from the short "Vakratunda Swaha" by Ashish Avikuntak

When: February 26, 2012, 1:30pm
Where: Artists Television Access (ATA, 992 Valencia St, SF)
Cost: $8 (Cash only; At the door)
TRT: 90mins + q&a

Meenakshi Shedde in Person!

Meenakshi Shedde, leading Mumbai-based film critic and India consultant for the Berlin and Dubai Int’l Film Festivals, speaks about the state of contemporary Indian filmmaking and brings a package of award-winning shorts from India over the last 4 years. The program includes a diverse range of films, both in terms of content and form, and showcases the best in contemporary short filmmaking on the subcontinent. Come see new cutting-edge work from India, and stay for a lively discussion on the changing face of cinema in South Asia with an expert in the field.

Program Includes:

Udedh Bun (Unravel) by Siddharth Sinha
2008, 21 mins
SILVER BEAR, Berlin Film Festival
Powerful coming-of-age story of a schoolboy and the first stirrings of his sexuality.

Mehfuz (Safe) by Rohit Pandey
2011, 16mins
Dubai Film Festival, 2^nd prize
If death is a poem, can necrophilia be a tender love story? (With Anurag Kashyap Films)

Three of Us by Umesh Kulkarni
2008, 15 mins
Berlin Film Festival
An aging couple bring up their disabled adult son: a deeply moving paean to dignity.

Vakratunda Swaha by Ashish Avikunthak
2010, 22 mins
An experimental film that connects the mythic and futuristic, through images of a Ganesh visarjan (ritual immersion of the elephant-headed God) in the sea in Bombay (pictured above)

Vitthal by Vinoo Choliparambil
2009, 24 mins
National Award, Best Short; 2^nd Prize , Asian First Feature FF, Dubai FF; Special mention, Osians FF; Best Short, Lyon Asian FF.

More about Meenakshi Shedde:
Meenakshi Shedde won the National Award for Best Film Critic and was presented the Swarna Kamal (Golden Lotus Award) by the President of India. She has covered international film festivals for over a decade, including those in Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Toronto, Paris, Argentina, Pusan, Mannheim-Heidelberg, Oberhausen (Germany), Vila do Conde (Portugal), New Delhi and Thiruvananthapuram. She was also on the FIPRESCI International Critics’ Jury of the Cannes Film Festival (2001), Berlin Film Festival (2000 and 2012) and Venice Film Festival (2002). She was on the International Jury of the Mar del Plata International Film Festival, Argentina (2006); Asian Film Award Jury, Hong Kong Film Festival (2007); and the National Jury for the Indian Panorama of the International Film Festival of India, Goa (2004). She has written for two books on Indian cinema for Au Sud du Cinema (Cahiers du Cinema/Arte) and on Bollywood for Bollywood: Das Indische Kino und die Schweiz (Museum fur Gestaltung, Switzerland).

Check out the festival website for complete program information:

www.thirdi.org/festival

AT THE ARAB FILM FESTIVAL:

What: SHORTS PROGRAM
Where: Embarcadero Cinema, San Francisco
When: Saturday, October 15, 2011, 12:00pm

What: SHORTS PROGRAM
Where: Camera 12, San Jose
When: Saturday, October 15, 2011, 6:30pm

For more information on both programs, and the complete Arab Film Festival schedule, please click here.

AT UNAFF:
What: PINK SARIS, by Kim Longinotto
Where: Aquarius 1, 430 Emerson Street, Palo Alto
When: Friday, October 21, 7:40pm

For more information on the film, and the complete UNAFF schedule, please click here.

3rd i puts on its queer eye again this summer! Join us for a weekend of films and performances celebrating LGBT stories from contemporary Sri Lanka to ancient India.

August 27: FILM

Flying with One Wing
Asoka Handagama (Sri Lanka, 2002, 81mins)

When: 7pm
Where: Artist’s Television Access (992 Valencia Street, CA 94110)
Cost: $8 at the door

In anticipation of a focus on Sri Lanka at our annual festival this November, 3rd i reaches back into its vault to bring this festival favorite from 2003. Undoubtedly one of the the most revolutionary films to come out of South Asia, Flying With One Wing, is an engaging parable of a person creating a life amidst a culture that deems their existence criminal. The film captures the reality of women living in present day Sri Lanka and addresses gender politics in a male dominated society from a novel perspective. Flying With One Wing is an edgy, gender-altering story that manages to remain lighthearted and humorous despite the building tensions that culminate with unexpected results. In short, a Sri Lankan cross between Fassbinder and Boys Don’t Cry.

August 28: LIVE

Brihannala, Aniruddhan Vasudevan
The Unicorn and The Seeker, Minal Hajratwala
Janaki – Daughter of the Dirt (Sneak Preview), The Siren Theater Project

Followed by Artist Reception

When: 5pm
Where: The Women’s Building, San Francisco
Cost: $8-$15 at the door (sliding scale), includes reception

Two artists take us on a queer journey through India’s past in this afternoon of dance and literature.

Brihannala
Chennai-based performer Aniruddhan Vasudevan’s monologue mixes storytelling, spoken word, classical dance and music to explore the performance of gender and sexuality. As he performs a character from the Mahabharata, Brihannala – a eunuch form that the hero Arjuna assumes for a year – it becomes a reference point for the artist’s own performance of gender, his desires and the questions that arise therein.

The Unicorn and The Seeker: Readings from New Works
Minal Hajratwala — San Francisco-based poet, performer, and author — will share selections of new work created during her recent Fulbright fellowship in India. This body of writing includes novelistic ecstasy, chimaeric poetry, explosions at the India-Pakistan border, and more… Her upcoming novel, set 500 years in the past (during the life of Mirabai, a North Indian devotional poet) and 500 years in the future (in a queer punk dystopia) explores yearning, devotion, surrender, the sacred and the sexual. Her poetry manuscript, The Unicorn at the Racetrack, is inspired by the 5000-year-old Indus Valley unicorn images.

SNEAK PREVIEW:
Catch a 10 minute sneak preview of The Siren Theater Project‘s upcoming production of Janaki – Daughter of the Dirt, a story of ancient archetypes that reflects modern day dilemmas. t is the journey of a young woman who looks to her own personal superhero, “Sita” also known as “Janaki”, for answers to life’s problems. Only this Sita is not the perfect woman as is portrayed in the ancient “Ramayana”, one of Hinduism’s most known and revered epics. Please click here for more information on the upcoming premiere of this play.

The Artist Reception (following the event) will take place in the same theater as the performance/reading.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Asoka Handagama is a renowned Sri Lankan filmmaker and theater artist who has received numerous awards for his films at festivals across Asia. Some of his other films include Moon Hunt (1996), Moon Lady (1998), and This is My Moon (2000). His last film Vidhu (2010), a children’s film, was an ingenious response to the censorship of his 2005 masterpiece Letter of Fire. Handagama remade this film as a children’s film and received both critical and popular acclaim, establishing him as one of the most unique voices in Sri Lankan cinema today.

Aniruddhan Vasudevan is a performer, activist and writer based in Chennai, India. His has trained in the Indian classical dance form, Bharata Natyam, with none other than the renowned dancer Chitra Visweswaran. His most recent collaborative work has been with Lakshmi Sriraman, based in Lexington, Kentucky, in choreographing and presenting “And She Said….,” a dance-theater work based on Tamil women poets’ work on love and war. This work toured different cities of the United States in Fall 2010.

Minal Hajratwala is a poet, performer, and writer based in San Francisco. Her nonfiction epic Leaving India: My Family’s Journey From Five Villages to Five Continents won four literary awards and was called “incomparable” by Alice Walker and “searingly honest” by the Washington Post. She is a graduate of Stanford University and was a National Arts Journalism Program fellow at Columbia University.

Funding for this program provided by:

Jonas Parienté and Mathias Mangin’s Next Year in Bombay

Founded in 1980, the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is the first and largest of its kind in the world. Today, they are more than a festival: they are the leading advocate for independent Jewish cinema. The 31st festival will be held July 21 – August 8, 2011, in San Francisco, Berkeley, the Peninsula and Marin County. More information is available on the festival website at:
http://www.sfjff.org/

Next Year in Bombay
Jonas Parienté and Mathias Mangin (France/India, 2010, 55m)

When: July 28, 2011, 1:30pm
Where: Castro Theatre

Screening with the short film, Starring David (19 min.)
Next Year in Bombay profiles the surprising diversity of India’s Jewish communities, some of which have existed for over 2,500 years. Now, however, they are struggling to maintain their culture and traditions as their populations dwindle. At the heart of the film is the story of a young couple torn between their desire to see Judaism thrive in India and their commitment to providing their children with a Jewish education only possible if they move to Israel. Click here for more information about screening times, venues and tickets.

The Search: The Seeker: The Spirit

When: Saturday July 9, 2011, 7pm
Where: Artists’ Television Access
Cost: $6 at the door

The program will include the premiere of her new film METTA, the third in her series of experimental documentaries about spirituality; a sneak preview from her new film, MOMENTS OF BEING: MAGICAL MESSAGES; as well as a magical raffle — proceeds of which will support her upcoming documentary, STORIES FROM THE PATH: STORIES ABOUT MODERN DAY MINDFULNESS. In the same way that Kirthi’s films are like poetic voyages into the landscape of emotions, tonight’s program also promises to be a journey…towards the cinemagical!

For more information on the artist’s work, please visit her website at: www.kirthinath.com

Sonali Gulati’s I AM

I AM
Director: Sonali Gulati
TRT: 85 mins (with short)

When: Friday, June 17, 7pm
Where:Roxie Theater

What do parents say when they find out their child is gay? What if they never get the chance to respond? Eleven years after her mother’s death, award-winning lesbian filmmaker Sonali Gulati returns to her hometown of New Delhi, India, to clean out her house and make peace with the parent she never came out to. In her meditative and personal new documentary, I Am, Gulati interviewed twenty-one Indian families over the course of five years to unravel the intricacies and difficulties of coming out in India.

Showing with the short, Time Out (Natalie Mulford) about a teen who is curious about his newfound attraction to girls.

Read more about the films and purchase tickets at: http://www.frameline.org/festival/film/detail.aspx?id=2167&FID=48

Come join 3rd i Films this weekend at the Asian Heritage Street Festival! Celebrate the beginning of summer with art, film, food and culture all day long – and witness the diversity of San Francisco’s Asian community. Find our booth at the festival and learn what’s coming up this summer/fall season at 3rd i. Read on for more information about CAAM’s Short Film Showcase.

CAAM SHORT FILM SHOWCASE
The Center for Asian American Media is sponsoring the first ever Asian Heritage Street Celebration Cinema Showcase from 1 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Asian Art Museum’s Samsung Hall on Saturday, May 21. Admission to the museum will be free all day courtesy of Target and there will also be no cost to watch the films. Thirteen handpicked short films and music videos from local filmmakers will be shown.

South Asian films in the program include:
WAHID’S MOBILE BOOKSTORE
Dir. Anjoo Khosla (10 min.)
Film shows the young boy’s struggles and hopes through his own candid voice and resilient attitude.

PIA
Dir. Tanuj Chopra (18 min.)
Can an android have feelings? Can true love be resurrected through technology after death? Both ethereal and frighteningly cold, the future of Chopra’s PIA combines the sterility of science with the persistence of human emotion.

For more information on the fair, please visit: http://asianfairsf.com/

MARK YOUR CALENDARS! 3rd i’s Ninth Annual SF International South Asian Film Festival will take place November 10-13, 2011 at the Roxie and Castro Theaters.

Calling all Bay Area Filmmakers!

3rd i Films is actively seeking film submissions for its annual festival and year-round programs in the San Francisco Bay Area.

We are looking for innovative films and videos of all lengths and genres from and about South Asia and the Diaspora. We aim to provide a platform for artists taking new directions. Films and videos may be experimental, narrative, documentary, animation, comedy, music videos, digital media, produced in any year and of any length.

Please download and complete the submission form before sending us your film:

SubmissionForm2011

Do not send your entry in a fiber-filled envelope.

Submission deadline: June 15, 2011
Submission fees: $10 for shorts (under 40 minutes) / $20 for features
Send to: 3rd i Film Festival 2011 Submissions, 992 Valencia Street, San Francisco, CA 94110

PLEASE NOTE: We are not currently accepting unsolicited submissions from filmmakers outside the Bay Area. If you would like us to consider your film, please send us an email to programming@thirdi.org, before sending a preview.

If you have any questions, please write to us at info@thirdi.org

We look forward to seeing your films.

Please spread the word.

What: Film screening and discussion
When: Tuesday, April 26, 6:15-8:30 pm
Where: Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California, 1433 Madison Street, Oakland, CA 94612
Cost: FREE

KQED, in partnership with the Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California, invites you to a screening and discussion of the film, Bhutto, which chronicles the life of one of the most complex and fascinating characters of our time. Hers is an epic tale of Shakespearean dimension. It’s the story of the first woman in modern times to lead a Muslim nation: Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto was born into a wealthy land-owning family that became Pakistan’s dominant political dynasty. Often referred to as the ‘Kennedys of Pakistan,’ the Bhuttos share a painful history of triumph and tragedy, played out on an international stage.

For more information on the film, including the theatrical trailer, discussion guides and facilitator guides, please visit: http://www.itvs.org/films/bhutto

To RSVP: http://oaklandbhuttoscreening.eventbrite.com/