Printed Rainbow

Year : 2006
Type : Animation
Director : Gitanjali Rao

Printed Rainbow is an animated short film by Gitanjali Rao, a gold medalist from Sir JJ Institute of Applied Art, Mumbai. The film has a very simple story, that of an elderly woman who lives in a small apartment of a residential-complex in a big city with her cat. Her life is very monotonous and to say the least without any joy and excitement, as is the life of senior citizens in big cities. Her only escape from the real world is her collection of match boxes each of which has a picture of a very colorful world. She sitting on her arm chair escapes into this imaginary world where she fulfills her crave for excitement and happiness such as walking into a palace, floating with a boat in a river inside the forest, or driving a truck and overtaking all others on the road.

The story of Printed Rainbow has a very strong universal appeal cross-cutting cultural boundaries and beatifully portrays the difficulties of elderly people in a metropolitan lifestyle. The life in the apartment is shown in black and white animated sketches showing the dullness and the other imaginary world which is full with adventure and happiness is shown in bright beautiful colors which conveys the mood of the story very strongly without uttering a single word.

The movie also made me very nostalgic and reminded me of this childhood pre-occupation I had of collecting the front picture of matchstick boxes, often competing among friends of the most exclusive collection one had. It flooded me with pleasant memories of those "Sivakasi" brand match boxes and my friends who were lost in my old memories.

Printed Rainbow saw her become the only Indian to win three awards at the Cannes Critics' Week Section and win awesome reviews and acclaim worldwide. A very beautiful work of art, one must see.

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Tingya

Year : 2007
Language : Marathi
Country : India
Director : Mangesh Hadawale

I will quote the content from Tingya's webpage : It is a painstakingly meticulous movie about an emotional love story between a bull and a boy, Tingya. It inquires through Tingya’s innocence the validity of existence. It queries the order of the alive and breathing. Is it the man, animal, bird and the sea or vice versa? Who regulates and classifies the categories? Who arranges and sorts the array of the breathings? Is it legitimate?.

The movie starts paying tribute to those thousands of farmers who committed suicide between years 1993 to 2006 at a ratio of 9,360 a year, and who inspire the story.


It was the time to harvest the potatoes. Karbhari, the village farmer was all geared up to yield the tubers and payback the money he owed to the local village money lender Sahukar Tatya. It was one unfortunate evening that coming back from the graze, Chitangya, Karbhari’s bull fell into the leopard traps and broke his hind leg. Unable to stand on its feet and move, it was not possible for Chitangya to plough the fields. Persistent and constant medication and treatment by Karbhari and his wife Anjana could not resurrect Chitangya to employ. Karbhari now went through shivers. As a little delay in reaping would have the buds on the potatoes. Karbhari did not want to penalize himself more from the sahukar. Pandu, a neighbor farmer from the village had just committed a suicide two days ago as not able to return the money to Sahukar. The only choice he could think was to sell the bull to a local butcher and add some money to buy a young bull who could work. But Tingya, Karbhari’s 7 year old younger son did not think of Chitangya in the same breath. Chitangya was not just the animal for him. Chitangya was his elder brother. He was born with Chitangya. He was two months younger than Chitangya.They had shared so many moments together. They had grown up together. And he had a volley of valid questions to which no one had the answers... “Why wasn’t Rashida’s grandmother being sold to the butcher? She too was old and not working. Why were they all taking care of her and not his Chitangya? Chitangya certainly would not depart.” The death of the old grandmother in the neighboring house and selling of an animal come face to face to reveal the reality.

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David Lynch's short interview

Read here. or the following inlined text...

Questions for David Lynch

Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON

Published: November 21, 2008

This interview is scheduled to appear in a special issue on screens, so let’s start by contemplating the current fascination with the small screen.
That’s a terrible subject. There’s nothing like the big screen. The cinema is really built for the big screen and big sound, so that a person can go into another world and have an experience. As an example, there’s Stanley Kubrick’s “2001:A Space Odyssey” — this would be kind of a pathetic joke on a little screen.

How do you feel about someone watching your films — “Eraserhead,” “Blue Velvet,” “Mulholland Drive” — on a laptop?
More and more people are seeing the films on computers — lousy sound, lousy picture — and they think they’ve seen the film, but they really haven’t.

Because the small screen emphasizes plot over visuals?
It’s a pathetic horror story.

On the other hand, you do appear on countless computer screens every day, giving a weather report from your home in Los Angeles, on your Web site.
People are kind of interested in weather. It’s not artistic. It’s just me sitting there in my painting studio.

Who films you?
It’s a camera that comes down out of the ceiling.

I hear you’re starting an online series on transcendental meditation, based on your book “Catching the Big Fish.” Is the small screen a good format for discussing meditation?
Any format is a good format for meditation. Every single person has within an ocean of pure vibrant consciousness. Every single human being can experience that — infinite intelligence, infinite creativity, infinite happiness, infinite energy, infinite dynamic peace.

Tell us about your foundation.
The David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace — we raise money to give meditation to any student or school. There is a huge waiting list.

As a devotee of cultivated bliss, how do you explain the proclivity for twisted eroticism and dismembered body parts in your films?
A filmmaker doesn’t have to suffer to show suffering. You just have to understand it. You don’t have to die to shoot a death scene.

Do you see yourself as an American Surrealist?
Dennis Hopper called me that, and that is the way he sees it. It’s more than just Surrealism to me.

I think of you as someone who transported the noir sensibility from the city into a Norman Rockwell setting. What do you think of his paintings?
I love his work. It’s like Edward Hopper. They see a certain thing, and they catch it.

What is that clock you’re holding in this photograph?
I just didn’t want to stand there like an idiot. It’s an old clock, but I am building this plastic bubble around it.

Is it a sculpture?
In a way it is. You mentioned Surrealism, and time was very important to the Surrealists.

But Dali painted melting clocks, and yours isn’t melting, is it?
It’s not melting, no. But part of it is made of polyester resin, which at one time was liquid.

I hear you’re getting married again.
In February. I’m marrying a girl named Emily Stofle.

Is she an actress? Was she in any of your films?
She was just in one, “Inland Empire.”

You’ve been married three times before?
Yeah, it’s real great.

Why would someone who feels so generally blissed out marry so many times?
Well, we live in the field of relativity. Things change.

Do you plan to film your wedding?
No. It’s a hassle. So many things these days are made to look at later. Why not just have the experience and remember it?

Because most people have the experience and forget it.
Some things we forget. But many things we remember on the mental screen, which is the biggest screen of all.

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