The Alter and The Ocean

Tom Alter, well known actor, writer and sports journalist, is in NID for the next few days.He acts in 'Ocean of an Old Man',an extraordinary film, made in the aftermath of the 2004 Tsunami devastations that took and altered lives forever.
Tom Alters will also perform a play+ give a Baatein session over the next few days.


Stills from the film:








Tom Alter is the son of American missionaries, and has lived in India all his life.
He is best recalled for acting in the long running TV Serial 'Junoon', in Satyajit Ray's Shatranj Ke Khiladi, Sardar(1993),and the Hollywood film 'One night with the King'.
Alters has also acted in a long list of Hindi films for the past two decades.
In theatre, he has contributed to William Dalrymple's 'City of Djinns' (2007) with Zohra Sehgal, and 'Maulana', based on the life of Maulana Azad.
He was recently awarded the Padmashree.

Ocean of an Old Man (2008)
100 Min
Directed by Rajesh Shera
Lead Actor: Tom Alters
A schoolteachers' life consists of meeting his young, angel-like students who travel every day to school from neighbouring islands.
His reality is wiped away, one day, when the Ocean takes away his loved ones. When the Government evacuates the islanders, he chooses to stay back in an old Japanese bunker on the devastated island.
This is his story.

Tuesday
24th February
6 15 Audi

He's also going to enact a play in the Amphi, and give a Baatein session through the duration of his stay.Contact KHEL and Baatein for those details.

Screening of tuesdays film 'Good morning Babylon',has hence been cancelled in place of OCEAN.

SUDDHA, jan 23

We had invited today's guest at the suggestion of one of the students, and
luckily for us, he said he'd come!

Today we will be having with us Mr.P.N.Ramachandra. He is an FTII graduate
and is presently based in Mumbai making documentaries, short films and TV
shows under the banner of Sonk Films.  SUDDHA is his first feature length
film. It was adjudged Best Indian Film at the Osian Cinefan Festival of
Asian Films in New Delhi 2006


SUDDHA
(The Cleansing Rites)
105 mins
digital format, Language: TULU

The film is about a family in a remote village in South India which
realizes that it is in its last leg of feudal existence when it cannot
perform a last rites in a scale in which it was once used to.

The film depicts the impact the Land Ceiling Act, ushered a few decades
back in the country, has had on its social structure. It is the story of
modern India – of changing caste equations and a realisation of the
reality among the land owning class, albeit a bit late. Though the film
is set in a remote village near Mangalore, it could well have happened
in any other village elsewhere in India.





Here are a few links that ought to be checked out before watching the film

THE WEBSITE: www.suddhathecleansingrites.blogspot.com
HIS BLOG:    www.ramachandrapn.blogspot.com

6.15pm!!

OMDARBADAR, jan 9

OM DARBADAR
Kamal Swaroop
101 mins

Om-Dar-Ba-Dar is a fantastical portrait of life in a mythical small town.
The film tells the story of a young boy called Om in the period of his
carefree adolescence and its harsh disillusionments. Om has a rather
strange family. His father quits his government job to dedicate himself to
astrology, and his older sister is dating a good-for-nothing. Om is
involved in science, but is also attracted to magic and religion. Above
all it seems as if his only outstanding skill is his ability to hold his
breath underwater for a long time.

'Om-Dar-Ba-Dar' has been referred to as an anomaly or accident by the few
who have seen it from within the mainstream Indian film history because of
its progressive cinematic nature.

Kamal Swaroop will be in NID on Friday(Jan 11) for Baatein.
AND, Aditya, the actor who plays the lead role in the film, will be introducing the film.
What fun :D

poster by Arpit Bhargava

BISHAR BLUES jan3

BISHAR BLUES
Amitabh Chakraborty
80mins



Bishar Blues travels across the West Bengal countryside on the trail of
the Islamic fakir who walks the path of Marfat. In Islam the Shariat laws
organize the physical world, ethics…The Marfat is the hidden knowledge,
the goal is to free oneself from the physical, the ascetic way.

The fakirs all agree on Allah, Mohammed, the Prophet and the Koran. But
then they go on to freely interpret Allah, Mohammed and the Koran, also
the relationship between these three, creating a multi-textured mythology
of Islam without the official sanction of any centralized authority. Every
individual fakir gives his own twist to the tale. The variations are
endless yielding to the notion that Man himself is the ultimate mythology.
Knowing oneself is knowing god.

"Today as I look around at my global environment, I feel suffocated  by
the images of Islam that bombard me – the 9/11 New York Twin Tower
bombings, the Afganisthan bombings, the Iraq bombings, the 7/7 London
bombings, the bombings in Mumbai, Osama Bin Laden, undemocratic rigid
theologians….. Where was the human individual who practiced simple faith?

I bumped into the Bengali fakir in his own land and he made me think.

In the fakirs I recognized the human individual as the supreme arbitrator
of his own destiny. The system bends and veers along. Separate individuals
create numerous variables and keep the system open ended. The fakirs keep
Islam open ended. I threw in my lot with them. I made my film."

-Amitabh Chakraborty


About the director:

Amitabh Chakraborty has a Post Graduate Diploma in Film Editing from
FTII, Pune.

\ In 1990  he produced and directed a feature film ‘KAAL ABHIRATI’ it was
awarded the Special Jury Award at the National Film Festival, New
Dehli.
\ In 1995 he directed a video documentary four part series on the folk art
forms of West Bengal . 
\ In 1996 he directed the documentary ‘KITSCH-MITSCH’ on the painter Hiran Mitra
which was screened at MIFF.
\ In 2006 he directed and Produced ‘BISHAR BLUES’ a feature length
documentary on the Islamic Fakirs of Bengal, India.
\ 2007 Work in Progress – Directing and coproducing ‘COSMIC SEX –A DIALOGUE
WITH GANDHI’ a documentary feature for Steps India International.

poster- Shreyas R Krishnan(www.sayerhs.deviantart.com)

VAIBHAV'S WORLD! Baatein with Vaibhav Kumaresh at 5 pm

(Click to embiggen!)

"BOYZ!  (and girlz...)  Aaz zaade-paanch baje dekhiye...  BAATEIN with VAIBHAV JI!"  -Simpoo Sir

_______________________________________________________________________

Vaibhav Kumaresh, the mad genius who created Simpoo, Amaron, Birthday
Bhoot, Chulbuli and many other wacky cartoons (including the cartoon
Ishaan in Taare Zameen Par) is currently in NID taking his annual
Claymation workshop.

NID Film Club would like to invite you to a Baatein session with Vaibhav
in the auditorium at 5 pm today (before the Thursday film screening).

Don't miss it!

(Poster by Rohit Iyer - http://rohitiyer.blogspot.com)

Baatein with Junuka

"Right now I have in front of me a large paper full of words, arrows, circles and more than everything, a list of vast issues regarding people, their livelihood,environment, and so many loopholes in the processes…"

Beginning with her diploma project, Junuka has worked with small communities inremote areas. Starting from the Dungra Bheels in Southern Gujarat and most recentlywith the Nicobarese community in the Nicobar Islands where she spent almost twoyears. Her work is not only inclusive of film-making , but also writing, painting,photography and the beginnings of cultural studies.

Junuka Deshpande joined NID in 2000. She graduated in 2005 from the Undergraduation programme, specialising in Film and Video Communication. She is cuurently based inPune.

Her blog can be viewed at http://www.twoinsomnias.blogspot.com/

Thanks akhila, for the louwely poster and the writeup. :D

mail us at filmclub@nid.edu