Issue - 2 Vol - 6 Pages : 8 RNI No. KARBIL/2010/31617 | CPMG/KA/BGS/107/2015-2017 REGISTERED : February 2015 ¥sɧæªÀj 2015 February 2015 Inside Oscar Winners Berlinale Visit Obituary : D Rama Naidu Movies for the month Bengaluru Short Film Festival Know Your Director: Pedro Costa '175 Grams', directed by Bharat Mirle and Aravind Iyer from Bangalore, is one of the five Short Film Challenge winning films at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. Bangalore Musician Ricky Kej and South African Wouter Kellerman bagged the 57th year Grammy Awards for ‘Winds of Samsara’ in the category of Best New Age Album award CONGRATULATIONS
Suchitra Newsletter "Appreciation" March 2015 Suchitra Newsletter APPRECIATION is posted last day of the every month. The newsletter carries report of the previous events and information about the next month...
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'175 Grams', directed by Bharat Mirle and Aravind Iyer from Bangalore, is one of the five Short Film Challenge winning films at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.
Bangalore Musician Ricky Kej and South African Wouter Kellerman bagged the 57th year Grammy Awards for ‘Winds of Samsara’ in the category of Best New Age Album award
CONGRATULATIONS
2February 2015
and the Oscar goes to…The answers to these oft-repeated words were
awaited with bated breath by millions of film-
buffs around the world who sat glued to their
TV sets in more than 220 countries. As the film
personalities walked on the red carpet at the
Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles on the ndevening of 22 Feb., for the 87th Annual
Academy Awards Ceremony (Oscars) it was
curtains up.
Far from the eagerly anticipated and globally
televised event it is today, the first Academy
Awards ceremony took place out of the public
eye during an Academy banquet at the
Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel on May 16, 1929
and nearly 270 people attended it. There was
little suspense when the awards were
presented that night, as the recipients had
already been announced 3 months earlier, far
from the sealed cover announcement at the
Ceremony these days.
At the 87th Academy Awards ceremony, the
winners were selected from the movies
released in 2014. The awards were presented
in 24 categories and actor Neil Patrick Harris
hosted the Ceremony for the first time. While
Julie Andrews of Sound of Music fame
presented the Award for the Best Original
Score, Oprah Winfrey gave away the Award for
the Best Adapted Screenplay and Eddie
Murphy presented the Best Original Screenplay
Awards.
Lady Gaga performed a melody of tracks from
the Sound of Music (winner of 5 Oscars) as it
celebrates its 50th Anniversary this March.
Later, Julie Andrews said - "I can't believe 50
years have gone by since that film was released.
I blinked and suddenly here I am. We all really
felt blessed and as for me - how lucky can a girl
get. Great music does more than enhance a
film, it cements our memories in the film going
experience.”
While the film The Birdman bagged 4 Awards -
Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original
Screenplay and Best Cinematography, the film
Grand Budapest Hotel also won 4 Awards - Best
Original Score, Best Production Design, Best
Costume Design and the Best Make Up and
Hair-styling awards, the film Whiplash bagged 3
Awards - Best Supporting Actor, Best Sound
Mixing and Best Film Editing Awards.
The Birdman was the big winner of the night,
bagging all the top awards, including the Best
Film and the Best Director. Best known to the
public as Birdman, the superhero he once
played in a series of films, Riggan Thomson
hopes to reestablish himself as a serious actor
by mounting his own dramatic production on
Broadway. Birdman is a black comedy that tells
the story of a man's battle with his ego, and his
quest for acceptance and notoriety. It explores
the fragility of one's mind and the idea of
'celebrity' and Hollywood and the significance
that each play in today's fame-obsessed
society. The Birdman is superbly shot,
excitingly staged and hilariously acted.
Michael Keaton was lovely in the role.
One of the most distinctive filmmakers in the
world, Mexican Director Alejandro G Innaritu
won the Best Director Award for his film The
Birdman. 15 years ago, he had made the film
Amores Perros a film about the life coursing
through Mexico city with a compelling style, a
film that made a worldwide splash and
immediately announced Inarritu then 36, as a
Master. Then he made the films 21 Grams,
Babel and Biutiful and only now this brooding
Director has made a comedy in Miraculous
Birdman and truly found his wings and is by far
his finest. Besides winning the Best Director
Award, he also won the Awards for the Best
Picture and Best Original Screenplay for his
film.
Over-riding popular expectations, Michael
Keaton lost the Best Actor Award to Eddie
Redmayne, for his performance in The Theory
of Everything. First time nominee Eddie
Redmayne who donned the role of Professor
Stephen Hawking is very good indeed in this
moving film and has already picked up the
Golden Globe, BAFTA and the Screen Actors
Guild Award depicting the debilitating
challenges of ALS. He very plausibly
represented Hawking's physical decline and
intelligently represented the enigma of
Hawking's attitude to his marriage as it both
collapsed, and yet in some other more
enigmatic way survived, both as friendship and
professional alliance.
The Best Actress Award was bagged by
Julianne Moore, a sensational actress, for her
role as an early-onset Alzheimer's patient in
the film Still Alice. In this film, she gives us
something remarkable and poignant and
poetically sensitive portrayal. Moore, 54, has
given us years of memorable roles - from A
Single Man to Children of Men to Magnolia.
She had been nominated for four Oscars for
her fabulous work in different films and this
time, she became the winner. Her career has
involved both art house and Hollywood films.
The Best Supporting Actor award was taken by
J K Simmons for his role in the film The
Whiplash. He plays the music teacher Fletcher
who motivates his students through fear and
humiliation. He is an intensely demanding
conductor at the f ict ional Schaffer
Conservatory of Music, where he bullies and
cajoles the protagonist, Andrew Neyman,
played by Miles Teller. Earlier, he had also won
the Golden Globe and the BAFTA Awards for
his performance.
Patricia Arquette won the Best Supporting
Actress Award for her role in the Boyhood and
she portrayed a divorced mother struggling to
make a life for herself and her two children.
The film was shot intermittently over the
course of a 12 year period from 2002 to 2013,
and depicts the adolescence of a young boy in
Texas growing up with divorced parents. Even
though Boyhood had six nominations to its
credit, only Patricia Arquette was able to
secure the Best Supporting Actress Award. In
her wonderful acceptance speech for the Best
Supporting Actress trophy, Patricia Arquette
spoke about wage-equality for women.
As usual, the annual In Memorium segment
was presented by actress Meryl Streep and
through montage, tributes were paid to many
departed souls including Maya Angelou,
Richard Attenborough, Lauren Becall, Anita
Ekberg, James Garner, Samuel Goldwyn.Jr.,
Edward Herrmann, Bob Hoskins, Mike Nichols,
Mickey Rooney, Stewart Stern, Eli Wallach and
Robin Williams. There were many winners and
the losers, but all took it sportingly and left the
Hall with a smile on their face hoping that they
can try their luck in the coming years. It was the
year The Birdman truimphed. But all the Best
Picture nominees left with some Award or the
other. The Academy Awards always brings us
something memorable to cherish for years to
come.
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B.S. Manohar
3February 2015
Why Mr. and Mrs. Ramachari becomes an important text - Shraddha N.V. Sharma
With houses running nearly full even on the sixth weekend, second and third time viewers queuing up with others slightly late on the up take, Mr. and Mrs. Ramachari did create quite the buzz. As do most movies with a larger than life hero and a heroine all but playing second fiddle even now in 2015. But what is it then that makes these characters so adored? What makes repeated viewers and even some of us laggards sit up with excitement when Ramachari saves the damsel in distress yet another time? It cannot simply be cathartic or escapist. For how long can we chew on the same stories for catharsis? For who really talks in the same careless monotone no matter what the circumstance? And who beats up twenty rowdies without so much of a scratch on himself? Well, everybody. Or at least everybody seems to want to be, as the box office indicates. It is indeed accommodating current developments when we see texts between the two leads take the story forward! And when we see the hero and the heroine fight it out to feed their egos, and not the ever sacrificing lovers of the past, we do experience a breath of fresh air. But how much further are we as an audience willing to push? Because we still love it when the hero no matter what the case, retains his “heroness”, his masculinity spilling out of his monotone and his lopsided intense gaze.Are we willing to accept any new strain of thought? Can we go as far as having a heroine who doesn’t need to give up her femininity just to pull off a “hero-less” box office success by herself? Or at least as far as having a hero who does not have to protect the damsel to prove his manhood? We are simply incapable of overcoming the male gaze in our cinema. As British feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey notes, it is always through the perspective of a man that we view the film; even when we look at the extraordinary hero. There is absolutely no space for a female point of
view. Of course, our industry offering one of the most unique exceptions to this rule with the string of Malashree starrers would be worthy of recalling here. But even these disappoint when the female lead becomes a thing of devotion. Stripped of her sexuality, just another “man” in a woman’s skin. There is in fact nothing terribly wrong with stereotypes. Yes, there are all based in some amount of truth. We are not even sick of clichés. We clearly forgive the filmmakers of clichés if he or she can paint us a somewhat better picture of the same characters. But the lack of multiple perspectives, a complete draught of representing even very real perspectives that we know do exist all around us, is where the problem lies. The inability to break out of the stereotype with how the movie hails the audience is the issue. In Mr. And Mrs. Ramachari for instance, we are invited into the movie, to take the hero’s side with an action sequence. Over and over again we are reminded that women need to be protected. Yes, this is not all that the plot contains but still has high recall. We are perhaps not entirely influenced by the stuff of dreams on screen. There is interplay of various influences in our lives. But over repeated exposure to the same content, there is perhaps a tendency to come away thinking that certain representations are absolute. By first acknowledging this link, it is perhaps possible for us to come up with multiple perspectives in our cinema.
4February 2015
OBITUARYD Rama Naidu (1936-2015)
Multilingual Indian film
producer and Dadasaheb
Phalke Award winner Dr.
Daggubati Ramanaidu (79)
breathed his last on 18th
Feb.15 at Hyderabad after a
long battle with cancer. In a
career spanning more than
five decades, he produced
more than 150 films in 13
Indian languages and holds
the Guinness Book of World
Records for the most films
produced by an individual.
Coming from a family of
farmers, he made his debut in
cinema with the Telugu film Anuragam in 1963 followed by the superhit
Ramudu Bheemudu starring legendary N T Ramarao in 1964. Apart from
Telugu films which topped the list, he produced movies under his home
banner Suresh Productions, in Kannada, Hindi, Bengali, Oriya,
Assamese, Malayalam, Tamil, Gujarati, Marathi and Bhojpuri.
Some of the notable films produced by Ramanaidu in Telugu were Sri
Krishna Tulabharam, Preminchu, Bobbili Raja, Aha Naapellanta, Prem
Nagar and Kathanayakudu. While he produced the Kannada films
Thavarumane Udugore and Maduve Aagona Baa, he also tried his hand
in English by producing the film Staten Island. The Hindi films he
produced include Prem Nagar, Tohfa, Insaaf ki Awaaz and Prem Qaidi.
Despite his deteriorating health, he was involved in the making of his
last film - Gopala Gopala in Telugu starring his son Venkatesh and Pawan
Kalyan which became a hit as well. He also tried his hand in politics for a
while but later concentrated on his passion of making films.
Ramanaidu built a track record in the film industry for introducing
numerous film directors as well as artistes and technicians who have
made a mark of their own in the industry. A stickler for discipline and
punctuality, he made sure he got these from any star he chose to work
with. As all the film making studios were based in Madras in the early
days, he started the Ramanaidu Studios in Hyderabad in 1983 with the
support of the State Govt. He offered the aspiring film makers the facility
of walking in with a script and leaving with the first copy of the film.
Today, his Studios has also become a popular tourist destination in
Hyderabad. He used to contribute a substantial part of his earnings to
numerous philanthropic purposes through his Charitable Trust
established in 1991.
Besides the Nandi and Filmfare awards, Ramanaidu was conferred the
prestigious Dada Saheb Phalke Award for his outstanding contribution
to the growth and development of Indian Cinema in 2009. In 2012, he
was awarded the Padma Bhushan in recognition of his contribution to
Telugu cinema. He was also conferred with the Hon. Doctorate by Sri
Venkateswara University, Tirupati. The film industry has lost an icon
with the demise of the veteran film producer Dr. D. Ramanaidu. While
condoling his death, Suchitra prays for his soul to rest in peace.
Know Your Director : Pedro Costa
WHO is he?
Portuguese scenarist, cinema
tographer and director who
has directed eight feature
films and as many short films
since his debut in 1989 with
The Blood, a highly stylised
w o r k s h o w c a s i n g t h e
director’s passion for and
knowledge of film history. He
won the Best Director prize at
this year’s edition of the
Locarno Film Festival for his
latest movie Horse Money
(2014).
WHAT are his films about?
Themes
Costa’s early films evidence him playing with decidedly ‘cinephilic’
themes where he appears to be riffing on archetypical ideas from
European cinema of his youth. Many of his later films are set in Lisbon’s
Fontainhas locality. The immigrant residents of this great slum and the
subjects of Costa’s works have a spectral presence, leading a self-
enclosed life seemingly spent in endless chatter, drug abuse and ghost-
like wandering. Costa’s non-judgmental attention is on the
government’s physical and social marginalisation of these inhabitants of
Fontainhas, whose resilience nevertheless becomes the focus of the
films.
Style
Costa’s films are characterised by an austere style, with no musical
soundtrack, long shots of people, often indoors, a marked lack of
dialogue, lengthy sequences of dead time where not much significant
action occurs, expressionistic compositions that counterpoint organic
human forms with geometric structural ones and deep contrast
imagery. Costa tackles the problem of potential exploitation of his
characters by making them contributors to his films. By collaborating
with them on their declamatory dialogue delivery and synthetic body
language, he helps them become the active voice of the works and not
the passive subjects of a conventional social-realist documentary.
WHY is he of interest?
Along with the Taiwanese cineaste Tsai-Ming Liang, Pedro Costa is
perhaps the most avant-garde of filmmakers working today, trying to
find newer, challenging idioms that resist the impatient modern
viewer’s tendency to gloss over images. More importantly, his
filmography comes across as a guiding beacon for artists who want to
wed formal experimentation with social consciousness without having
to compromise either.
WHERE to discover him?
Change Nothing (2009), one of Costa’s few films not socially oriented,
centres on French actress and singer Jeanne Balibar and her group
rehearsing, improvising and performing a group of songs. Shot in digital
video, this gorgeous film is a reflexive meditation on the artistic process,
the hard work that belies the mysterious air of preordained genius and
perfection that a great work carries.
- SRIKANTH SRINIVASAN(source: OUTTAKE – The Hindu)-B.S. Manohar
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Mugdha and Shekhar are parents of Gauri, a mentally disabled child suffering from down's syndrome. Despite her unsupportive husband, Mugdha wants to bring Gauri up normally. She separates from her husband and starts living with her brother Shri. However Gauri remains tough to handle, till she discovers her love for swimming. Thus Mugdha gets her enrolled for swimming coaching with coach Pratap Sardeshmukh. (Courtesy: Mahesh Limaye)
Compulsion from parents and relatives cause a youth to reach the seminary. Though pursuing the path of St. Francis of Assissi, the challenges and conflicts in life and seminary transforms him revengeful and quits the place. It is his journey of self discovery in which he travels far and wide, most often in to the depths of forests. Spirituality, revengeful and encounters in nature unveil the philosophical approach of the film. The names of the characters are not revealed and their time and space are unspecified (Courtesy: Sain Babu)
8
Owned, Printed & Published by N Shashidhara (President) Suchitra Film Society; Printed at Suchitra Printers & Publishers;36, 9th Main (B.V. Karanth Road), Banashankari 2nd Stage, Bangalore-560070 Ph: 080-26711785
Editor: Prakash Belawadi, [email protected] Posted at GPO Bangalore-560001 on the last day of every month.
Sun 15 2015 | 4:30 PM
UNTO THE DUSK(119m, 2014, Malayalam, India)
Director: Sajin Baabu
Sun 15 2015 | 6:45 PMSun 8 Mar 2015 | 6-30 PM
FINSTERWORLD(90m, 2013, Germany)
Dir: Frauke Finsterwalder
A journey through a surreal Germany: A police officer in a bear costume. A female documentary filmmaker who is unable to find an interesting story. A pedicurist who carefully sets aside the hard skin removed from the feet of his aged female patient. A rich couple that refuses to sit in a German-built car. A history student uninterested in a class visit to a concentration camp. A wild man training a raven in the woods. (Courtesy: Goethe Institut)
YELLOW(130m, 2014, Marathi, India)
Dir: Mahesh Limaye
February 2015
Films are subject to change or cancellation without prior noticeFilm screenings are for members of Suchitra.
Sat 14 Mar 2015 | 7:00 PM
It's almost summer in Sweden and minor
indiscretions and misbehavior abound.
Leffe likes to show off for his friends and
play salacious pranks, especially when
he's drinking. Meanwhile, a righteous
grade-school teacher doesn't know
where to draw the line: she insists her
fellow educators need a bit of
instruction. Then there are two young
teenage girls who like to pose for sexy
photos and to party, but one night in a
park, one of them is found passed out
drunk by a complete stranger.
INVOLUNTARY "De ofrivilliga“(98m, 2008, Sweden)
Director: Ruben Östlund
Sun 22 Mar 2015 | 11:45 AM
Pierre Lachenay is a well-
known publisher and
lecturer, married with
Franca and father of
Sabine, around 10. He
meets an air hostess,
Nicole. They start a love
affair, which Pierre is
hiding, but he cannot
stand staying away from
her.
THE SOFT SKIN(113m, 1964, France)Dir: Francious Truffaut