US documentary extols superiority of Indian education system
4 Jan 2009, 1400 hrs IST, IANS


BANGALORE: Even as a large number of Indians spend millions of rupees
every year to pursue higher education in the United States, India's
school education has inspired a documentary by an American businessman
who believes it is superior to that of his country.

"The film clearly indicates that Indian and Chinese education systems
are better than American. In the highly competitive 21st century,
India and China are providing better education to their children than
the US," contends Robert A. Compton, a venture capitalist, who is
executive producer of the documentary.

Titled "Two Million Minutes", the 187-minute documentary was screened
in Bangalore recently, the first screening in India. The documentary
has been screened over 50 times in the US, including at Harvard Law
School, in the last one year and has received a mixed reaction.

The documentary features six high school students - two each from
India, China and the US - talking about the kind of education systems
available in their countries.

"Regardless of nationality, as soon as a student completes the eighth
grade, they have approximately four years or two million minutes to
prepare for college and ultimately a career. Thus, high school is a
crucial period in shaping the life of a student," Compton told the
media at the screening here.

The film examines through these students the kind of education they
are getting in their respective countries and how it will further
shape the economy of their country in the 21st century, he added.

"The film which we have been screening in the US has generated a
public debate across America. The film clearly shows that higher
education system in India and China is well ahead of the US in
preparing highly competitive and skilled people, compared to the US,"
Compton said.

Bangalore was chosen for the India launch of the DVD as the
documentary features two students from the city - Rohit Sridharan and
Apoorva Uppala from St. Paul's English School.

The two American students are Neil Ahrendt and Brittany Brechbuhl from
Carmel High School, Indianapolis, and the Chinese students are Jin
Ruizhang and Hu Xiaoyuan from the Shanghai Nanyang Model High School,
Shanghai.

The documentary chronicles their daily lives, with the students giving
an account of how they prioritise their time, what they learn and how
well prepared they are to take advantage of the opportunities ahead.

"Whereas in India and China, the students are fully focussed on their
academics and get little time to pursue their other dreams, in America
the students get a chance to take it easy, when it comes to
competition," said Compton.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ET_Cetera/US_documentary_extols_superiority_\
of_Indian_education_system/articleshow/3933660.cms
--
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Blog: http://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com
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M: +91-9822122436 P: +91-832-2409490

Award-winning documentary maker's next film is on 26/11
4 Jan 2009, 0348 hrs IST, Bosco Dominique, TNN

PUDUCHERRY: Award-winning documentary producer, Martin Smith, well
known for his investigative documentaries on the emergence of Osama
bin Laden, the Al Qaeda network and the September 11 attack on the
United States, has now turned to India to piece together the Mumbai
terror attack for a documentary.

With over 25 years of experience in producing for Frontline, a
television programme on the American Public Television network, Smith
is presently in India on a brief visit to do the spade work for his
Mumbai project and would again visit India and Pakistan for a more
detailed `investigation' on the Mumbai strike.

"I have never covered Kashmir issue and after Mumbai terror attack, I
felt it is time to come out with a documentary outlining the
relationship between India and Pakistan. It is also an attempt to
understand the internal politics in Pakistan," Martin told The Times
of India.

Heading an independent production company presently, called Rain
Media,' Smith has covered revolutions in central America, the fall of
communalism in Russia, the rise of Al Qaeda and the war in Iraq. His
team is presently engaged in investigating the housing crisis and the
economic meltdown in the U.S. and would soon visit the sub continent
soon for the Mumbai terror documentary.

"I have worked in the western border of Pakistan and eastern
Afghanistan investigating the emergence of Osama bin Laden and Al
Qaeda network and gathering information on the Taliban gaining
strength in tribal parts of Afghanistan and their deals with various
groups in Pakistan with the help of proxy agencies and individuals,"
he said, pointing out that it was almost impossible for a westerner to
visit tribal regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

His team trained proxy members in handling the cameras and other
necessary equipment and managed to obtain vital footage of tribal
regions in the two countries.

His latest documentary, 'Heat' discusses at length the phenomenon of
global warming and gives details of how the world's largest
corporations and governments are responding to the environment
disaster.

For this, Smith travelled to 12 countries and took in-depth interviews
with top policy makers and leading executives from many large carbon
emitters around the world. "If China continues on its current course,
by 2030 there will be more cars in China requiring more oil than what
the entire world produces," he said.

Smith's other documentaries include Hunting bin Laden' (1999), 'Drug
wars' (2000), three documentaries looking at the roots of 9/11 attack,
'Looking for Answers' (2001), 'Saudi Time Bomb?' (2001) and In Search
of Al Qaeda' (2002), four films on Iraq, 'Gangs of Iraq' (2007),
'Private Warriors' (2005), 'Beyond Baghdad' (2004) and 'Truth, War and
Consequences' (2003).

Smith recently produced `The Storm' (2006), an Emmy Award-winning
documentary which looks at Hurricane Katrina and the state of
America's emergency response system, and Return of the Taliban'
(2006), in which he reported from the forbidden tribal areas of
western Pakistan.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Chennai/Award-winning_documentary_makers_next\
_film_is_on_2611/articleshow/3932520.cms
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Blog: http://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com
Tech links from South Asia: http://twitter.com/fn
M: +91-9822122436 P: +91-832-2409490

Kolkata to host docu film festival
2 Jan 2009, 0337 hrs IST, TNN

KOLKATA: The city, starved of an international documentary film
festival, will finally get what is long overdue. An international
documentary film festival organised by Documentarywalla will be held
at three places in the city later this month. Films
from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Lebanon and Palestine as
well as those of film-makers from various parts of India, have been
lined up for the fest.

Sonjoy Kak's Kashmir, Rahul Roy's City Beautiful, KP Sashi's America
Amercia, a package from Lebanon and Michael Moore's latest documentary
are among the host of films that would be on offer. Also, noted
filmmaker Mike Pandey, who won the Green Oscar, will be in the city to
take part in the festival. There will be about 35 films and organisers
are trying to get more, said documentary filmmaker Soumitra Dastidar,
who is part of Documentarywalla. The title of the festival is Voice of
the Voiceless.

A workshop and film shows will be held at Star Theatre for budding
filmmakers on January 26. The inauguration will be held at Nandan II
the next day, the curtain-raiser being Raja Sen's film on Tapan Sinha.
The other venue is Bangla Akademi in Salt Lake. The idea behind
organising shows at three different venues is to reach out to
audiences across the city. Seminars will also be held as part of the
festival.

Documentarywalla was formed three years ago with the idea of taking
documentaries to the public instead of the latter looking for
documentaries they would like to watch.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Kolkata_/Kolkata_to_host_docu_film_festival/a\
rticleshow/3924260.cms
--
FN * Independent Journalist http://fn.goa-india.org
Blog: http://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com
Tech links from South Asia: http://twitter.com/fn
M: +91-9822122436 P: +91-832-2409490

aviator964
aviator964  aviator964@...  Jan 5, 2009
Hi, I am an Independent Film Maker fron South Florida

nilu_rumu
nilu_rumu  nilu_rumu@...  Jan 5, 2009
I am Niladri Dassarma.I have started making film recently.I want to
know about all the film festivel in India and abroad so i can join.

Will anybody suggest good children's films for showing to children on a
regular basis. The idea is to sensitise children and introduce to them
warm humane realistic films as an alternate to the violent dehumanising
main stream cinema

TUNE IN TONIGHT: Six-part series 'Story of India' explores 10,000
years of history
By Kevin McDonough
United Feature Syndicate

Memorable documentary series require at least three elements: a great
story, big ideas and dazzling photography. The six-part history "The
Story of India" (9 p.m. and 10 p.m., PBS, airing on Mondays through
Jan. 19) has all three and much more.

In fact, there is simply too much story and too many ideas from
India's more than 10,000 years of history to cram into six hours. But
give writer, producer and host Michael Wood credit for trying.

The first hour does a good job of helping viewers understand the
extremely ancient origins of Indian culture by tracing elements of
language and faith back nearly 10,000 years to the very dawn of human
civilization.

Subsequent installments cover India's religious traditions, its
embrace of Hinduism and the birth of Buddhism and the many foreign
empires that conquered and occupied the subcontinent, only to depart.

The armies and kingdoms of Alexander, Genghis Khan, Tamburlaine and
even the British Empire have all moved into the past tense, while
India endures and is poised to become a dominant economic superpower
in the 21st century.

I generally don't go for these vast survey history documentaries and
prefer to approach general history through the lens of a particular
subject. But Woods and his collaborators found that while there have
been dozens of film histories of ancient China, Rome and Greece, India
has remained uncovered.

And "The Story of India" does a fine job of introducing its subject in
a thought-provoking manner with stunning images both beautiful and
strange.

http://www.readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=119929
--
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Blog: http://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com
Tech links from South Asia: http://twitter.com/fn
M: +91-9822122436 P: +91-832-2409490

The correct url is
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=RbRBRxHu7XI

--- In docuwallahs2@yahoogroups.com, Jodha <vsjodha@...> wrote:
>
> Dear friends:
>
> I am happy to inform you that SAY CHEESE! a short film that I
scripted,
> photographed,  edited, directed and produced has  won Special Jury
Prize
> (International Category) at YNW International Film Festival, Sri
Lanka
> earlier this week. You can watch the film at
> http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=RbRBRxHu.7XI
> (Please choose "watch in high quality" option given below the
screen).
>
> For those who may be interested, and are travelling that way,
THROUGH THE
> LOOKING GLASS my collaborative photo project about television is on
view at
> ³India Moderna², Institut Valencia d'Art Modern, Spain until Feb.
15, 2009.
> More information at http://www.indiamoderna.es/
>
> The project is also up at the group show  "India Public Places-
Private
> Spaces". Minneapolis Institute of Arts, USA, until  January 18,
2009.  More
> information at http://www.artsmia.org/india-ppps/preview.html
>
> Still-life photographs by Samar and Vijay Jodha depicting
televisions in
> homes rich and poor say much about the pervasiveness of globalism.
> The New York Times
>
>
> Thanks.
>
>  Vijay
>

hey
are there documentary-films addressing the issue of surveillance
cameras- either critising their insensitiviy towards human needs, or
treating them as a necessary technological device?
two films that i ve come across are- Avinash Deshpande's the great
indian school show.
and german fimmaker harun farocki's prison pictures.

i am looking for more

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Breakthrough proudly announces the 5th Tri Continental Film Festival, 2009 – "Human Rights in Frames".

The Festival has emerged as a leading platform for human rights cinema in India. It opens in Delhi on January 15^th and will be inaugurated by critically acclaimed actor and social activist Nandita Das. After Delhi it travels to Mumbai, Goa, Bangalore and Kolkata.

So block your calendars for the following dates!

Delhi: 15^th, 16^th, 17^th and 18^th January

Venue: India Habitat Centre and Alliance Françoise de Delhi

Mumbai: 23^rd, 24^th and 25^th January

Venue: Little Theatre, National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA)

Goa: 24^th, 25^th and 26^th January

Venue: Maquinez Palace, ESG Complex, Panaji

Bangalore: 30^th, 31^st January and 1^st February

Venue: Alliance Françoise de Bangaluru

Kolkata: 6^th, 7^th and 8^th February

Venue: Nandan, 2 A.J.C. Bose Road

Look out for film listings and schedules on our brand new website www.triconfilm.com which will be accessible Sunday 11 January 2009 onwards!

Warm Regards,

Alika Khosla

Asociate Director

Monica Bhasin

Festival Programmer

Hi
This is a very interesting interview with theatre director and
actor M K Raina that featured in IFA's newsletter. He is working hard
to revive n rescue Bhand Panther. might interest some of you.

regards
Vasudha

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Slant, Stance

  	 Last year theatre director and actor M K Raina conducted a
month-long theatre workshop with IFA support in Akingam village of
Kashmir. The workshop participants were children from families that
have traditionally performed Bhand Pather. Bhand Pather is a form of
farcical theatre that is said to have entered Kashmir from Persia
through the Muslim courts in the 14th century and then spread through
the rest of north India. Kashmir's Bhand Pather has been a vibrant
tradition but the form has suffered over the last two decades of
unrest in the state. Raina's aim was to restore the self-confidence of
the once-active performers of Akingam village as well as start a
process of training children in this theatre.

Raina tells us more about Bhand Pather, the experience of the workshop
and his future plans.

What does a typical Bhand Pather performance consist of?

M K Raina: It is an open air form performed around Sufi shrines during
the annual Urs of Sufi pirs. Thousands of people gather around the
shrines during the Urs. They watch the performance and pay the Bhands
- sometimes with cash but mostly in kind. The Bhands also perform
around Hindu temples. They go into villages during harvest time and
they could turn a village courtyard or an orchard into a performance
space. They climb trees, they go into houses and peep at their
audience from windows, they act entirely according to their whims and
fancies.

The performance starts with a wind instrument called swarnai â€" if you
hear the sound of the swarnai, you know the performance is about to
begin. The music is dominant and then there are the maskaras or
jesters â€" there could be five or eight or or ten maskaras. They are
the spirit of the performance. There is often the figure of a ruler
from outside who is exploiting the natives; the jesters fool him and
bring him to some kind of an understanding. He will normally speak
Persian or gibberish English or Punjabi. They will speak in Kashmiri.
He cannot understand them and they cannot understand him. He has a
whip which creates a sound of a pistol when he cracks it and that's a
very vivid element. Sometimes the stories are mythological; sometimes
you find traces of the Ramayana.

Each performer has a special musical score called mukam. Each mukam
has its own name and comes from the classical Sufiana qalaam tradition
of Kashmir. The Bhands sometimes sing Sufiana verses too. They mix
these with theatre songs and peasant songs; it's a distinct repertoire
of music. They play two percussion instruments - the dhol and the
nagara - along with the swarnai and thalej or cymbals.

Bhand Pather has been suppressed by militants over the last two
decades. What were the greatest challenges you faced conducting the
workshop in Akingam village?

MKR: The performers of Akingam lost their mentor and teacher Guru
Mohammed Subhan, a SNA awardee. He became a victim. The militants
didn't want Subhan to perform Bhand Pather, they considered it
unIslamic. They put him under house arrest for nine months. Eventually
he died from extreme humiliation and shock. His death was a big blow
to the performers and they lost their self-confidence. Yet I chose
Akingam village because one of the oldest Bhand theatre companies in
the Kashmir valley â€" the Kashmir Bhagat Theatre â€" is based here. Also
Akingam is surrounded by many heritage and sacred sites and there are
villages around which also have groups performing Bhand Pather. A
village called Muhurpur next to Akingam used to have Kashmiri Pandits
Bhand performers but they left the village in 1990. The people of
Akingam are deeply Sufi and philosophical in outlook â€" you start
chatting with them and before you know it you are involved in an
intellectual discussion on the meaning of existence.

The villagers took us in. The whole village was galvanised into
action. The women started cooking for us. The young participants of
the workshop staged a performance at the end of the four weeks. A huge
crowd turned up from Akingam and from the surrounding villages. I am
certain that this was the first time in 19 years that that such a
large crowd has gathered together for a cultural event in Kashmir.
Some of our friends from Srinagar who had come for the performance
could not believe that such a gathering was possible without
government support and without any security or police. It is also true
that though we met with some resistance along the way it was minor.
The militants do not oppose the Bhand Pather today as much as they
used to.

You have said: "Kashmiri children have lost their power of imagination
and self-expression ...perhaps it has to do with the collapse of the
education system and two decades of violence." Can you tell us how
children and young people responded to the workshop and what you did
to draw them out?

MKR: Because of the threat of violence, children have to be indoors by
3 pm. They suffer from a lack of exposure. Nobody asks them to think
for themselves, to imagine. All adults tell them is â€" shut up, keep
quiet, don't go out because this or that will happen. A people who
have traditionally lived their lives in forests and among nature have
had to confine themselves to their houses. I went to the houses of
Bhand performers in three or four villages and told them â€" look you
have to send your kids for this workshop. They sent them gladly. These
elders themselves visited the workshop and performed too â€" we had a
week which was like a little folk festival. We got a flavour of Bhand
from other regions of Kashmir.

When working with the boys, my collaborator Rakesh and I woke up to
the fact that their bodies were not in the right proportion. There was
a stiffness, a distortion, a lack of grace. I started asking myself
whether these problems were due to the stresses and tensions that
their mothers had gone through before the children were born or if
they were a result of the atmosphere they had grown up in.

Initially, it was difficult for the boys to understand that meaningful
images and ideas can be communicated just by making an instrument out
of the body, like any musical instrument. But eventually they got it.
Performance is in their blood after all.

You will soon embark on a two-year IFA-supported project wherein young
performers will be trained in different aspects of the form by Ustads.
What are the ways in which you see these younger performers making
Bhand Pather their own?

MKR: I am hoping to set up a little school in Akingam. My worry has
been that the elders will die. Two are very old and they are the best.
I've told them â€" I will come to the village when you die and shower
rose petals on your grave only if you've taught children. Otherwise,
I'll only say you were a good man, but I won't come with rose petals!

The thing is that these Ustads have a methodology for teaching what
they know, but they are very tough and they tend to get impatient. I
have to teach them to be patient with young people. But they've seen
me working so I think they understand the importance of making a child
relax. One of my conditions is also that the children will have to
continue with their formal schooling.

They will have to understand the basics of the form first. Later they
can experiment. I don't necessarily want them to only perform the
traditional repertoire. My dream is to do King Lear with them.

But right now the focus is on setting up this school. Akingam has been
designated a heritage tourist village. The government is making a
campus where a small building has already come up which has been given
to us to use as a rehearsal and teaching space. The idea behind the
heritage tourist village is that since Akingam is on the way to
Pehelgam and Amarnath, maybe tourists will stop here. And if they do
we can perform for them.

  	 -----------------------------------------------

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India Foundation for the Arts
'Apurva' Ground Floor
No 259, 4th Cross
Raj Mahal Vilas
2nd Stage, 2nd Block
Bangalore - 560 094

Telefax : + 91 80 2341 4681/82/83
Email : contactus@...
Website : http://www.indiaifa.org

some other indian and international children films are - Persepolis,
The Bicycle Thief, Ray's Apur sansar, Ray's Adventures of Goopy and
Bagha, The cup

best,
Anuja

--- In docuwallahs2@yahoogroups.com, "Shoma Chatterji"
<shoma.chatterji@...> wrote:
>
> Gul Bahar Singh who is now based in Mumbai, made a wonderful
children's film
> called GOAL some years ago.His number is 09867314634. Pankaj Advani
made
> another fun film for children many years ago. It was callled SUNDAY.
Very
> good film. Vinod Ganata too makes children's films.
>
> shoma a. chatterji
>
> On Tue, Jan 6, 2009 at 8:30 PM, smriti garach <panchipri@...> wrote:
>
> >     Hi there!
> >
> > Try getting in touch with Mr.. Vinod Ganatra who makes children's
films. He
> > may be of help. Number of Mr.. Vinod - 02224922385
> >
> > Smriti
> >
> > --- On *Tue, 6/1/09, Kamar Ahmad Simon <kamarahmad@...>* wrote:
> >
> > From: Kamar Ahmad Simon <kamarahmad@...>
> > Subject: Re: [DOCUWALLAHS2] Good Children films
> > To: docuwallahs2@yahoogroups.com
> > Date: Tuesday, 6 January, 2009, 6:40 AM
> >
> >  Children of Heaven
> > Colours of Paradise
> > Life id Beautiful
> > Nim's Island
> > Lassie
> > Nany MacPhee
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 10:37 PM, msprao50 <msprao50@yahoo.
com<msprao50@...>
> > > wrote:
> >
> >>   Will anybody suggest good children's films for showing to
children on a
> >>
> >> regular basis. The idea is to sensitise children and introduce to
them
> >> warm humane realistic films as an alternate to the violent
dehumanising
> >> main stream cinema
> >>
> >>
> >
> > ------------------------------
> > Add more friends to your messenger and enjoy! Invite them
now.<http://in.rd.yahoo.com/tagline_messenger_6/*http://messenger.yaho
o.com/invite/>
> >
> >
> >
>

Karachi-based filmmaker wins award

Staff Report

KARACHI: Karachi based renowned young filmmaker, artist and director
Sharjil Baloch's famous classical documentary film Ki Jana Main Kaun
(Who knows what I am) has won the first prize in the South Asian
Interactive Documentary Film Festival held in Nepal's capital
Kathmandu last week.

About a hundred documentary producers, leading directors and
journalists from eight South Asia countries, Afghanistan, Bangladesh,
Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka submitted their
films in the festival.

Ki Jana Main Kaun, reflects the cultural festivals of Sufism, one of
the national identities of the Sindhi culture.

It Sharjil a year to complete his documentary and during that year, he
visited dozens of shrines of Sufi saints in Sindh. Baloch's entire
perspective on life changed when he exposed himself to Sufism. The
idea of making such film came to him suddenly when he visited Sadh
Belo, a historical Hindu religious place which is located on an island
in River Indus.

"I found a watchman praying and reciting the Quran inside Sadh Belo.
Surprised, I asked the watchman how he is allowed to pray inside a
Hindu temple, he told me that in Sufism this is not strange. So I
started researching and collecting information on Sufism and I found
it to be very interesting and thus I started working on the
documentary."


http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\01\05\story_5-1-2009_pg12_7
--
FN * Independent Journalist http://fn.goa-india.org
Blog: http://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com
Tech links from South Asia: http://twitter.com/fn
M: +91-9822122436 P: +91-832-2409490

Watch quality eduactional children films on CHINH EARLY EDUCATION WEB
CHANNEL www.chinh.in or request CHINH FILMY BASTA -

What is CHINH FILMY Basta?
A selection of exceptional, impressive, motivating, touching and
sometimes brutally honest quality children programmes from CHINH KIDS
FILM Festival, children film producers, festivals and agencies across
the globe. We provide  tailor made content packages to suit local
cultures.

Who is the target audience of CHINH FILMY BASTA?
The target audience of CHINH FILMY BASTA is Children, parents,
educators and media professionals.

How does CHINH FILMY BASTA help the children?
It inculcates among children taste for innovative children programmes
and encourages them to read and analyse a film thereby understanding
the difference between reel and real. It becomes a film appreciation
exercise for the children audience


CHINH FESTIVAL DIRECTOR

--- In docuwallahs2@yahoogroups.com, "msprao50" <msprao50@...> wrote:
>
> Will anybody suggest good children's films for showing to children
on a
> regular basis. The idea is to sensitise children and introduce to
them
> warm humane realistic films as an alternate to the violent
dehumanising
> main stream cinema
>

Hi Pankaj, Actually, am not sure, but pls try:
http://www.cultureunplugged.com/play/794/Ki-Jana-Main-Kaun--Who-knows-what-I-am-
http://television.aol.com/show/ki-jana-main-kaun/918722/main

2009/1/9 Pankaj Kalwani <pankaj.kalwani@...>:
> Hi Frederick,
> Do you know where I could watch this documentary "Ki Jana Main Kaun"?
> Regards,
> Pankaj
>
> On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 12:56 AM, Frederick Noronha [फ़रेदरिक
नोरोनया]
> <fred@...> wrote:
>>
>> Karachi-based filmmaker wins award
>>
>> Staff Report
>>
>> KARACHI: Karachi based renowned young filmmaker, artist and director
>> Sharjil Baloch's famous classical documentary film Ki Jana Main Kaun
>> (Who knows what I am) has won the first prize in the South Asian
>> Interactive Documentary Film Festival held in Nepal's capital
>> Kathmandu last week.
>>
>> About a hundred documentary producers, leading directors and
>> journalists from eight South Asia countries, Afghanistan, Bangladesh,
>> Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka submitted their
>> films in the festival.
>>
>> Ki Jana Main Kaun, reflects the cultural festivals of Sufism, one of
>> the national identities of the Sindhi culture.
>>
>> It Sharjil a year to complete his documentary and during that year, he
>> visited dozens of shrines of Sufi saints in Sindh. Baloch's entire
>> perspective on life changed when he exposed himself to Sufism. The
>> idea of making such film came to him suddenly when he visited Sadh
>> Belo, a historical Hindu religious place which is located on an island
>> in River Indus.
>>
>> "I found a watchman praying and reciting the Quran inside Sadh Belo.
>> Surprised, I asked the watchman how he is allowed to pray inside a
>> Hindu temple, he told me that in Sufism this is not strange. So I
>> started researching and collecting information on Sufism and I found
>> it to be very interesting and thus I started working on the
>> documentary."
--
FN * Independent Journalist http://fn.goa-india.org
M: +91-9822122436 P: +91-832-2409490

Ki Jana Main Kaun (Who knows what I am) Hindus, Muslims, in Sindh
http://tinyurl.com/88kr7a
--
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+++ DEUTSCHER TEXT UNTERHALB +++


+++ CALL FOR ENTRIES 2009 +++
film sharing Low & No Budget VideoFilmfestival Tour 2009


We are looking for narrative and fictional shorts. The films and film
ideas may have developed in all sorts of ways: we like accurately
planned films, spontaneously done projects, exercises and inventive
products which came into being (almost) by accident.
Filmmakers who are not willing to submit their creativity to a fixed
kind of commercial frame are invited to share their work with our
festival audience!
Originality of the plot or the way in which the story is told and
flows are the crucial factors of evaluation. (And then there are some
more formal criteria regarding the length of films (see below). But
that is about it.


Categories

short narration and fiction

     * extremely short  (<3min)

     * short film (3-15min)

     *  short film special for the category „It started promising..."
     (3 - 15min)

This year, we will show the festival's films in three different towns
on three consecutive weekends in July 2009. And as every year, we'll
be trying to show those selected films and the whole programme not
only in Stuttgart, Heilbronn and Mainz, but in several European cities
as well. After all, it's an international festival, not to be
happening at one place only.

Of course there is no entry fee for submitting films- you will find
more information and the entry form on:

http://www.film-sharing.net



+++ ENGLISH VERSION ABOVE +++


+++ AUSSCHREIBUNG 2009 +++
film sharing Low & No Budget VideoFilmfestival Tour 2009


Wir möchten ein internationales Forum sein für unabhängige
Produktionen mit unterschiedlichster Finanzierung; was zählt, ist die
inhaltliche und ästhetische Eigenständigkeit.
Die Entstehungsweise kann von sorgfältig geplanten Filmen über spontan
entstandene Projekte bis zu gelungenen Übungen und originellen
Zufallsprodukten reichen. Filmemacher, die ihre Kreativität nicht
unbedingt in einen kommerziellen Rahmen pressen wollen, sind dazu
aufgefordert, unser Festivalpublikum an ihren Werken teilhaben zu lassen!
Originalität der Handlung oder des Ablaufs sind ausschlaggebende
Kriterien der Bewertung.
Ein paar formale Kriterien gibt es allerdings auch bei uns, die
Filmlänge betreffend (siehe unten).

Kategorien

narrativer und fiktionaler Kurzfilm

     * Ultrakurzfilm (<3min)

     * Kurzfilm  alle Themen (3-15min)

     * Kurzspielfilm spezial zum Thema "Bisher lief alles ganz gut..."
       (3- 15min)

2009 wird das Festivalprogramm an drei Wochenenden hintereinander
voraussichtlich im Juli 09 in verschiedenen Städten gezeigt werden und
Ihr seid natürlich wieder alle herzlich eingeladen hinzukommen. Meldet
euch früh an, damit wir euch soweit dies uns möglich ist, einen
Schlafplatz besorgen. Und wieder werden wir später ein Auswahlprogramm
auf Tour schicken. Wir sehen die Aufgabe eines internationalen
Festivals darin, nicht nur an wenige Orte wie Stuttgart, Heilbronn
oder Mainz gebunden zu sein.

Mehr Informationen zum Festival und das Einreichformular sind zu
finden unter:

http://www.film-sharing.net