Dharamshala International Film Festival

Maki Satake

mila — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 15:37:30 +0000

Maki was born in Hokkaido, Japan in 1980. She graduated from The Hokkaido University of Education, Sapporo. Maki chiefly makes animation through the use of photographs and records her life in photos and videos.

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Aditi Chitre

mila — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 15:04:51 +0000

Aditi Chitre is an animation filmmaker currently based in Delhi. An alumna of the Faculty of Fine Arts, MSU Baroda, she has been exploring the animation medium through her location as a painter. Her first film was ‘The Mall On Top Of My House’- a 5.5 minute animation on the theme of land reclamation and the displacement of the fishing community in her hometown, Bombay. ‘Journey to Nagaland’, her second film, began with her travels to Nagaland and the desire to share the many stories that she encountered there. Since it’s completion the filmmaker has continued her engagement with Nagaland in the form of art worshops and projects that she has been conducting there. As a painter and animator she also thoroughly enjoys interacting with young people through the art and animation workshops that she has been conducting in her hometown and elsewhere.

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Vestige of Life

mila — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 06:34:16 +0000

Satake’s grandparents left the house they had lived in for many years. It contains their memories as well as hers. There are the memories of her childhood, and many photographs taken by her father. Satake recorded the house everytime she visited and using these materials, she attempts to reconstruct her memory.

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Journey to Nagaland

mila — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 17:15:11 +0000

Journey to Nagaland is a short animated documentary about a young girl who is led to a distant land by the force of her visions and goes on a journey to discover her mother’s origins.

Awards for Journey to Nagaland:
1. Best Animation Film with citation 4th IDSFFK, 2011
2. Special Jury mention for Sound Design with citation 4th IDSFFK, 2011
3. Best Animated Short Film (Professional Category) – INFOCOM–ASSOCHAM EME AWARDS, Kolkata, 2011, Recognizing Excellence in Media & Entertainment
4. The Golden Conch, MIFF, for Best Animation Film, Mumbai 2012

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Karan Gour

mila — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 12:31:08 +0000

This 28 year old filmmaker was born in New Delhi, but grew up in the quaint south Indian town of Kodaikanal. Music took up most of his time as he always found himself intrigued and drawn towards it. After graduation, he took up a course in sound engineering in Mumbai to nurture his passion, while he started to compose and produce his own music.

Post the course, Karan joined as a reviewer for an audio- visual tech magazine and it was around this time he started writing the story that was to become his first feature film, ‘Kshay’. For the next two and a half years, he scripted, directed and edited the film, while simultaneously composing the original soundtrack for it- all this while managing a day job that payed the bills.

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Miguel Gonçalves Mendes

mila — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 15:38:36 +0000

Miguel Gonçalves Mendes is a Portuguese film director, screenwriter, and film producer. He has directed four feature films and eight short films since 2002, a filmography that took him to renowned film festivals around the globe. In 2010 he directed the 117-minute documentary José and Pilar, a walk through the last years of life of the Nobel Prize winner for Literature, José Saramago and his wife Pilar del Rio, a moving love story of humanistic reaching. The film, co-produced by Pedro Almodóvar’s El Deseo and Fernando Meirelles’ O2, gathered very positive reviews and prompted a unique popular movement in Portugal. Recently Miguel announced he will be adapting José Saramago’s The Gospel According to Jesus Christ with an international screenwriter and a foreign cast and crew.

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José and Pilar

mila — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 15:25:32 +0000

José and Pilar, a documentary by Miguel Gonçalves Mendes, is a deeply moving story about love, loss and literature. It follows the days of José Saramago, the Nobel-laureate Portuguese novelist, and his wife, Pilar del Rio. The film shows their whirlwind life of international travel, his passion for completing his last masterpiece, The Elephant’s Journey and how their love quietly sustains them throughout.

José and Pilar reveals the hidden Saramago, unravels any preconceived notions about him, and proves that genius and simplicity are indeed compatible. It is a funny and touching portrait on the endurance of the artistic spirit. A glimpse into the life of one of the greatest creators of the 20th century, it shows us that, as Saramago says, “There is always another way to say everything.”

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Mark Elliott

mila — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 09:59:23 +0000

Mark Elliott has been making documentary films since the early 1970’s, when he walked into Dharamsala, India, with a primitive video camera and made a film on Tibetans in exile at the invitation of the Dalai Lama. His films include ‘The Lion’s Roar’, the acclaimed portrait of
the Sixteenth Karmapa; ‘Concert in the Sky’ featuring the high wire walker Philippe Petit; ‘Crow Dog’s Paradise’ with the Lakota medicine men Henry and Leonard Crow Dog; and ‘Eros, Love and Lies’ with R.D. Laing. He has also made a series of films, following “The Lion’s Roar”, focusing on Tibetan Buddhism, its traditions and figures. These include ‘Eye of the Land’, ‘Under the Bodhi Tree’, and the more recent, ‘Bodhisattva’ and ‘Yangsi’.

Mark’s fascination is to explore the world of visionary people through the medium of film. His films have been showed on television internationally, received glowing reviews from the New York Times to the Hollywood Reporter, and shown in the US through outlets such as The Discovery Channel, Landmark Theaters and PBS.

For the last twenty four years Mark has lived in the remote mountain community of Crestone, Colorado.”

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Kshay

mila — Sun, 07 Oct 2012 12:48:21 +0000

Kshay revolves around the personification of an obsession, fueled by nothing more than intangible desires. Chhaya is a simple housewife who has an artistic bent of mind and a seemingly happy life with her husband Arvind. Money trickles in every month and life goes on for an unassuming Chhaya, until her eyes catch hold of an unfinished sculpture of the Hindu Goddess Lakshmi. Her values and relationships as she knows them begin to decay day by day, surrendering to the clutches of an ugly obsession that feeds on her weaknesses and past disappointments. She must have the “Lakshmi”, as if to make up for all that she has yearned for in her life.Kshay takes an unforgiving look at obsession; how it infects the frailty of our minds, corroding reasoning, reality and emotional fulfillment.

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Matthew Akers

mila — Sun, 07 Oct 2012 10:38:47 +0000

Akers is the Director and Cinematographer of MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ THE ARTIST IS PRESENT, a feature documentary about the legendary performance artist that will have its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and air on HBO in 2012.

He was the cinematographer of the award winning documentary film LEMON, about the pioneering poet, three-time felon, and one-time Tony award winner Lemon Andersen. Akers produced and was the cinematographer of CIRCUS, a six-part documentary series that aired in November 2010 on PBS.

In addition, he has been the cinematographer of numerous other feature documentaries including the HBO documentaries, BACK IN THE HOOD: GANG WAR II, HEIR TO AN EXECUTION and ELAINE STRITCH: AT LIBERTY.

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