We are excited to present this film event with three thoughtfully made films, curated by Prof. Sanjeev Chatterjee. We will make the films available ahead of time so that you can watch them at your convenience. Then join us for a stimulating discussion with the three filmmakers, moderated by University of Michigan faculty member in Film Studies, Prof. Swapnil Rai.
To view the films, please register by emailing: rasafestival@aadl.org. You will be provided with the links to the films and passwords.
Attend the discussion with the filmmakers:
Saturday, November 13, 2021
USA: 10am EST
India: 8:30pm IST
Watch on:
aadl.org/rasafestival
youtube.com/rasafestival
facebook.com/rasafestival
On Cities III (2014), a non-verbal portrait of Mumbai shot by Edmund Talavera, edited by Konstantia Kontaxis and scored by Pandit Tanmoy Bose. One Cities III won the Best of Competition award at the Broadcast Education Association’s Media Arts Festival 2015.
Direction: Sanjeev Chatterjee
Duration: 14 minutes
It starts out over a song and ends up where no one could have expected. A thirteen year-old Indian girl has her first real confrontation with authority when her father forbids her to play the Western dance music she loves. When she decides to take revenge, the situation escalates to become a neighborhood scandal. A dark comedy about parental authority, teenage rebellion, curry, whiskey, and house music.
Direction : Anirban “Bann” Roy
Duration: 14 minutes
Lalit, 28, decides to come-out to his own parents. In order to reveal his sexuality, seeking acceptance, he cooks his father favorite fish curry.
Direction : Abhishek Verma
Duration: 12 minutes
Sanjeev Chatterjee is a documentary media maker and professor based in Miami, FL. His documentary films have garnered numerous awards at film festivals internationally. Sanjeev is a two-time Fulbright Scholar and a Fellow of the Salzburg Global Seminar. His film One Water is estimated to have reached over 400 million households on various channels around the globe including Discovery, CCTV, Doordarshan, among others. Sanjeev is the founder of Media for Change – a 501 c 3 non-profit focused on fostering a global media changemaker community.
Anirban “Bann” Roy is a multi-award-winning independent director and writer based in Los Angeles, CA. His films speak to his own experiences as an uprooted individual who never felt like he fit in. Most of his work has been on television in the US and abroad. His film Ashpordha found theatrical release. He is currently in pre-production for his next short film Apatoto. Folks at his neighborhood Starbucks call him Bond – as in James.
Abhishek Verma is an animation filmmaker, co-founder of graphicshelf.com (an Indian comics and graphic novel repository), and a Design educator. He graduated from the Indian Design Centre (IDC) at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay in 2014. In 2017, he was awarded the Young India Fellowship from Ashoka University.
His independently produced animation films have won numerous awards in the international animation festival circuit. In 2018, his film Maacher Jhol (Fish Curry) won the prestigious Indian National Film Award and City of Annecy Award at the Annecy International film festival. He was honored with an award at Académie des César, The Nuits en Or 2019.
Moderator:
Dr. Swapnil Rai is a faculty member in the Department of Film, TV and Media Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her research focuses on global film and television, media industries, women and gender studies, race and ethnicity, transnational stardom, and celebrity culture. Her current book project examines the history of global flows of Indian films and the role of stars in Bollywood production culture and industry globalization.
Dr. Rai holds a Ph.D. from the Department of Radio, TV and Film at the University of Texas at Austin. She has served as a Postdoctoral Visiting Fellow at the Center for Contemporary South Asia at Brown University and has taught at the College of Film and the Moving Image at Wesleyan University.
Rasa Festival 