film festivities
[updated/edited slightly, in part upon the realization that my spelling seems to be deteriorating at an alarming rate! also, is anyone else having a ridiculous amount of trouble with blogger this week?]
Seattle's 3rd Independent South Asian Film Festival, organized by the brilliant Tasveer, started last night. I attended the first ISAAF, which was great, and am acquainted with a few of the amazing people behind Tasveer, so I promise you it will be good. Tonight they're showing Shonali Bose's film Amu, which I saw here in NY in June and recommend highly--it's the story of an adopted ABCD from California, played by Konkona Sen Sharma, who goes back to India and starts to uncover the histories of her own family and of the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom in Delhi. Bose will be present for a Q&A--she's a compelling speaker and her memories of doing relief work as a student in Delhi in 1984 give additional context and force to the film they inspired.
ISAFF will also screen Man Push Cart and Punching at the Sun, two new feature films set in New York--the first about a Pakistani man who works as a pushcart vendor, the second about a desi teenager in Queens living at the intersection of post-9/11 immigrant life and hiphop culture. In addition, there are documentaries on topics ranging from post-quake reconstruction in Pakistan to desi activism in South Africa, filmmaking workshops, a fine-sounding party at Chop Suey (ah, nostalgia) and appearances by queer Sri Lankan-American performance artist D'Lo. Seattle-based friends & readers, get thee to the Broadway Performance Hall.
Moving from my old stomping grounds to my current ones, some upcoming events in NY:
As part of the ongoing Spinning Wheel Sikh art and film fesival at the Rubin Museum, there will be a screening tomorrow night of the Pakistani film Khamosh Pani/Silent Waters (which, incidentally, I saw back at ISAAF in Seattle in 2004). Also highly recommended--like Amu, the film deals with history, memory, and the lingering impact of communal violence. It's also one of relatively few films I've seen that deal with the subject of Partition in a subtle, but serious manner.
Yesterday and today, the Film Society of Lincoln Center presents Emergence: A Brief Introduction to Palestinian Cinema. Tonight is the harrowing Paradise Now, in case you haven't seen it yet. Alas, I'm a day too late to tell you to see Wedding in Galilee or Chronicle of a Disappearance, but Netflix is your friend in that respect.
Then the New York Film Festival starts on Friday--I'm hoping to see Almodovar's latest, Volver (thariel liked it very much indeed) and The Queen, because Helen Mirren is such a rock star, and also, I've met the real one--a story that I should tell sometime--and it will be amusing to compare.
I am attending several of the screenings at the Soros/Sundance Documentary Film Fund Retrospective at FilmForum next month--this probably deserves a post of its own. The fund has provided support for hundreds of documentaries dealing with human rights and social justice issues; these are some of the highlights.
And finally, if I'm not overseas that week, I'll be looking forward to the Indo-American Arts Council's 6th Annual Film Festival in early November. The premiere of Mira Nair's The Namesake comes with a $100 price tag, so I'll be waiting for a later release, but I would very much like to see the film adaptation of Saadat Hasan Manto's short story Toba Tek Singh, and several of the documentaries in the lineup.
Seattle's 3rd Independent South Asian Film Festival, organized by the brilliant Tasveer, started last night. I attended the first ISAAF, which was great, and am acquainted with a few of the amazing people behind Tasveer, so I promise you it will be good. Tonight they're showing Shonali Bose's film Amu, which I saw here in NY in June and recommend highly--it's the story of an adopted ABCD from California, played by Konkona Sen Sharma, who goes back to India and starts to uncover the histories of her own family and of the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom in Delhi. Bose will be present for a Q&A--she's a compelling speaker and her memories of doing relief work as a student in Delhi in 1984 give additional context and force to the film they inspired.
ISAFF will also screen Man Push Cart and Punching at the Sun, two new feature films set in New York--the first about a Pakistani man who works as a pushcart vendor, the second about a desi teenager in Queens living at the intersection of post-9/11 immigrant life and hiphop culture. In addition, there are documentaries on topics ranging from post-quake reconstruction in Pakistan to desi activism in South Africa, filmmaking workshops, a fine-sounding party at Chop Suey (ah, nostalgia) and appearances by queer Sri Lankan-American performance artist D'Lo. Seattle-based friends & readers, get thee to the Broadway Performance Hall.
Moving from my old stomping grounds to my current ones, some upcoming events in NY:
As part of the ongoing Spinning Wheel Sikh art and film fesival at the Rubin Museum, there will be a screening tomorrow night of the Pakistani film Khamosh Pani/Silent Waters (which, incidentally, I saw back at ISAAF in Seattle in 2004). Also highly recommended--like Amu, the film deals with history, memory, and the lingering impact of communal violence. It's also one of relatively few films I've seen that deal with the subject of Partition in a subtle, but serious manner.
Yesterday and today, the Film Society of Lincoln Center presents Emergence: A Brief Introduction to Palestinian Cinema. Tonight is the harrowing Paradise Now, in case you haven't seen it yet. Alas, I'm a day too late to tell you to see Wedding in Galilee or Chronicle of a Disappearance, but Netflix is your friend in that respect.
Then the New York Film Festival starts on Friday--I'm hoping to see Almodovar's latest, Volver (thariel liked it very much indeed) and The Queen, because Helen Mirren is such a rock star, and also, I've met the real one--a story that I should tell sometime--and it will be amusing to compare.
I am attending several of the screenings at the Soros/Sundance Documentary Film Fund Retrospective at FilmForum next month--this probably deserves a post of its own. The fund has provided support for hundreds of documentaries dealing with human rights and social justice issues; these are some of the highlights.
And finally, if I'm not overseas that week, I'll be looking forward to the Indo-American Arts Council's 6th Annual Film Festival in early November. The premiere of Mira Nair's The Namesake comes with a $100 price tag, so I'll be waiting for a later release, but I would very much like to see the film adaptation of Saadat Hasan Manto's short story Toba Tek Singh, and several of the documentaries in the lineup.
posted by kitabet at 8:34 AM
2 Comments:
...these overachieving pakistani women ;)
Do you know when they might screen movies like this in nyc?
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