My Experience: Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (IFFLA 2016)

When I sit down to write this piece on my experience on attending ‘Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (IFFLA 2016)’ at Los Angeles, USA, I am still carrying the hangover of this wonderful event. Indeed it was a dream come true experience for me. The very atmosphere of film festivals does mesmerize me. Literally I can ‘eat films, drink films and sleep films. I have witnessed a few film festivals in India too and every experience gave me new insights into the world of cinema.

This film festival is special to me due to many personal reasons. Yes, as the first love matters, the ‘first time’ matters. There are many ‘firsts’ in this film festival. This was my first ever International Film Festival. This was my first film festival where I had the Press Badge with me. This was my first International Solo Trip. So, with so many ‘firsts’, this Indian Film Festival at Los Angeles has become a very intriguing experience for me, which I am going to cherish forever in my life. Let me try sharing with you a glimpse of the happenings at IFFLA in the best manner possible, so that I can take you through the corridors of my experience of this wonderful film festival.

Three days spent with lot of excitement

I would like to begin with my first interaction with IFFLA officials which was followed by their connecting me to their PR firm officials Mitch, Karen and Tiffany. Oh, I must say that what a prompt response I got from IFFLA as well as their PR team. I am really impressed with the swiftness with which my all queries were responded, issued me the Press Badge. Witnessed an epitome of professionalism from IFFLA as well as their support team.

My Press Badge

About IFFLA: This was the 14^th year of IFFLA. It is a non-profit organization devoted to a greater appreciation of Indian cinema and culture by showcasing films. It has the reputation of its commitment towards supporting and celebrating the new wave of Indian Cinema, promoting a multitude of cinematic perspectives from India and the Indian diaspora, and bridging the gap between the two largest entertainment industries in the world – Hollywood and India. In Christina Marouda’s words (Founder and Chair of the board): “We are thrilled and proud to present an eclectic line-up that reflects the diversity of Indian Cinema, as well as the future of Indian film-making, with cutting-edge filmmakers taking bold risks, defying convention, and responding to injustice.”

The Venue: The venue was ArcLight Hollywood, IFFLA’s home since its inception. A grand venue for the film festival. It is a 14-screen multiplex with great infrastructure.

Image Courtesy: Click Here

Dates: The dates of the 14^th Indian Film Festival at Los Angeles were 6-10^th April, 2016. Due to my preoccupations, I could not attend initial 2 days, but could attend from 8-10^th April, 2016. 

Line up of Films: This festival showcased some of the best films. This year’s programme celebrated women filmmakers as well as regional cinema including films in Tamil, Marathi, Malayalam, Punjabi, Bengali, Urdu and Assamese. The schedule at a glance.

Opening Night Gala: Opening film was director Pan Nalin’s film ‘Angry Indian Goddesses’ - Refer this link, which has gathered rave reviews in India too. 

Image Courtesy: Facebook Page of Angry Indian Goddesses

Opening Night Gala: Image Courtesy

The films shown in the IFFLA are listed below. Links for synopsis of various films are also given. The synopsis' courtesy is  official web page of IFFLA i.e. http://www.indianfilmfestival.org/film-guide-events/film-guide-2016/ 

Hindi Films:                

Aligarh                (Click here for synopsis)     

Island City           (Click here for synopsis)

Masaan                (Click here for synopsis)

Parched               (Click here for synopsis)

Sujata                 (Click here for synopsis)

Umrika                (Click here for synopsis)

Hindi and English Films:

CRD                     (Click here for synopsis)

Khoya                  (Click here for synopsis)

Punjabi and Hindi Film:

Beeba Boys          (Click here for synopsis)

English Films:

Brahman Naman  (Click here for synopsis)

The Tiger Hunter (Click here for synopsis)

Tamil Film:

Kirumi (Virus)      (Click here for synopsis)

Visaaranai (Interrogation)  (Click here for synopsis)

Tamil and English Film:

For the Love of a Man  (Click here for synopsis)

Assamese Film:

Kothanodi (River of Fables)  (Click here for synopsis)

Malayalam Film:

Ottaal (The trap)   (Click here for synopsis)

Short Films:

Playgrounds (Hindi and Tamil)

Love comes later (English)

Shorts Programme 1(Click here for synopsis): 

Ashrut (Silent Voices) (Bengali)  

Bunny (Non Dialogue)                

Daaravtha (The Threshold) (Marathi)  

The Manliest Man (Hindi and Bundeli)  

Shorts Programme 2 (Click here for synopsis) :

Babu’s Dilemma (Hindi and English)     

Chhaya (The shadow) (Non-dialogue)  

Leeches (Urdu and Dakhani)               

Mast Qalandar (Punjabi and Hindi)       

Mochi (The Cobbler) (Hindi and Marathi)  

Closing Night Gala: Closing film was director Anu Menon’s film ‘Waiting’ (Refer here), which is going to be released in India on 29^th April, 2016.

Image Courtesy: IFFLA's official page

A beautiful film which touched my heart. Click here for its detailed review.

The Filmmaker Roundtable: Another highlight of this film festival was ‘The Filmmaker Roundtable). Nine filmmakers participated actively where discussions revolved around the independent cinemas getting more visibility, acceptance, Indian censor board policies and collaborating as a community to grow and evolve further. This was moderated by John Nein (senior Programmer, Sundance Film Festival) – Extreme left in the photograph below. The filmmakers who made this a very interesting discussion were (Left-right in the photograph) : Anu Menon (Waiting), Q (Brahman Naman), Ruchika Oberoi (Island City), Leena Yadav (Parched), Sami Khan (Khoya), Hansal Mehta (Aligarh), Kranti Kanade (CRD), Bhaskar Hazarika (Kothanodi), Vettri Maran (Visaaranai)  

My personal favourites: Since I could attend only 3-days film festival, my personal favourites don’t cover two-days’ films. Out of the films I watched, my favourites are : Aligarh, Masaan, Waiting, Parched, Visaaranai. Please do read my reviews of Aligarh (Click here), Masaan (Click here) and Waiting (Click here). I would certainly be posting review of Parched too.

The film festival ended on 10^th April, 2016 with a grand dinner and cocktail party organized at Spice Affair, Beverly Hills. DJ created a perfect environment and the filmmakers as well as film lovers danced together.

The Award winners: Grand Jury Awards as well as Audience Choice Awards were declared.

Grand Jury Awards:

Best Feature: Visaaranai (Interrogation)

Best Actor: Sanjay Mishra (Masaan)

Best Actress: The Cast of Parched – Tannishtha Chatterjee, Radhika Apte, Surveen Chawla, Lehar Khan

Feature Honourable Mention: Aligarh

Feature Honourable Mention: Masaan

Best Short Film: Playgrounds

Short Film Honourable Mention: Leeches

Short Film Honourable Mention: The Manliest Man

Audience Choice Awards:

Best Feature: Parched

Best Short: Daarvatha (The Threshold)

My personal feeling: I really feel elated with this opportunity of getting to attend IFFLA. And as always, I really get delighted to meet the film makers and film personalities in person, interact with them, to know regarding their challenges and highs of film industry. And yes, as always, my selfie-spree continues.

Indian Film festival at Los Angeles certainly could bring the best films to its platform. A very well organized film festival. Kudos to IFFLA team.

Affimity: Social Home for your Passions

Social Media is an integral part of our lives. There are different social media networks viz. Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube etc. Indeed, all of these have transformed our lives and connected us in a better manner with the world. Each of these social media platforms has their own advantages.

But here is Affimity, which takes care of what these platforms are not providing us right now. 

Screenshot of Home page of Affimity 

This new-gen social media network is indeed different from what we are using at the moment. For example, when Facebook helps us to connect with people and their networks, our newsfeed hardly depends on the basis of our interests. Definitely the concept of facebook group brings the people of similar interests together, but it yet have to reach its optimal.  These groups may discuss the similar things viz. on food, movies, yoga, parenting, kids etc. but without much interaction with each other. Pinterest and Instagram does let us share our passions, but these do need advanced social features to build a community around us. As a blogger, I have observed that blog is mostly used as a broadcasting tool. I also propagate regarding my blog through twitter and other social media platforms. When I have interacted with other bloggers, they have expressed their concerns over building audience. Linkedin a bit different, since it focuses specially on professional arena, and it does help one to interact and share thoughts with people of common professional interests.

Now, let me discuss here, how Affimity, a new-gen social media network, is going to give us a different experience. It does focus on our interests within a community context. Unlike Linkedin, which focuses on single interest i.e. professional advancement, Affimity focuses on your interests within a community context. It brings more than 30 channels, each catering to specific passion viz. food, parenting, Bollywood, Hollywood, cricket, jokes etc.  

Just have a look at a few of the awesome channels over here:

Screenshot of various Channels on Affimity

I can create a social blog of mine at affimity.com/<myblog> every time, I add a post in any channel. I don’t have to worry about the audience engagement, since that is taken care by Affimity social media network. I have created my profile in Affimity. Just have a look over here:

Screenshot of My Profile page at Affimity

All android and IOS users can enjoy the app of Affimity on their mobile.

Screenshot of Affimity App on my Android mobile

Screenshot of Affimity App on my Android mobile

The presentation of Affimity looks great in the app as well. View of my certain posts at Affimity on my Android mobile:

                                  Screenshot of my posts on Affimity App on my Android mobile

 Screenshot of my posts on Affimity App (while flipping the posts), on my Android mobile

This social media platform Affimity is going to create a difference to the way in which we network. It helps and saves our time by helping us to narrow down our newsfeed to the communities of our choice. It is a social home for our passions and to share / discuss about the same with people of similar passion / interests. So, one can join the channels of his / her interest.

Affimity is a New-Gen Social Media Platform with the thought: ‘Come.Engage. Belong’. Indeed, a social home for our passions.

#affimity #socialmedia #newgensocialmediaplatform

Challenge the Perception

Me in a training session

This is one of the winning post for #IAmCapable at BlogAdda in association with Nihar Naturals : http://blog.blogadda.com/2016/04/02/winner-announcement-i-am-capable-breaking-stereotypes

Thank u BlogAdda !!!

We as human beings form opinions about others in probably 30 seconds of meeting them. And researchers say that these opinions or as we call it, first impressions are formed basically on the appearance. But the point which I want to talk here is that we should judge our own judgments about an individual. Just forming opinions, without any communication, simply on the basis of physical appearance, looks, or even the dressing sense other than ours can be disastrous and wrong at times. Having said this, I agree that, we shall definitely take care of our personal grooming. How we carry ourselves is very important. What we wear, how we wear, and our appearance everything is very important. It is indeed great to be updated about the fashion trends, but one must choose the attire as per one’s comfort and also on the basis of what suits.

Being a woman, it has happened many times during different phases of life that I have been judged on the basis of my looks, appearance and my attire. One such incident I remember which happened a decade back i.e. in 2006. It was in 2003 that I started my entrepreneurial journey as a corporate trainer. Being a Keralite, I was always fond of sarees. So, whenever I went for a training programme, sarees became my formal attire. And I must admit that wearing sarees enhanced my confidence. So, it was like any other day of a training programme. I had to speak on personal and professional excellence in an IT-enabled service organization. I chose one of my good bright cotton saree. As always, when I looked into the mirror, I felt confident in saree and got all set to conduct the session.

It was my first association with this organization. I reached 45 minutes prior to the programme and after reaching the training hall at the client site, I ensured to fix my laptop, projector etc. And slowly participants started coming. This organization had a casual attire culture and being a Friday specially, young professionals were dressed up in more casual bright colours. Being fond of colours, I was thoroughly enjoying young bright energy around me. Slowly the training hall was occupied with participants. Out of 25 participants, 20 of them were boys.

When I started the training programme, I got very lukewarm response from the participants, which was absolutely contrary to my anticipation. My gut feeling was that these young professionals would be actively participating, but in spite of introducing the topic in a broader perspective and to my satisfaction, energy was missing in the room. Although I was unable to figure out the reason, I thought to challenge myself and went ahead with the training programme. I learnt their name at one go during this introductory ice-breaker, which definitely did magic and the connect between us started happening. Slowly I saw the participants opening up.  I took the advantage of the new environment setting in, I shared with them a shayari:

    

नजर बदलो, नज़ारे बदल जायेंगे,

सोच बदलो, सितारे बदल जायेंगे,

कश्तियाँ बदलने की जरूरत नहीं,

दिशा बदलो, किनारे खुद-ब-खुद बदल जायेंगे I

This shayari earned me a big applause. Slowly, the session became more and more interactive. Free flow of conversations happened. They had lots of queries on success, excellence, balancing personal and professional lives etc. These questions made the session very interesting. The whole learning session became a great experience with lot of fun and activities. To my surprise, even the lunch table turned out to be interactive.

Now it was time for the verbal feedback at the end of 6-hours session. To explore what made them give me such a lukewarm response in the beginning, I asked them to give me response and feedback for the following three questions:

1.    What was their thought when they came for the training programme.

2.    And now, at the end of the day, what was their thought pattern?

3.    One learning which touched their heart.

Almost 15 boys and 2 girls shared honestly that they had come to the training expecting the facilitator to be dressed in western attire. Though they liked me in saree, their perception was that my training programme also would be conventional one. They confessed that their perception was absolutely wrong. They were amazed at the unconventional mode of conducting training with audio-visual slides, stories, activities, jokes, shayari. Most of them said that the very shayari, which I have mentioned above, touched their hearts.

I was really overwhelmed with their feedback. I was also very satisfied.

This incident was one typical experience of mine, where I was judged on the basis of attire. I was in traditional attire in an organization where the culture was different. I still continue to wear sarees for my training programmes, though I do take care of the fact that if I have to go to such organizations, where the culture is informal, I do try to fit myself into my comfortable formal western attire too. It is not a matter that which is the right approach, but the point which I want to highlight is that do we judge others specially women on the basis of what they wear.

One thing I do feel that it is not only men judging women on the basis of what women choose to wear, but at times, even women judge other women.

The research and survey done says that women get judged based on what look like, more than on what they do. Women don’t just have to worry about looking presentable, but also to worry about how they will be perceived. Every outfit carries a subtle message for people who pass judgments, and women are forced to adhere to the image that their appearance creates. Not just experience, but even statistics say the same. Please take a look at some of the startling figures that the Nihar Naturals #IAmCapable survey conducted by Nielsen India reveals:

a.   69% of men agree that their judgment of women is based on their looks.

b.   64% of women agree that the judgments passed on them have affected their ability to reach their true potential.

c.    70% of women agree that majority of judgments on women are from family members or friends rather than strangers.

d.   72% of women agree that working women face more judgments on their looks or their clothes than housewives.

Image Courtesy: from BlogAdda page 

I agree with this fact that one needs to look presentable and dignified. At the same time, one also needs to be careful about forming opinions about others. I also want to convey a message to us, the women fraternity, that we need to be sure and confident of ourselves and challenge the wrong perception and judgments of others. Let our performance and work speak against these unjust criticisms / false judgments and let us try to outperform ourselves. It is time for us women to excel beyond one’s own expectations and be an optimum performer in various spheres of lives rather than succumbing to these judgments.

Please watch this video (courtesy: NIhar Naturals)

I am breaking stereotypes based on appearance by sharing your experience for the #IAmCapable activity at BlogAdda in association with Nihar Naturals.