent where people will still live as people, irrespective of religion, caste or color, where hatred shall stand abolished, where religion shall only ennoble those who follow it, not divide them into warring tribes. Sixty-five years after independence, Manto’s dream remains a dream…
The 5 short stories of Manto  that the film is  inspired from are Toba Tek Singh, Khol Do, Tetwaal Ka Kutta, Sharifan and The  Last Salute.

Writer-director: Nitin Kakkar
After gaining experience as an assistant director for various Hindi movies, Nitin Kakkar made his directorial debut with the award-winning short film, Black Freedom (2004). Since then, he has worked on a number of television projects including Prayaschit, Jersey No 10, and CID. Nitin’s debut feature film Filmistaan received a Special Jury Mention during its World Premiere at the Busan International Film Festival. Thefilm also won Nitin the Best Debut Director at the International Film Festival of Kerala and Jaipur film Festival

Delirium / India
LOGLINE
A story about six people and their manic missions…six specs of dust crisscross paths, ready to raise a storm in the endless city of Mumbai.

Writer/director: Abhijit Mazumdar
Abhijit Mazumdar is a Direction graduate from Film & Television Institute of India, Pune. He has made a number of short films, documentaries and commercials. His films have received both national and international awards. His latest medium-length film Vanishing Point is an official selection in Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2013, Glasgow Short Film Festival (Competition Section “Adrift”) 2013, International Film Festival of India (Indian Panorama) 2012, International Documentary & Short Film Festival, Kerala (Focus Section) 2012.

Betamax / India-US
LOGLINE
With the release of the first home video camcorder, a teenage Sikh boy and a squatter Punk girl become unlikely friends and filmmaking collaborators as London sits on the brink of race riots and a youth uprising in the summer of 1976.

Writer/director: Terrie Samundra
Terrie Samundra grew up between a rural village in India, a small farming town in Missouri, and the California coast. She is the director of the award-winning short films Kunjo and A Short Tale of Xuanand is co-writer of Pooja’s Honor, the first screenplay in The Ballad of Pooja trilogy. She is a Princess Grace Award recipient, a National Geographic All Roads Seed Grant recipient, and is currently the Head Programmer at the 2013 Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles.

Tribhanga / India
LOGLINE
The film Tribhanga is a story of three women, from the same family, of three different generations. The lives of these three women overlap each other’s like concentric circles… each determining the shape of the other… each contributing to the other’s life in a very deep manner… each becoming the other’s strength in key times in their life. Their lives are like ‘Tribhanga’, the Odissi dance pose that is so disjointed, yet so beautiful, magical and mesmerising.

Writer/director: Renuka Shahane
Renuka Shahane has been an actress in Indian theatre, television and film for the past 25 years. Her work in television includes Lifeline, Surabhi, Circus, Imtihaan, Sailaab, Close-up Antakshari, Kora Kaagaz and the celebrity dance competition Jhalak Dikhla Jaa. In her film work, she is best known for the Bollywood blockbuster Hum Aapke Hain Kaun? Her first feature as director was the critically acclaimed Rita for which she won Best director for a Marathi film at the 16th Nokia Star-Screen Awards 2010. She also received the Best Screenplay Award in Marathi Films competitive section of the 8th Pune International Film Festival.

Television / India

LOGLINE
Television is a story about three men – Vijay, who is about to get married and start a new life; Ravi, who wants best for his 3-year old son and must decide between his principals and the ways of world; and Malik, who is now retired and wants to live a peaceful life.
Unforeseen circumstances have put these three men at crossroads. They must decide what path to choose.

Writer/director: Kavanjit Singh
Kavanjit Singh is a screenwriter and director from Pune, India. Kavan started his film career at Whistling Woods, graduating in Film Direction. A former Infosys Project Manager with an undergraduate degree in electronics engineering, Kavan is pursuing his passion for cinema.
His short film Jagjeet has won nine Best Short Film Awards across the world.

Forgiven / India

LOGLINE
Amidst the socio political unrest of 1987 in Kerala, a rebellious daughter from an upper caste family and her impressionable young niece set into motion a series of events that lead to betrayal and a dramatic death. 16 years on, with the patriarch on his deathbed, the disintegrated family is forced to come together, re-visit their past and find forgiveness.

Writer-director: Neha Sinha
After studying Philosophy at Lady Shri Ram College and film at the National Institute of Design, Neha Sinha has worked as a documentary filmmaker and as art director at the advertising firm JWT. She has also been a creative assistant to adman Ram Madhvani on various commercials, including the Cannes Lions 2007-winning ‘Palace’ for Happydent White, and assisted Abhinay Deo on Aamir Khan Production’s acclaimed film Delhi Belly. Currently, she works with Siddharth Basu in Big Synergy where she develops content and fiction based TV shows. Forgiven is her first original screenplay.

 (via official press release)

Call for Entries – Mumbai Mantra I Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab 2013

Posted: April 5, 2012 by moifightclub in cinema, News, Screenwriting, Workshop, writing
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WHAT:  Following the template of the world renowned Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab, that is held at Park City, USA, the Indian Screenwriters Lab is a five-day writer’s workshop that gives independent screenwriters the opportunity to work intensively on their feature film screenplays with the support of established screenwriters. Mumbai Mantra has collaborated with the Sundance Institute and established India’s annual Mumbai Mantra | Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab.

Project Selection :

—> 6-8 projects shall be selected for the Screenwriters Lab. All Indian nationals as well as Indians living overseas, people of Indian origin and mixed Indian parentage are eligible to apply.

– Only those who are working on their first or second feature film project shall be eligible. However, they may have worked on documentaries, shorts, advertising films in the past

– The screenplay can be for a film in any Indian language including English. However, the application must be in

– English, as it is the medium of communication at the Lab.

– Incase there are two writers working on a a screenplay, or a writer-diretor working together on a project, both would be invited to the Lab if selected.

HOW : All you need is 1. A synopsis 2. First five pages of your screenplay 3. An artistic statement 4. A cover letter for the first round.

ADDRESS :   You have to send your submission via post. Materials will NOT be accepted electronically.
Mumbai Mantra | Sundance Institute
Screenwriters Lab Application March 2013
Mumbai Mantra Media Ltd.,
Mahindra Towers, 5th Floor, Worli, Mumbai-400018.

DATE : Last Date for Open Submission: June 2, 2012.

– Date for submission of Complete Draft of Screenplay (next round) shall be informed later to selected candidates.

CONTACT :  If you have any more queries related to Mumbai Mantra| Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab 2013, you can contact them at labqueries@mumbaimantra.com

– For more info on the lab, selection process and all other details, click here.

Desi boy@Sundance Film Lab

Posted: April 29, 2009 by moifightclub in cinema, News
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Sundance Film lab has announced the names of the 12 particpants who have been selected for the filmmaker and screenwriters lab to be held in june this year.

In the directors list, we spotted a desi name – The Story of Ram/Ritesh Batra (writer/director), U.S.A./India

More details – The Story of Ram/Ritesh Batra (writer/director), U.S.A./India:  A chance encounter over the radio waves leads to an extraordinary friendship between the Prime Minister of India and an ordinary tea vendor, which ends up transforming a nation.

Born and raised in Bombay, India, Ritesh Joginder Batra is based in New York and attends the MBA/MFA dual degree program at the Tisch School of the Arts and Stern School of Business at NYU. In 2006, he was selected for the MAISHA Film Lab, and in 2007 completed the award-winning short film The Morning Ritual. Batra recently worked on a feature screenplay for director Santosh Sivan.

 Some of the films that came out of this lab in the past includes Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Hard Eight, Kimberly Peirce’s Boy’s Don’t Cry, Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream, John Cameron Mitchell’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Peter Sollett’s Raising Victor Vargas, Miranda July’s Me and You and Everyone We Know, Ryan Fleck’s Half Nelson, and most recently Cary Fukunaga’s Sin Nombre and Alex Rivera’s Sleep Dealer.

Slashfilm has published the names of other participants and their film details. Here is the link.