One can also crowd-fund the project and get super perks.

Check it out www.sunrisethefilm.com/crowdfunding

This is a great boost to the project that I have crowd-funding since the last 2 months. We have reached $11, 325 with 98 funders contributing from $10 to $1000. I do have some higher perks but no one has come forward to claim them. We had a someone who queried about a very high sum but she then disappeared.I don’t know what happened. But I keep my fingers crossed and hope we’ll reach our goal and make this film. Have a look Sunrise-Indiegogo Crowdfunding
We had some great press to with Variety.com giving the project a big mention -

“They include “Sunrise,” a planned followup from Partho Sen-Gupta to his apocalyptic debut “Let The Wind Blow,” which screened in Berlin in 2004…”

Film Business Asia too giving me a good mention and running an oversized picture of me LOL . There was also Hollywood Reporter and Dear cinema reporting on it. No Indian press picked up the news. I guess Auteur cinema is not their cup of tea. There are no dancing girls and Stars in these films.

But I was impressed by the selection. It’ll be tough to pick up the €35, 000 top prize. But it will be fun to go to Locarno in August. The last time I was there was in 1997 when I had a film in the ‘Leopards of tomorrow’ short film competition.

Let me introduce you to my new feature film project, Arunoday (Sunrise).

Sunrise, to be shot in Mumbai, stars Adil Hussain (Life of Pi) and Tannishtha Chatterjee (Brick Lane, Hava Aney Dey). It tells the story of Joshi, an embittered Mumbai cop who has been searching for his missing daughter for ten years since she disappeared one day after school. Joshi’s quest is used to reveal the horror of child trafficking and exploitation in India, a taboo subject which nonetheless affects a huge number of the children in the world’s most populous democracy, a country where lives are often cheap.

Sunrise is to be shot using the new revolutionary technology that is taking the independent movie industry by storm. We will be using HDSLRs like the LUMIX GH1 (Tester 13) & the Nikon D7000. Using these small cameras, we will be able to shoot guerrilla style. Cinematographer, Jean-Marc Ferriere has extensive experience of working under difficult circumstances during my first film that was also shot in Mumbai.

Most exciting of all, Sunrise is going to be funded in a completely new way, and here is where you fit in. I am crowd funding the film on the crowd funding website Indiegogo.com.

Indiegogo provides a platform for individual artists to raise money by tapping into a network of supporters and beyond. Since its inception it has helped to raise millions of dollars for over 15,000 campaigns, across 159 countries.

You can play a part in making this film, every step of the way from pre-production to the big screen, by contributing as little as $10. Every contribution receives a perk, with top funders becoming executive producers of the film, seeing their name in the film’s opening credits and accompanying me to international festivals such as Cannes, Berlin or Venice.

I have 120 days to raise the money to shoot the film. Every bit of help counts. If you are as passionate about independent cinema as I know you are, please fund me and spread the word to your friends and contacts.

Visit the page now by clicking on the widget above, watch the teaser for the film and contribute what you can.

Hava Aney Dey (Let the Wind Blow) 93′ Hindi with Eng stl is now available online VOD portal http://www.pixelwala.org/

Check it out!

Moving Politics – Cinemas from India

On the occasion of the exhibition, “Being Singular Plural: Moving Images from India” at the Deutsche Guggenheim, the the Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art, Berlin will present the film and discussion series, “Moving Politics – Cinemas from India”, curated by Dorothee Wenner and Nicole Wolf. Three program blocks with a selection of recent feature and documentary films as well as several classics of Indian film history will give an impression of the diversity with which (film) policies are made in India. At issue are the visual vocabularies of power, the subtle forms with which traditional conditions are on the one hand reinforced and on the other called in question in cinema. Not only ostensibly political films unfold a large scope in this respect. At least from a Western point of view, politics in Indian mainstream cinema at times appears in a quite exotic guise. Independent feature film and documentaries also reflect their time of origin, the production conditions and habits of reception, and come up with peculiar forms of politics and cinematography.

The first program block (June 27 to 30)—Action/Bewegungen —questions how a sense of belonging is negotiated. How do political collectives become established beyond the state and political parties? Are they a response to draconic interventions into civil rights or a part of them? The state of emergency under Indira Gandhi not only contributed to the urgency of the emerging student and workers movements, and a bit later a varied women’s liberation movement, it also counted as the dawn of independent political documentary film. At the same time, the capability of filmic-political constellations was continuously revised, newly conceived and translated into the most diverse genres and narrative modes.

At the opening of “Being Singular Plural: Moving Images from India” and in the presence of the artists of the exhibition at the Deutsche Guggenheim—Desire Machine Collective, Shumona Goel, Amar Kanwar, and Kabir Mohanty—we will take up the question posed by Jean Luc Nancy as to “being-in-a-community.” Also present are the filmmakers Paromita Vohra and Partho Sen Gupta, as well as the curator Kaushik Bhaumik.

SUPERMAN OF MALEGAON (Faiza Khan, India 2008, June 27)

KYA HUA IS SHAHAR KO? (Deepa Dhanraj, India 1986, June 27)

UNLIMITED GIRLS (Paromita Vohra, India 2002, June 28)
(Paromita Vohra in a con-versation with Nicole Wolf)

HAZAAROON KHWAISHEIN AISI (Sudhir Mishra, India 2003, June 28)

AJANTRIK (Ritwik Ghatak, India 1958, June 29)
(Kabir Mohanty in a conversation with Dorothee Wenner)

HAVA ANEY DEY( Partho Sen Gupta, India 2003, June 30)
Partho Sen Gupta in a conversation with Dorothee Wenner.

source: Arsenal Kino-Berlin

The Centre for India & Global Business was proud to partner with Screen East and the North Sea Partnership, Blood Orange Media and the Cambridge Film Festival to host an event that explored global knowledge networks in the world of cinema, with a focus on engagement between India’s film industry with global players.

Indian films have always enjoyed a large global audience, but it is only recently that the Indian movie industry has begun to engage the Western film sector and vice versa. Examples of this growing transnational collaboration include India-based Reliance Entertainment’s $1 billion plan to co-develop and co-produce movies with Hollywood heavy hitters – and of course the Oscar winning success of Slumdog Millionaire, produced and directed by British talent. In addition, a host of independent producers and directors from India, US, and Europe are catalysing the growth of these transnational creative networks. Hosted by the Centre for India & Global Business (CIGB) at Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge, the Grand Partner for this event was Screen East and the North Sea Screen Partnership. Other partners included Blood Orange Media and the Cambridge Film Trust. This unique event explored how the Indian film industry is going global (i.e. its trajectory), its various engagement models with Western players, and the resulting opportunities for the international cinema industry.

Global Lens 2008 now in its fifth year, will première at the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art), New York in January, before embarking on year-long tour of over 50 cities across the United States.

“The films selected for Global Lens 2008 are beautiful, powerful stories that represent the best of cinema from around the world-they must be seen and experienced,” says Susan Weeks Coulter, Board Chair of The Global Film Initiative.

Global Lens 2008, now in its fifth year, will première at the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art), New York in January, before embarking on year-long tour of over thirty cities across the United States.