I took the day out to watch movies and watched 5 in line.
1. Caramel (Sukkar Banat)
Director Nadine Labaki
Country : France
Set in and around a Beirut beauty saloon, Caramel stirs together the smooth and the crunchy of 5 women’s lives. This is a film where one looks past war and politics to the eternal truths of love and passion. The director Labaki herself plays Layale, leading an ansemble cast that generates enormous warmth and wit onscreen. The film has a rich visual palette, where the salon and its activities are shot with a touch of magic realism and dream like compositions.
2. First Time (Mudhal Mudhal Mudhal Varai)
Director : Krishnan Seshadri
Country : India (Tamil)
Charming Hayagreeva aka Huggy’s passionate about filmmaking and he records people on his digital camera including himself. Huggy intends to marry his girlfriend Sindhu who suffers from a fatal illness. While he is desparately looking for a producer, hemakes a living as a nn ad film maker. Amidst these parallel tracks in his life, uggy finds the culmination of his passion in a plethora of his characters. He records their experiences only to realize that the unforgettable moments have become his first feature film!
3. Gho Mala Asla Hava
Director: Sumitra Bhave, Sunil Sukhtankar
Country : India
A strange, musical, teenager love story. A story of a rural young girl Savitri, who revolts a gainst the age old custom of matchmaking by the elders. The story unfolds like a folklore, breking into sons, in a humourous way to depict the involvement of the whole village in Savitri’s wish fulfillment.
4. Faro La reine Des Eaux (Faro Goddess of the rivers)
Director : Slif Traor
Zanga returns to his rural Mali village after being cast out many years back for the reason that he was born out of wedlock, making him a figure of scorn to the locals. He is now a successful engineerdetermined to usher his village into modern era – much to the constrnation of the superstitious villagers who previously shunned him. He also wants to know the identity of his biological father. But when the girl drowns in the sacred river, locals draw the conclusion that river Goddess Faro is enraged at Zanga’s return. A sacrifice is called for; Zanga must once again stand upto superstition and patriarchal oppression, while still searching desperately for the key to his identity.
5. Stellet Licht (Silent Light)
Director : Carlos Reygadas
Silent Light revolves around married Johan who falls in love with another woman, Marianne. Johan, a devout Mennonite, battles with his conscience in the hope that of maintaining stability within his family; despite the belief that Marianne is his “natural woman”. A fictional story about everyday rapture in an isolated Mennonite community in northern Mexico — and performed by a cast of mostly Mennonite nonprofessionals –the film was written, directed and somehow willed into unlikely existenece by Carlos Reygadas, who immersed himself into this private worls.
6. Harischandrachi Factory
Director : Paresh Mokashi
Country : India
Dada Saheb Phalke had abondoned a well establishedprinting business after a quarrel with his business partner. He decides he would never enter into printing business again. It was during one fo his job searches that he accidentally stumbled acrossa tent theater that was screeing a silent motion picture. The idea of film making struck him. Along with his wife and 2 kids by his side, he ventured into a filed unknown to contemporary India. Making Indai’s first feature film, ‘Raja Harischandra’ was an amazing adventure. Together, not only did they deliver the first Indian film, but they had ensured it to become the first super hit film too!
7. Cafe Saterah
Director : Saman Moghadam
Country : Iran
The overlapping tales of 3 women who live in a poor Iranian neighborhood unfolds before the audience by revisiting certain plot points from different perspectives. Each revisit reveals new new insight into the characters’ motivations and struggles. Thsi engaging story centers around people who frequent the Cafe Saterah and how each of them leaves a mark on the lives of the 3 main female characters.
First female character loses her husband who tortures her, 2nd character’s boyfriend is jailed just before their marriage while 3rd one manages to find her lovw and marry in the end.
) Recently I went to Neelkantheshwar, which is around 50 km from Pune. The name of the hill comes from Lord Shiva whose temple is there on the mountain (by the same name). There are sculptures depicting various prasangs of Ramayana, Mahabharat and Hindu mythology.
