This is my delight, thus to wait and watch at the wayside where shadow chases light and the rain comes in the wake of the summer. Messengers, with tidings from unknown skies, greet me and speed along the road. My heart is glad within, and the breath of the passing breeze is sweet. From dawn…
Category: Films
About films: my films, films I’ve seen, films I’ve heard about …
Look ahead with alacrity
A couple of weeks ago, Kaberi and I invited a select audience to watch a private preview of Chitrangada, the third film in our Tagore dance film trilogy, at the place where we stay during the Cannes Film Festival. Even though we showed a work-in-progress version of Chitrangada, the very positive feedback we received was reassuring.
Look back in wonder
A couple of weeks ago, Kaberi and I were celebrating our ninth wedding anniversary. Nine years ago, a lot of things did not exist which we and hundreds of millions of people around the world take for granted today, such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Skype. Combined with the falling cost of taking, editing and storing digital photos and videos, these sharing platforms have transformed the world we live in.
Chandalika & Shyama at the Cinema Novo festival in Bruges
Last week, as part of an article about the Cinema Novo festival in Brugge, this 9-minute interview with us about Tagore and the dance film trilogy was published on Flemish cultural website cobra.be . On Sunday afternoon, Chandalika and Shyama were shown at the festival as part of its Focus on India. The films were invited to the festival thanks to…
Tagore’s dance-dramas on the world stage
We are now close to completing Chitrangada, the third and final feature film in our trilogy of authentic versions of Tagore’s dance-dramas. Thanks to making these films and translating Tagore’s texts for their subtitles, I have now had the opportunity to explore all three dance-dramas intensively and from a western perspective. This has made me realise that they are no less worthy of the international stage than classical western ballet or opera.
A tribute to Steve Jobs
This morning, I woke to the sad news of the premature death of Steve Jobs. He is acknowledged in the end credits of all three films of our Tagore dance film trilogy. This is not because we had any direct contact with him. It is because we simply would not have made the films (or indeed any of our audiovisual and musical output) without the affordable creative tools resulting from his visionary role at Apple.
Getting the Tagore dance film trilogy onto Facebook
Last night, I finally succeeded in making the ‘Tagore dance film trilogy’ Facebook application work! The application allows the films to be viewed from within Facebook in full-screen, high definition for $0.99 per film. This post includes the code which anyone with a film on Dynamo Player could use to embed their film to Facebook.
Shyama & Chandalika now on Dynamo Player
Chandalika had its world première on Sunday evening at the Stratford-upon-Avon Picturehouse, with the help of its manager Greg Eden-Field. Special thanks to Dr Diana Owen, Samantha Young and the rest of the team at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and Anne Hathaway’s Cottage for arranging a memorable Tagore weekend. Chandalika and Shyama, which was premièred…
Tagore dance film trilogy: crowdfunding appeal
In case you don’t know, I’m about to make my second and third feature films back-to-back. Like the first (Shyama), they are ‘dance-dramas’ by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore.
Shyama at the Ourense Film Festival
Although Kaberi and I returned from the Ourense Film Festival, Galicia, Spain almost a month ago, many aspects of the experience have stuck in our minds. This is largely due to the kindness of all the people we met there, especially festival director Enrique Nicanor, his wife Cayetana, his festival team and Thelma Putnam and her dance students at the Escuela de Artes Escénicas y Musicales de Ourense.