DearCinema

Funding For Independent Films

Satyen K. Bordoloi — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:03:41 PDT

The most important ingredient in making a movie, besides ideas, is finance. A writer can write in the absence of any fund, a composer can compose without it... but a filmmaker needs money to make films. We scourged the world to find out funds that are available to a filmmaker in the Indian Subcontinent. And guess what, they are aplenty, and...

Click on the headline to continue reading...>>>

Hollywood’s Bollywood bungle

Gautaman Bhaskaran — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 21:49:16 PDT

Hollywood found an invincible force in India with its massive cinema industry. About 1300 films were made there in 2008 alone. The big American studios have been trying hard to take over the enormously lucrative Indian market for many years...

Click on the headline to continue reading...>>>

The Girlfriend Experience: Grey Areas in Modern Loves

Ankan Kazi — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 21:33:52 PDT

Steven Soderbergh's new independent feature ‘The Girlfriend Experience' is better than most of his films. In fact, I can even hazard this: it reminded me of the Soderbergh of ‘sex, lies and videotape' fame- an almost lost entity now. ‘The Girlfriend Experience' shows us days in the life of a high-end prostitute who offers the aforementioned...

Click on the headline to continue reading...>>>

Duplicity: Multiplicity of Complexity

Devang Ghia — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 13:31:45 PDT

One thing, amongst many others, that I liked about Duplicity was the way it rolled out the story. It flashes back and forth between the present and the past, bring up the flashbacks at opportune moments. Every peek into the past helps explain the present, which otherwise would confound you. I do not even want to give you a synopsis of what the...

Click on the headline to continue reading...>>>

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada: Amazing Grey Actions in Life

Jugu Abraham — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 22:54:27 PDT

Many have seen the film and considered it to be yet another tale on the US Border Patrol actions ensuring that economically deprived Mexicans do not cross over into US territory illegally. Some US viewers have taken to a knee-jerk dislike for the movie because it shows the US law enforcers in a poor light with touches of racism. It was probably...

Click on the headline to continue reading...>>>

Understanding Cinema: The Power of the Image

Oorvazi Irani — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 20:25:36 PDT

Film comes from a visual tradition and thus the universal language of form, line, colour, contrast, balance and movement all operate at a certain level in the film frame. These compositional elements speak a universal language which trigger similar emotional responses in almost every viewer; properly used they comprise a compositional language...

Click on the headline to continue reading...>>>

Sankat City: Intelligent Fun

Utpal Borpujari — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:01:21 PDT

Sankat City is great fun, to put it simply. But it is intelligent fun, the kind that speaks much without actually getting loud, though quite a few things are done over the top, perhaps deliberately, to poke fun at things that are intricate part of the Hindi potboiler narrative. The comedy is kind of zany and irreverent, even Kundan Shahesque in...

Click on the headline to continue reading...>>>

Minority View: Medium Cool by Haskell Wexler

M. K. Raghavendra — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:38:47 PDT

Medium Cool takes up the issue of the opportunistic voyeurism of TV journalism (its ‘coolness') and opens with two TV cameramen photographing a road accident in careful detail. After they have gone about it meticulously, one of the two suggests to the other that they should call an ambulance. Wexler was not known as a director but as a famous...

Click on the headline to continue reading...>>>

Munich Report: India Focus in 2010

Meenakshi Shedde — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 02:52:47 PDT

Summer in Munich is splendid: the sun is out and everyone's in the biergartens or lolling by the river Isar that runs through the city, leaving entire beercrates in the river for cooling. The Munich Film Festival (June 26-July 4) is a superb film festival with an impressive film programme.

Click on the headline to continue reading...>>>

Filth and Wisdom: What The Material Girl Did Next

Devang Ghia — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 12:27:07 PDT

The Queen of reincarnation's latest avtaar is that of a film director. Madonna has tried her hand at acting and, to put it politely, I don't think that's her vocation. Which is probably why she has kept herself out of her own film. To say that Madonna is a better director than actor isn't really saying much about her as a director. F & W is...

Click on the headline to continue reading...>>>