Selected by MovieMaker Magazine as one America’s “coolest film festivals,” the Disposable Film Festival was created in 2007 by Eric Slatkin and Carlton Evans to celebrate the creative potential of disposable video: short films made on everyday equipment like cell phones, pocket cameras, and other inexpensive video capture devices.

Surabhi is one of the finalists in the Competitive Shorts Program. The opening night event is going to take place at the historic Castro Theater in San Francisco on March 24th. The theater can seat close to 1,500 people, but the groupon is already sold out (thats 700 seats gone) and the show is likely to sell out very soon. You can still get your tickets over at Brown Paper Tickets. The exciting line-up consists of 25 super-short films from all over the world.

Finally, here’s the promo video to pique your interest:

I can’t claim that I know Mumbai: I’ve never lived there and the only times I’ve visited have been short work-related trips. Yet I always thought that all Indians should have some innate familiarity with that city of dreams, just by virtue of being Indians (not to mention the healthy coverage of Mumbai in Bollywood movies). Everyone is familiar with the Gateway of India, Bollywood movies and movie stars, vada-pav, local trains, monsoons, Marine drive and such. And thus, I felt a strange mixture of fascination, sadness and yes, a bit of betrayal recently, as I read two compelling books about Mumbai.

In Maximum City, Suketu Mehta rediscovers Mumbai as he returns (multiple times) to the city he grew up in. Through his eyes, we catch a glimpse of the lives of gangsters and foot soldiers, students and school teachers, bar dancers and prostitutes, yogis and Jainis. Names like Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Tanuja, Preity Zinta are instantly recognizable and lend the book a voyeuristic appeal. At times disturbing, but always intriguing, Mehta paints a vivid picture of Mumbai, one that I did not know exist. And yet, the book felt “safe”, for Mehta was usually telling stories about others.

On the other hand, Gregory David Roberts as Shantaram is at once more intimate yet surreal. While reading it, I remember thinking to myself “fact is stranger than fiction” many a times over. Shantaram is as gripping as an autobiography of sorts can be, but probably contains a tad too many preachy one-liners and life lessons. It was even more fascinating than Maximum City because it is set in a time when I was just a kid — Mehta’s stories are far more contemporary. I found myself Googling for the various characters and places in the book, desperately trying to judge the fraction of fiction in the treatise. But it doesn’t really matter — Mr. Robert’s story is an incredible one nonetheless.

Meanwhile, I think I’m going to stay away from books about Mumbai for some time now, lest I feel completely alien to the city I never really knew.

BTW, if don’t know what Taiko is or have never heard Taiko, I refer you to the mighty Wikipedia and the mightier YouTube:

I’m on a temporary hiatus from Taiko right now, but I had an amazing experience the few months I spent with SF Taiko Dojo.

Yes, there are rules and etiquettes. But in a society where anything goes and freedom rules and any kind of “discipline” is often frowned upon, SFTD was almost refreshing. In many ways, it was reminiscent of the Gurukul system in ancient India.

Taiko itself is a wonderful art form. There is something powerful about a Taiko performance. A single drum is an excellent percussion device, but in a group, Taiko takes a life of its own. Like most art forms, you can pick up the basics real quick. But to go deep into Taiko, you need time, patience and a lot of hard work. The veterans at SFTD have been playing for 10-15 years and still learning.

Needless to add, Taiko is also a fantastic full body workout. It is a combination of dance, drumming, music and more. The classes are fun, but you do need serious commitment if you want to become an advanced Taiko player. The folks in the adult beginners class are a merry bunch. Before our first class, I was extremely anxious, trying to memory numerals in Japanese from Wikipedia and worried whether I’ll be able to keep up with everyone. There was help every step of the way. The class won’t stop for you, but it will not leave you behind either :)

But the best part of SFTD is the opportunity to learn from Sensei Tanaka. His accomplishments in the world of Taiko are well known, so I won’t enlist them here. What surprised me was the humility and generosity and the energy he brings with him, even after doing this for more than four decades. He could easily delegate the adult beginners class to one of his many advanced students; yet he still routinely teaches the class himself, ever so patient and understanding. Better yet, his expertise in Taiko is matched only by his wistful humor.

So if you are in the Bay Area and are looking for some inspiration, do checkout San Francisco Taiko Dojo.

Udaan is one of those rare movies where it seems like the crew had an intense clarity about the movie they wanted to make, and that is exactly what they did. They did not make it for the money, they did not make it to please a broad audience, they did not make it to please the critics — they made it, because that was what they wanted to show.

I’m not going to talk about the story or the characters much, just Google those things if you are interested. Instead, I want to talk about an analogy.

Any good designer knows the importance of whitespace, whether in layout or typography. Architects have long understood that negative or empty space is just as (or perhaps more) important as filled space. Watching Udaan was a good reminder that good moments in a movie need their space as well.

I didn’t feel rushed as I saw the movie; it felt a bit slow at times, but there was no hurry to get to the end. There are several scenes that are made poignant by the lack of dialog. The same goes for the music. Amit Trivedi has done an outstanding job with the background score as well as the soundtrack. The lyrics (by Amitabh Bhattacharya) are fabulous and are fittingly given their space in the songs — Amit makes sure that the music recedes and does not overwhelm so you can pay attention to the words. But when the voices take a break, the music that fills in the gaps is just as good.

As my wife observed, “this movie has craft.”

Such a simple app, but such a fascinating output. An easy way to create computer generated art! Couple of observations:

• I have a dual-monitor setup at work. I use the left monitor for email for browsing and the right monitor for code. The mouse patterns clearly reflect this usage pattern. I tend to rest the mouse roughly equally on the both the monitors.
• I was very intrigued by the fact that most of the mouse motions are very smooth. Most curves almost look parabolic. There are very few jerks and jittery lines. Once again, nature seems poetic even in the most chaotic and random actions.

Here’s a sample of her works:

She also has a series of daily drawings up on her blog.

An international prize for contemporary arts and a network for art professionals.

There are some really amazing videos in there. If you are interested in video art at all, I highly recommend checking out some of the entries. And of course, if you like Surabhi’s work, please vote for it! Here’s PEEL:

Artist: Euphoria

Media: CD

Year: 2006

Its official — Euphoria is my favorite desi band. Their consistency and quality just amazes me. I’ve done innumerable reruns of all three (the website says four…) of their albums and every now and then I would re-discover some song that had skipped my attention earlier. Across all their albums, there is no song I actively dislike, and a lot of songs that I actively like. That says something, doesn’t it :-) Anywho, naturally when I heard their 4th album, “Mehfuz” is out, I was excited.

I’m happy to announce that Euphoria is mehfuz with Mehfuz. The album is instantly recognizable as Euphoria — the beats, Palash’s voice, the music supple and crisp at the same time. There’s a good mix of songs — some fast (Zabr Bhoola, Dil) and some slow (Mehfuz, Sawera). The title song Mehfuz is just fabulous and my favorite so far. Beautiful lyrics and nice, soulful music. Doha is a pleasant departure from conventional pop, and it was refreshing to see them dabbling with english ballad-style “She’s beautiful”.

The other nice thing about this album is that it is very diverse in its sounds. There are shades of punjabi, konkani, bangla and marathi music sprinkled here and there. Highly recommended!!

… is perhaps the worst movie I’ve seen after coming to the US (or definitely, the worst movie experience!) Here’s why:

Alright, for starters this was a free screening for UCSD students. Passes were being distributed at the UCSD box offices. We had already picked up 4 passes and since the pass said “reach early” and “seating on a FCFS basis” we reached at 6:30 for the 7 pm show, only to find that the line had already become so long that it spilled out of Mandeville onto Gilman Drive!!! :-O

Ok, so these people are just as crazy about freebies as anyone else. But it was just the beginning. Sometime between 20 min and half an hour, we realized that the passes were no good—since the passes were actually passes for getting “red tickets” that would actually get you admission into the movie. And some guy came down shouting that they had sold out of all red tickets.

Great, just great. While Mac and Anish waited in the line, Kiran and I went up to scout things out. And while we were scouting, Mac and Anish got lucky with some blokes who were just handing out their red tickets—so they promptly got out of line and came up front looking for us. Meanwhile (ok, too many whiles I know) Kiran and I had managed to “squeeze” our way into the front little knowing that our passes were no good.

Mac and Anish soon joined us and gave the bad news. Dejected, we were just about to drop out of the line where I sighted a guy who was giving back 2 red tickets to one of the organizers—just our luck! I seized upon the guy without wasting a second and coaxed him into handing over the tickets to us. So far so good! We were so happy that luck was on our side this evening.

Ah well, that didn’t last long though. First we were made to go through an airport grade security check—and all laptops, cameras and even walkmen were confiscated :-O It took excruciatingly long to fill up the auditorium and the movie started almost 2 hours behind schedule. After the movie was over, it took another 30 min to retrieve our electronics and get out of that place.

But of course, if it was not for these exciting events, I wouldn’t have had anything to write about, for the movie itself was just plain pathetic. I could hardly grasp the story, let alone the big picture. Acting was mediocre, special affects wasted, not even enough skin show to hold us back. What are they counting on to pull this movie through???