I have been back in Mumbai since two weeks and I caught the retreating tail of the monsoons.
I had the quintessential Mumbai flood experience being stuck in the pouring rain. Most rickshaw-walas had closed shop on this wet and windy night.
My man smiled and told me that he would take me anywhere as long as his machine could. Continue reading ‘MUMBAI STORIES 4 – The Return’
My new feature film project - Arunoday (The Sunrise) has been selected at the 11th Pusan Promotion Plan of the Pusan International Film Festival in South Korea.
I am to go there with my producer Sudhir Mishra from the 3rd to 6th October.
You can read more about this from an article in Dear cinema. ( an interesting Indian website on world cinema).
Thanks Bikas Mishra (the editor of the site) for sending me a cool email and putting up the news on their website.
More about Arunoday on http://sunrisethefilm.com
I see at least one film everyday. It’s often a tall order and I have to plan in advance to have a supply of good films on hand. I am a member of two video rental shops, a big commercial one and one small art-house place. I also rent from the internet rental house which sends me 2 DVDs by the post, according to my wish list. I watch them and post them back to them and they send me two new ones. I also go to the cinemas as and when there are interesting films shown there. (rare) Continue reading ‘Soi Cowboy’
People often ask me what I have been up to these days… I tell them well I am dying to go on holiday to Italy with A. They look at me questioningly and say ‘ Holiday? What from what?’
Well, from work you shit heads.
Two producers have two full-length feature scripts and budgets, shooting schedules etc and the third is in development. Scripts are born every morning while you read the newspapers on the throne.
‘So what are you doing now? ‘
Hmm!
(cut to) Continue reading ‘Waiting for Godot’
Wong- Kar wai must have some have been born with a silver view finder in his mouth or else how can he make such films and get away with it. When the west complains that Indian films are too emotional and too boo hoo hoo. My Bullberry err My blueberry nights takes the cake!
I guess that’s because he is not Indian?
Have been busy writing…
Have a deadline and have to finish this treatment. More soon…
Check out this animation film:
MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.
On Karl Marx str in Berlin!
I was surprised the other day when I came upon a headline in the New Indian Express (Chennai edition dated Saturday May 17 2008 11:48 IST) which said ‘Cannes honour for Billa’.
It said “A year after Veyil, the Tamil movie directed by Vasantha Balan, was officially nominated to the Cannes Film Festival; yet another Tamil movie makes it to the Mecca of movie makers.” (Veyvil was in Cinema du Monde, a special side attraction at the festival last year)
Continue reading ‘STOP PRESS – Indian film in Cannes!’
It’s been almost three months since I have been in Mumbai. I was called in by Sudhir Mishra to edit a 90 minute international version of his new film, Tera Kya Hoga Johnny! It was a very interesting experience to take a film and reconstruct it in a different way. The Indian version is about 130 minutes long and one could not just throw away 40 minutes of the film. So the narration had to change and the story had to be told in a different way. As the film was made up of multiple characters and their stories, I tried to find a situation in the original film which would become the pivotal point of the new narrative structure. Once I had found that, I reworked the different stories from that pivotal point in a non linear narration. It was quite fun. I dismantled the rough cut and made bins for each character and their stories. And as the film wasn’t written or shot like that, there were lots of holes in each story. But it did give us an idea of which story and character had more material than others.
Continue reading ‘MUMBAI STORIES 3 - Last Drink!’
I recently met Manjeet Singh, an author on PFC in Mumbai. We had a long and interesting chat about films and particularly on his feature film project.
As he wants to make to make a short film first and wanted to understand the basic differences between a full length feature and a short length feature, so instead of writing only to him, I thought I should share it with all on PFC.
Short films are where I come from and they have helped me formulate my style in cinema. They have also taught me to tell stories easily and swiftly. Phillipe Seurin in \My first short film ‘Le Cochon’ (see Photo) ( 35mm/12′/French) was selected at the Clermont Ferrand short film festival in 1996 and I also represented France at the Locarno film festival in the ‘Leopards de Demain’ section of the short film competition in the same year. I have made 5 short fiction films in all and they have all been in festivals and some have won awards.
Continue reading ‘Making short films’