Loading...
 
Blog Actions
Get a short URL

Featured Articles

Blogs » Featured Articles
Clear Filter

NETPAC@20

Blog post actions
Print
Aditya Monday June 14, 2010
In the twenty years since it was founded, NETPAC has become established as the leading platform for the discovery and promotion of Asian cinema.The genesis of NETPAC in 1990 had coincided with the renaissance of Asian cinema. NETPAC gave early expression to the need to acknowledge and recognise the emergence of new cinematic talent among Asians. It took under its wing a quarterly publication, Cinemaya,which provided a forum for mostly Asian critics, writers and scholars to document and evaluate Asian films and subsequently add them to the Asian cinema canon.
Read more

Remembering Alexis Tioseco

Blog post actions
Print
Aditya Saturday September 12, 2009
 I first met Alexis in 2004. I was in charge of a young critics workshop at the Berlin International Film Festival, to which Alexis had applied. I remember that he was the first person to be selected; Ollie Baumgarten, Peter Cowie and myself were immediately struck by his enthusiastic promotion of independent Filipino filmmakers and the sense of conviction that his writing was important. This made me think he was cocky and self-assured, not always attractive qualities in a critic. But the Alexis I met a month later was - as he is often described - quiet and unassuming. Through our brief but rigorous interaction at the Berlinale, I grew a deep regard for the kind of critic he was growing to be, and I was extremely envious that Alexis was driven forward by a passion for the cinema of his homeland. He spoke and wrote in a voice that was always considered and provocative. One could not accuse Alexis of hyperbole, even for the filmmakers he vigorously promoted, or of unjustly dismissing films and directors that he did not care for. He relished debate, and I remember two long arguments we had in a pub in Hackescher Markt. - the first over Mario O'Hara's film Woman of Breakwater and the second over who should cover the tab.
Read more

25 Years Are So Slow Like A Bad TV Show

Blog post actions
Print
Aditya Saturday April 25, 2009
But did 25 years of the Thai National Film Archive actually fly? To me, I feel like time simply crawled, inching forward as if in slow-motion. Twenty five years have felt like 100 years to me. Or even longer. That’s probably because the film archive has become inseparable from my life. I’m with it everyday, from the time I wake up until I go to bed, breathing with it and living with it. Was it really 25 years? That’s only 550 weeks, or 9,000 days, or 200,000-plus hours! That’s nothing! If I were an old-time movie dubbing pro and I saw a shot of myself on screen - skinny, with a wild black beard and hair, rewinding a roll of film at a work desk, then the shot dissolves to show the current version of me - an old, rotund man not unlike a tanned Santa Claus, with white beard and hair – seeing that, I would have narrated the scene: “25 years are so slow like a bad TV show.”
Read more

Three Women, A Thief and Prasanna Vithanage

Blog post actions
Print
Aditya Saturday March 21, 2009
Prasanna Vithanage's new film, set in the social milieu of the leisure industry in Sri Lanka today, has no male characters of any significance. The main protagonists in the story are three women, two of them actresses in films and tele-dramas, and the other a night club hostess - also an actress of sorts.At the very beginning of the film we find the main character in her home, reading her letters, feeding her cat, making patties, saying goodbye to her guests and dealing with her younger sister who visits unexpectedly. This sets the pace and mood of the film. It is very much a sequence created by Vithanage to show a woman performing, or acting out her daily life. Acting and women are two subjects very much at the heart of who Prasanna Vithanage is, both as a person and as a writer-director of films and plays, and he brings them together in this film with courage and creativity.
Read more

Uzbek Cinema: Breathing Freely

Blog post actions
Print
Aditya Monday December 29, 2008
Uzbeks love cinema, particularly the Indian cinema. No, it is not just The Tramp (Awara) that is part of ((http://netpacasia.org/Indo-Soviet|Indo-Soviet)) folklore. Any Soviet - in fact that was one of the tests of 'Sovietness!' - could burst into the Raj Kapoor/Mukesh song 'Awaara hoon' (‘I am a Vagabond’). But what amazed me in Uzbekistan was the repeated reference to Confluence (Sangam) and 'Dost dost na raha,' (My Friend is a Friend No More’), surely a new chapter in the Raj Kapoor saga, and a crucial sub-section of all serious discussions on ((http://netpacasia.org/Indo-Soviet|Indo-Soviet)) relations. Be it any remote corner of Uzbekistan, even snowy mountainous areas, one can have an intelligent conversation on Indian cinema!
Read more

Kamara Kamalova | The Grande Dame of Central Asian Cinema

Blog post actions
Print
Aditya Monday December 29, 2008
How does one describe Kamara Kamalova? The 'Grande Dame' of Central Asian cinema? And yet, she is as fresh and energetic as a young girl. She smiles with her eyes, a warm smile full of life and hope. Perhaps that is the secret behind her special bond with the youth. The pains and joys of being young come alive in her films - from All Around was Covered by Snow (1995), about the emotions and insecurities of a young girl to The Savage (1988), which speaks of the injustices of the Soviet system through the story of young lovers. Her most recent film, The Road Under the Skies (2006) also has that special element which addresses young people directly, hence its immense success with young audiences from India to Uzbekistan. An exceptional feat for a filmmaker who is in her late 60s.
Read more

Life Without Buoys: A Conversation with Wu Tianming

Blog post actions
Print
Aditya Monday December 29, 2008
When I was young, I saw a lot of films in my city, Xian. I was first interested in arts, literature, modern opera. At the age of 19,1 sawPoem of the Sea by Aleksandr Dovzhenko for the first time but I didn't really understand it. So I sold my new shoes to buy two tickets, and saw it twice more at the Peace Cinema. It was winter and I was barefoot (back home, my mother asked me where my shoes were!). Actually I saw it fourteen times to be able to understand it, and by the end I knew the dialogues by heart! Two years ago, I visited a studio named after Dovzhenfco. I was destiny!
Read more

Interview

Supriya Suri's Interview with Muhiddin Muzaffar

Director Muhiddin Muzaffar (1) 2 Min

1. I entered the cinema through the theatre. I was an actor in our local theatre called Kanibadam, named after Tuhfa Fozilova. After working for five years, I decided to do a theatre director course. I graduated with honors and became a director. We successfully staged performances at international festivals.

Read More...

Featured Report

Show PHP error messages