Category Archives: Cinema
Coopybook film presented last night at Kale Kendra, Bharat Nivas, Pavilion of India in International Zone film by Hari M Mohanan - Invisible Wings.
Hari started with his cycle journey through Kerlala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu a week ago, and as he is saying that his journey is a tribute to Vijay. Vijay, small tea shop owner, with his wife Mohana is the star of Invisible Wings where he talks about his passion - traveling.
Although the documentary is long about 10 minutes the way that is done (amazing!) tells us another story of deep passion of Hari and his friends who were inspired by the story of a small tea shop owner Vijay ....
You can see a trailer on following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03_dAdqEMlY
And you can reach Hari on: https://www.facebook.com/IWthefilm
On Friday 9th in Auditorium, Bharat Nivas, Aurofilm has presented 5 short films in collaboration with IAWRT (International Association of Women in Radio and Television) and Dept. of Electronic Media and Mass Communication-Pondicherry University.
The showed projections, part of the 2nd Asian Women's Film Festival, were: Capsule by Shreen Soliman (Canada), 1, 2, 3 by Nazli Deniz Guler (Turkey), Yup, It's My Body by Kiki Febriyanti (Indonesia), It's the Same Story by Nina Sabnani and Superman of Malegaon by Faiza Ahmad Khan (India).
Films and Directors in detail:
Capsule by Shreen Soliman, experimental,Canada. A personal journey as well as an urgent inventory of the precious, final moments of her mother's battle with cancer that the director wishes to collect and suspend in time.
1, 2, 3 by Nazli Deniz Guler, fiction, Turkey. Ahmet's adventures of being a man in Turkey start with his circumcision at the age of 5....and continue till the present age.
Yup, It's my body by Kiki Febriyanti, documentary, Indonesia. One issue women
constantly face, is the size of their bodies. Sara and her friends are experiencing it also.
It's the same story by Nina Sabnani, India. Two storytellers argue about their version of a story on Shravan Kumar, as listeners are free to interpret it in their
own ways. The art for the film uses the painted images from the wodden portable shrine called the Kaavad. The film is a collaborative work between traditional Kaavad storytellers and the Kaavad artists from Rajasthan together with the film-maker.
Superman of Malegaon by Faiza Ahmad Khan, India. Malegaon, a small town tucked away near the heart of India geographically, is fraught with communal tension and under severe economic depression. To escape the harsh reality of their world, its people seek refuge in the fantastical world of Cinema. This passion has spurred a group of cinema enthusiasts to make their own films. Quirky, low budget, socially aware and notoriously funny spoofs of Bollywood films. Their ambition has grown and now they are ready to take on Hollywood and Superman and this journey can be followed by the audience.
All Films were in their original version and with English subtitles.
Film Directors Shreen Soliman and Kiki Febriyanti were there for the screenings with the audience.
www.puinquirer.edu.in
www.iawrt.org,
http://pondiuni.academia.edu/Departments/Centre_for_Electronic_Media_and_Mass_Communication
Miya Mahadev a film about friendship, compassion, Human Unity, social responsibility and values is about friendship between a Hindu and a Muslim living in the walled city in Ahmedebad.
The film directed by three Charted Accountancy students; Aayush Patel, Mit Jani & Prateek Gupta is a portrait of two strong characters, who through their friendship, influenced the community. The harmony, mutual respect and love shared between these two friends had become an example for the community, which is made up of people of diverse religions and cultures
. Though a first attempt for these directors they had managed to capture the pathos and the profundity of the friendship. Here Aayush Patel talks about the initial inspiration for the film, the parts played by the three directors, the producers, the hurdles they faced and about the final out come. So if one needs to need more after listening to this interview it is recommended that you watch the film to get its full worth.
http://vimeo.com/24769413
Olivier and Hilde moderated this debate. The participants were B, Basile, Hans and Doudou Diène. The first half of the debate was spent on defining Human Unity whereby every one got to put forth their idea of what they felt Human Unity encompassed. Human Unity they all agreed was a theme that was difficult to pin down. After the round of introductions each participant spoke about what Human Unity was to them.
Doudou Diène quoted two proverbs from his home country Senegal and they went like this: Man is the medicine of Man and In the forest the branches of the trees are fighting while their roots are kissing. He went on to elaborate on these proverbs that all the ills of man can only be cured by man and the tree branches were a metaphor for all the differences in humans while at their root all are equal or the same. This set the tone for the rest of the discussion. He also went on to emphasize that we have to practice human unity on an individual level everyday with absolute commitment to be tolerant and understanding. B shared a story about his interaction with Russian volunteers who came to work at Matrimandir. Due to India's relations with the erstwhile USSR, some volunteers came to Auroville and through his interactions with them; B discovered their humanity and that they were not enemies as he was lead to believe. In the second half of the debate Hans spoke about how while filming his documentary about the Auroville units realized that there was not enough locals involved and hence his footage did not feature enough of the locals. He then had to film the village action program so that there would be local representation in his film. This made him feel that involving local people in Auroville activities would be a way of practicing Human Unity. Olivier confirmed that since his arrival in Auroville he had enjoyed his interactions with the Tamils he learnt a lot from their culture. Later the audience were allowed to pose questions. Though there were not many questions for the panel members, Marco was asked whether Human Unity will be recurring theme in the festival from now onwards to which he replied that it can be a continuing feature. The debate concluded with Marco commenting 'If carrots can practice unity why cant we humans?'
Cyril Dion, a une formation d'art dramatique et de mdecine naturelle (rflexologie plantaire). Aprs une carrire de comdien, il s'est reconverti dans l'humanitaire.
Cet homme engag, dfend inlassablement la plante. En 2010, il a co-produit avec Colibris le film de Coline Serreau "Solutions locales pour un dsordre global". En 2011, il a cr avec Actes Sud la collection "Domaine du Possible" pour laquelle il est conseiller ditorial. Il est par ailleurs le directeur de la rdaction du magazine Kaizen.
Il nous expose ici les raisons de son engagement a l"occaion de sa venue en Inde pour tourner une sequence du film qui s'intitule Demain corealise avec Melanie Laurent
Beside many different types of events we also got a chance to see "cream de la creme" of current Indian cinematography starting with Friday 2nd until Sunday at Sri Aurobidno Auditorium, Bharat Nivas, Pavilion of Indian Culture in International Zone. This year, due to the intensive involvement of film makers in projects we will indulge ourselves only into watching films. Surya shared with us some interesting details on the preparation of the Panorama, and on films, directors and producers. Common to all films is quality, meaning, ..
"The third and final discussion on Live AurovilleRadio from the Auroville Film Festival action station was concluded yesterday. The participants were Uriel, Rakhal, Sagarika, Priyadharshni, Graham and Danbe. And I got to moderated it. While Graham, Uriel, and Rakhal were film making instructors, Danbe, Sagu and Priya were participants in film making workshops. I tried to get a common definition for the topic that all participants including the younger members could understand and be comfortable with.
Though the adults all had high fluted defenitions we finally settled on the idea of film making as having fun as children would have fun in the playground.
Using this as the gist of the discussion, we continued examining how much fun we all had, be it while instructing a film workshop or while participating in the workshop.
The younger members who had made film/s one time or other described and discussed the process and the content of their films.
During the break we got to look at few minutes of footage of the film making process of Danbe's film and also parts of an interview she gave about the whole experience. She also went on to further discuss the process and content of the film live.
Uriel discussed his future plans about writing a book/instruction manual about film making and using open source software such as blender to edit. This book as been funded by Saiier and will be coming out some time early next year.
All in all it was agreed by everyone present that Film making apart from being an another medium of expression, is also a lot of fun....." - By Sasi
The 26th of December, Friday, 2014; had a bunch of people assembled in the auditorium of Bharat Nivas to watch the silent film A Throw of Dice; based on a story from the Mahabharata, set against the backdrop of the palatial settings of a dusty Rajasthan.
The timid yet bold actress blushing away at the sight of her lover, a might royal King, who falls in love with the charm and innocence of the common woman, Sunita. Amidst endless plots and plans to keep King Ranjit and Sunita apart, their fragile love still never ceases to blossom. With a simplistically cliched plot line, predictable scenes and raw performances by the humble actors, the naive charm of it leaves you amused and entranced.
And what better an ambience than the live accompaniment of artists such as Dr. Kim Cunio and Heather Lee who composed the background score for the film, perfectly emulating the clicks of the camel hooves, the Ghunghrus on the dancers' feet, the eerie and despair, and the fleeting moments of joy and romance.
The silent film was brought alive through their eclectic compositions; and reminded one of the Charlie Chaplin days when such orchestraic accompaniments were carried out for silent movies.
A hearty applause for Dr. Kim Cunio, Heather Lee, Susanna, Gerard and Ruben who made this event possible.
The recording includes the entire sound play for the movie.
Like all good things have to come to an end, so did the Auroville Film Festival 11. After 5 days, 121 films 3 live debates, innumerable conversations and lots of friendships struck up over films, it all came to an end. The evening was dedicated to vote of thanks, awards ceremony, closing discussion with the judges and party. The indomitable duo of Paul & Wazo opened the proceedings; once they had warmed the crowds they were joined by Marco. He then went on to thank all the people involved in bringing this Film Festival to fruition.
The awards ceremony then began in earnest. There were awards in about as many categories as you would find at the Academy awards-so it seemed. Once the long list of awardees were presented with ceramic prizes, that were designed and created in Auroville, we finally came the grand prize; the revolving Mong-Rat prize for the best film selected by the audience and surprise! Surprise! It went to a local. And if you are interested to know the names of all the winners, then you will just have to listen to the whole function on AurovilleRadio.
Later the judges for the human unity category were called up on stage and there followed a lively discussion, agreements, disagreements, cajoling and coaxing about why each film was chosen. Following which the crowd thanked Marco for the festival. The night concluded with the remaining folks grooving to the tunes of DJ Jesse. Well, the film buffs will need to cold turkey for two years as the next Auroville film festival is just over the horizon in 2013. See you all then.
The second instalment of the live radio debates from the Auroville Film Festival action station took place Saturday evening. The topic 'I am, You are, We are Film makers' was chosen to encourage film makers from different backgrounds to get together and discuss the film making process and all things connected with film. There were seven participants and the debate was moderated by Chloe'. This is what the participants had to say: Indrani - "This is the first time I am trying film making, thanks to the AVFF - Education Outreach Program.
None of the women in the workshop had ever touched a video camera before. It was a new and exciting experience foe all of us. I learned a lot and was very happy to see my film when completed." "Yes, there is magic in films for example in Tamil films when a poor man can become a rich man during the course of one song than it is like magic..." Antonio & Bhavyo - "We enjoy making films, we have lots of ideas for films. Usually we get an idea and we want to try it out and we experiment. We have three films showing in this festival one is about a Ghost in Bhavyo's house, in the film he goes looking for it and finds it. In Time Stretch we slowed everything down to see how things looked in slow motion. We liked the effect the end result had. And Parkoueira was about mixing Parkour and Capoueira together to form a new movement based language..." Mario -" My film Timeless has no specific meaning, it is images set to music. I have made other film before. But this is first one I am showing in the festival. I do not concentrate on the aesthetics I put emphasis on the content, if there is beauty in my films it is more incidental..." Loretta - "I do a lot work with Mother's message in flowers and while doing this work a lot of people suggested that I should make a film. So I eventually relented and took a shot at it and the end result is Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Finding the Psychic Being." Ireno - "I am Photographer and never made a film before . In my film World Wide Web Lullaby, I was attempting to show that one could make a film without using a camera. I used found images and appropriated images from the net and animated these images to music. There was a lot of work involved and it took many hours to complete the film. I am very happy with the end result and it was well received by the audience. In film making I try to make an effort to concentrate on aesthetics as well as content......." Kumar - " I make films with a social message, especially a for the Tamil community. My film Shanti is about education and work, where a young girl is taken out of school and sent to work by her mother but her fellow students come to her aid and work at getting her to back to school. I also had a film in the previous film festival called ......" The discussion was kept lively by Chloe' and by the end of it we got and insight into the film making practices of these seasoned and budding film makers.
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