New Generations 2013

Ship Of Theseus

If the parts of a ship are replaced, bit-by-bit, is it still the same ship?
An unusual photographer grapples with the loss of her intuitive brilliance as an aftermath of a clinical procedure; an erudite monk confronting an ethical dilemma with a long held ideology, has to choose between principle and death; and a young stockbroker, following the trail of a stolen kidney, learns how intricate morality could be.Following the separate strands of their philosophical journeys, and their eventual convergence, Ship of Theseus explores questions of identity, justice, beauty, meaning and death.

Ship Of Theseus explores the moral dilemmas faced by three disparate individuals – an experimental photographer, an ailing monk and a young stockbroke…

„Ship Of Theseus“ has been received very well by the young Indian audience.

• Script, Director: Anand Gandhi • India 2012 • 139 Min. • Hindi/English with engl. subtitles • Cast: Aida El-Kashef, Neeraj Kabi, Sohum Shah, Faraz Khan, Vinay Shukla, Amba Sanyal • Music: Rohit Sharman, Naren Chandavarkar, Benedict Taylor

Watch Trailer

The Projectionist

A few years ago, in the backroom of a cinema in a small harbor town in Bangladesh, seven-year-old Rakib found a huge toy: an old 35mm film projector.

Step by step, Rakib learned how to operate the machine twice his size. Three years later, what had started out as a playful and exciting game had turned into a regular job. Now, at the age of ten, Rakib works as a projectionist providing much-needed support to his family.
In his documentary The Projectionist, filmmaker Shaheen Dill-Riaz follows Rakib as he spends his days between home, school and the cinema. What emerges is the intimate portrait of a young boy living a tough life as the family’s only breadwinner. Dill-Riaz poignantly captures the conflicts between Rakib, his parents and his siblings. However, the strongest scenes in The Projectionist are the moments which show that despite all hardship Rakib still manages to keep his childlike nature intact.

By courtesy of ZDF/3sat

• Director: Shaheen Dill-Riaz • Bangladesh 2012 • 29 Min. • Bengali with German subtitels • Music: Eckart Gadow • Songs out of the film Number One Shakib Khan

Beyond Bollywood

“Beyond Bollywood” is a feature documentary filmed over a period of four years, that follows the journeys of four characters working on the fringes of the worlds’ biggest film industry. In Mumbai, where the stark contrast between the rich and the poor is blatantly apparent, the reality is a grueling process in a cut-throat industry, churning out more films a year than any other film industry in the world.
 “Beyond Bollywood” intricately weaves together four narrative stories of an Australian backpacker who stumbles upon a career as ‘the white extra’; a powerful Union worker who becomes the ‘leader’ of the laborers on set; a diva make-up artist who is popular for creating the glamorous look of Bollywood actresses; and a small-town girl who holds onto her naïve hopes of one day “making it” in Bollywood, like her favorite superstar. By intertwining the stories, the universal story that lingers deep within everyone that is drawn to the entertainment industry is told: the dream to become somebody; a superstar in their own right. “Beyond Bollywood” offers an in-depth insight into the reality behind following ones dream in present day modernizing India, which in our celluloid era can be dubbed as a culture that identifies itself as ‘Bollywood’.

• Directors: Adam Dow und Ruchika Muchhala • India 2012 • 54 Min. • Hindi with engl. subtitles • Mit: Prem Singh Thakkur, Ojas Rajani, Harry Key, Pooja Kasekar • Music. Tarun Shahani und Vinayak Manohar

Watch Trailer

Celluloid

Celluloid is a movie which portrays the life of JC Daniel in a realistic manner. This movie shows the difficulties faced by Daniel during the making of the movie, Vigathakumaran, the first film made in Kerala. The lead actor Prithviraj has done a fine job, and J C Daniel is undoubtedly one of the best characters which he have performed in his whole career.The other cast includes, Mamta Mohandas, Sreenivasan, Sreejith Ravi, TG Ravi, Nedumudi Venu etc. The movie is produced by the Director along with Ubaid. The cinematography is done by Venu, and K Rajagopal is behind the crisp cuts.

Celluloid, the biopic movie filmed by master director Kamal is going sky high in terms of recognitions, and the movie is getting frequent selection in various International Film Festivals. The movie which is based on the real life of JC Daniel, the Father of Malayalam Cinema had gained huge critical acclaim upon its release, and was a huge hit in Malayalam Box Office.

• Script Director: Kamal • India 2013 • 129 Min. • Malayalam/English with engl. subtitles • Cast: Prithviraj, Sreenivasan, Mamta Mohandas, Nedumudi Venu, Chandni • Music: M. Jayachandran

Watch Trailer

The Human Factor

Songs have been an integral part of Indian films. The singers, the music directors, the lyricists – they have all been celebrated for their work and many have attained legendary status. But who were those unseen – and uncredited – musicians who made up the orchestras that played on those songs and the background scores?
‘The Human Factor’ tells the fascinating story of the Lords, a Parsi family of musicians who collectively worked for over 60 years in Mumbai’s film orchestras. But the story of the Lords is not theirs alone. It also remains a crucial but obscure chapter in the history of Indian cinema.

In the centenary year of Indian cinema, this documentary – replete with rare archival material – will provide viewers with a subaltern history of Bollywood.

Rudradeep Bhattacharjee is a writer and independent film-maker based in Mumbai. ‘The Human Factor’ is his first feature-length documentary.

Director: Rudradeep Bhattacharjee • India 2012 • 76 Min. • English/Hindi with English subtitles Music: C. Ramchandra, S.D. Burman, Naushad Ali, O.P. Nayyar, Shankar-Jaikishen, Madan Mohan, Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Kalyanji-Anandji, R.D. Burman

Jadoo

Two brothers, both wonderful chefs, fall out catastrophically. At the climax of their dispute they rip the family recipe book in half – one brother gets the starters and the other gets the main courses. They set up rival restaurants, on opposite sides of the same road, and spend the next twenty years trying to outdo each other. Neither brother will admit it but they both know they are not entirely successful in the ‘other half’ of the menu.

It takes a daughter – a successful London lawyer, Shalini, marrying a man from a different ethnic background – to reunite them. She is planning her marriage and is determined that they will both attend. Can the men bury the hatchet without actually burying the kitchen knife?

Shalini returns home to Leicester for the Hindi festival of Holi to tell her father and her uncle that she’s getting married. But it takes a challenge from a sharp ambitious new restaurant owner who tries to put them out of business and a threat from Shalini that she will not have a traditional Indian wedding before the brothers finally start to unravel the secret behind a quarrel which has lasted two decades.

Fans of BBC-Comedyserie „Goodness Gracious Me“ will be happy see Kulvinder Ghir again, freuen. Amara Karan, who plays Shalini, is well known by „Darjeeling Limited“ und Nigel Cole’s „All in Good Time“.

• Script Director: Amit Gupta • Great Britain 2013 • 84 Min. • English/Hindi with engl. subtitles• Cast: Amara Karan, Harish Patel, Kulvinder Ghir und Tom Mison • Music: Stephan Warbeck

Watch Trailer

Ustad Hotel

Ustad Hotel is a modern fairytale about Feyze, a young man discovering love, philosophy and the magic of taste. Grown up motherless, with four sisters and a father who is hardly ever home, Feyze soon develops a passion for cooking. His father, however, has other plans for his only son and plans to open a 5 star hotel.

Because Feyze doesn’t want to give up his passion, they have a dispute and Feyze runs away to his grandfather, who has a charming old restaurant on the beach of Kalikut. There, Feyze learns about the secrets of the kitchen as well as the value of community and friendship. He realizes that it’s not the pursuit of wealth, but solidarity and the different tastes that life offers what living is all about.

Anjali Menon und Regisseur Anwar Rasheed kam durch die Dreharbeiten für den Episodenfilm “Kerala Café” von Anwar Rasheed zustande, zu dem Anjali Menon den Film “Happy Journey” beigesteuert hat.

• Regie: Anwar Rasheed • Buch: Anjali Menon • Indien 2012 • 150 Min. • Malayalam with engl. subtitles• Cast: Dulquer Salmaan, Thilakan, Siddique, Nithya Menon • Music: Gopi Sunder

Watch Trailer