With good news relating to Pakistan scarce to come by, the nation basked in the spotlight that fell on documentary film maker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, who on Monday morning became the country’s first Oscar awardee.
Though there was none of the boisterous celebration accompanying a cricket match win, Ms. Chinoy was the toast of the day and she held the headlines even through a bomb blast left seven dead even as a chief minister narrowly escaped the attack.
As she walked up the red carpet to collect her award for Saving Face — a documentary on acid victims — in a designer outfit deliberately selected to showcase Pakistan’s fashion industry, Ms. Chinoy began trending on social networking websites. And, the ‘ghairat brigade’ (honour brigade) — who would be inclined to dismiss the film as an attempt to show Pakistan in poor light — appeared to have been silenced by the moment.
“This is as good as winning the World Cup 20 years ago!” said one twitterati even as people began sharing the video clip of her short acceptance speech. It was emailed across the country, posted on websites, tweeted and repeatedly aired on television.
Acceptance speech
Her acceptance speech, like her work, was sans frills. There was none of the usual thanking the whole world and its uncle. Instead, she dedicated it “to all the heroes working on the ground in Pakistan, including Dr. Mohammad Jawad who is here with us today. The plastic surgeon working on rehabilitating all these women. Ruksana and Zakia who are our main subjects of the film, whose resilience and bravery in the face of such adversity is admirable. And to all the women of Pakistan who are working for change, don’t give up on your dreams. This is for you.”
Congratulations began to pour in; prominent being the United States diplomatic mission in Pakistan. Not just its embassy in Islamabad but also consulates in Lahore and Karachi were posting congratulatory messages. In fact, the mission has been vocally expressing support for her on social networking sites from last evening as the run-up to the awards began.
Achievement lauded
From the President downwards, Ms. Chinoy’s achievement was lauded and the government announced the decision to confer a high civil award on her, but did not specify which one. Copywriters had a busy day, but first off the mark seemed to be the predominantly chicken-serving restaurant chain “Nando’s,” which put out an advertisement saying “From one chick to another: Thanks for Saving our Face.”
As for Ms. Chinoy, she remained tuned to her nation via Twitter — beginning the “morning of Oscar day” by saying “Im proud to represent Pakistan on such a global stage — there r many stories yet 2 be told win or lose I will be bk.” And, after the usual round of thanks and the celebrations, she signed out in the evening (local time) with a “Good night Pakistan. Everyone after the Oscars came & said good things about my country 2 me! Jinnah would have been proud!”
Category: Documentaries
The Artist on Sunday won five Academy Awards, including best picture, becoming the first silent film to win Hollywood’s highest honours since the original Oscar ceremony 83 years ago.
In the black-and-white comic melodrama category, the best actor award went to Jean Dujardin and the best director to Michel Hazanavicius.
In a night of few surprises, the other top Oscars went to Meryl Streep for best actress for the filmThe Iron Lady, Octavia Spencer as supporting actress for The Help and Christopher Plummer as supporting actor for Beginners.
The Artist is the first silent winner since the World War I saga Wings, which was named outstanding picture at the first Oscars in 1929.
“I am the happiest director in the world,” Hazanavicius said, thanking the cast, crew and canine co-star Uggie. “I also want to thank the financier, the crazy person who put money in the movie.”
The other wins for The Artist were for musical score and art direction.
Martin Scorsese’s Paris adventure Hugo also won five Oscars, all in technical categories.
Streep’s win was her first Oscar in 29 years, since she won best actress forSophie’s Choice. She had lost 12 times in a row since then. Streep also has a supporting-actress Oscar for 1979′s Kramear vs. Kramer.
“When they called my name, I had this feeling I could hear half of America go, ‘Oh, no, why her again?’ But whatever,” Streep said, laughing.
“I really understand I’ll never be up here again. I really want to thank all my colleagues, my friends. I look out here and I see my life before my eyes, my old friends, my new friends. Really, this is such a great honour, but the thing that counts the most with me is the friendship and the love and the sheer joy we’ve shared making movies together,” said Streep, the record-holder with 17 acting nominations.
Streep is only the fifth performer to receive three Oscars, including Jack Nicholson, Ingrid Bergman and Walter Brennan, who won three, while Katharine Hepburn won four.
It was a night that went as expected, with front-runners claiming key prizes. Streep’s triumph provided a bit of drama, since she had been in a two-woman race with Viola Davis for The Help.
The biggest surprise may have been the length of the show, which clocked in at about three hours and 10 minutes, brisk for a ceremony that has run well over four hours some years.
The 82-year-old Plummer became the oldest acting winner ever for his role as an elderly widower who comes out as gay in Beginners. “You’re only two years older than me, darling,” Plummer said, addressing his Oscar statue. “Where have you been all my life? I have a confession to make. When I first emerged from my mother’s womb, I was already rehearsing my Oscar speech.”
The previous oldest winner was best-actress recipient Jessica Tandy for Driving Miss Daisy. She won at the age of 80.
Completing an awards-season blitz that took her from Hollywood bit player to star, Spencer won for her role in The Help as a headstrong black maid whose wilful ways continually land her in trouble with white employers in 1960s Mississippi.
Dujardin became the first Frenchman to win an acting Oscar. French actresses have won before, including Marion Cotillard and Juliette Binoche.
“Oh, thank you. Oui. I love your country!” said Dujardin, who plays George Valentin, a silent-film superstar fallen on hard times as the sound era takes over. If George Valentin could speak, Dujardin said, “he’d say… Wow! Merci beaucoup! Genial! Formidable!”
Claiming Hollywood’s top-filmmaking honour completes Hazanavicius’ sudden rise from popular movie-maker back home in France to internationally celebrated director. Hazanavicius had come in as the favourite after winning at the Directors Guild of America Awards, whose recipient almost always goes on to claim the Oscar.
The five Oscars for Hugo, which led contenders with 11 nominations, included cinematography, art direction and visual effects.
Another beloved big-screen bunch, The Muppets, finally got their due at the Oscars. The Muppets earned the best-song award for “Man or Muppet,” the sweet comic duet sung by Jason Segel and his Muppet brother in the film, the first big-screen adventure in 12 years for Kermit the frog and company.
Filmmaker Alexander Payne picked up his second writing Oscar, sharing the adapted-screenplay prize for the Hawaiian family drama The Descendants with co-writers Nat Faxon and Jim Rash. Payne, who also directed The Descendants, previously won the same award for Sideways.
Payne said he brought along his mother from Omaha, Neb., to the Oscars, and that she had demanded a shout-out if he made it onstage.
“She made me promise that if I ever won another Oscar I had to dedicate it to her just like Javier Bardem did with his Oscar. So mom, this one’s for you. Thank you for letting me skip nursery school so we could go to the movies.”
Woody Allen earned his first Oscar in 25 years, winning for original screenplay for the romantic fantasy Midnight in Paris, his biggest hit in decades. It’s the fourth Oscar for Allen, who won for directing and screenplay on his 1977 best-picture winner Annie Hall and for screenplay on 1986′s Hannah and Her Sisters.
Allen also is the record-holder for 15 writing nominations, and his three writing Oscars ties the record shared by Charles Brackett, Paddy Chayefsky, Francis Ford Coppola and Billy Wilder.
No fan of awards shows, Allen predictably skipped Sunday’s ceremony, where he also was up for best director.
Rango, with Johnny Depp providing the voice of a desert lizard that becomes a hero to a parched Western town, won for best animated feature.
Crystal got the show off to a lively start with a star-laden montage in which he hangs out with Justin Bieber and gets a nice wet kiss from George Clooney.
Crystal’s return as host seemed appropriate on a night that had Hollywood looking back fondly on more than a century of cinema history.
The top two nominees Hugo and The Artist are both love songs to early cinema.
Dear Mr.G.L Bhardwaj,
Greeting from Dada Saheb Phalke Film Festival-2012- to mark the birth anniversary of ‘father of Indian cinema’ on 30 April
With coordination to our phone conversation, I am sending you invitation to you to join the Dada Saheb Phalke film festival as jury member. Kindly find attached.
Your association with Dada Saheb Phalke Film Festival-12 will boost up the morale of young, aspiring & professional filmmakers.
Together we have the power to establish a film festival in NOIDA which will be the pride of community in years to come.
I am looking forward for letter of acceptance from your end regarding the same.
Warm Wishes,
Rambhul Singh
Festival Director
Screening of Seven Islands And A Metro will be held at Desh Bhagat Yadgar Hall, Jalandhar by People’s Voice and organisation
Seven Islands And A Metro :
Director: Madhusree Dutta | Producer: Majlis Productions
Genre: Documentary | Produced In: 2006 | Story Teller’s Country: India
Synopsis: The multilingual Bombay. The Bombay of intolerance. The Bombay of closed mills; popular culture, sprawling slums and real estate onslaught. The metropolis of numerous ghettos, the El Dorado…. This film is a tale of the cities of Bom Bahia / Bombay / Mumbai, through a tapestry of fiction, cinema verite, art objects, found footage, sound installation and literary texts. The film is structured around imaginary debate between Ismat Chugtai and Sadat Hasan Manto; the two legendary writers who lived in this metropolis; over the art of chronicling these multi-layered overlapping cities. Shot mainly during the monsoon, the film portrays some extremely beautiful yet ruthlessly violent features of Bombay. An aspect of Mumbai which is generally not included in the popular narrative of the city.
• Language: Hindi with English subtitles
• Year: 2006
• Genre: Documentary
Duration 98 minutes
Dear friends,
It is to inform you that Anand Patwardhan’s new documentray is releasing very soon.
Shivrath
Marathi/40 Min /HD/ Colour /2011 / India .
Director – Santosh Ram
Producer –Netaji Kashid
Synopsis-
It’s a Documentary about ShivrathYatra organized by Shramik Gojamgunde . The Yatra starts from Fort Shivneri (Birthplace of Shivaji Maharaj ) to Fort Raigadh (Capital Of Shivaji Maharaj ).The documentary tries to explore the Journey of the Shivrath Yatra . More than Five Hundred Shivbhaktas took part in Shivrath Yatra 2011.
Director’s Biography –
Santosh Ram was born on November 3 , 1979 in Udgir, India . He has done his post graduation in English Literature from Modern College, Pune . He developed an appreciation for cinema while studying Literature .He is a self taught and self made Short Film Maker. He has participated in Film Appreciation Course conducted by NFAI & FTII 2006.
Credits –
Direction – Santosh Ram
Producer – Netaji Kashid
Executive Producer –Shramik Gojamgunde
Editor – Jayant Patgiri, Santosh Ram
Cinematography- Rakesh Raorane /Dipak Verma
Two day film show was organised in Mehar Hotel, Dalhousie. On the first day, War and Peace, a documentary by famous documentary filmaker Anand Patwardhan was screened. On the second day, Satyajit Ray’s feature film Ganshatru was screened. Both the screening were followed by discussion. The event was organsied by People’s Voice.
The intellectuals participated in the event.
Two films of Punjab after the 1947 bloody partition Sunday 11 September
4pm – 6.30pm followed by a Q&A
Kitte Mil Ve Mahi Where The Twain Shall Meet (2005) 70 mins
Language: Punjabi with English Subtitles
Director/ Producer Ajay Bhardwaj
Rabba Hun Kee Kariye Thus Departed Our Neighbours (2007) 65 mins
Language: Punjabi with English Subtitles
Director/ Producer Ajay Bhardwaj
A double bill of two seminal documentaries, from the Delhi based Indian Film maker Ajay Bhardwaj, on contesting perceptions of Punjab, a state partitioned on religious lines amidst widespread bloodshed in 1947.
In “Kitte Mil Ve Mahi” the director journeys through the Doaba region to explore the unique bond between Dalits and Sufism in an unfolding a spiritual universe that is both healing and emancipatory and hinting at the economic, religious and idealogical marginalisation of Dalits.
“Rabba Hun Kee Kariye” captures feelings of guilt and remorse about the genocidal violence on the Indian side of Punjab in 1947.These stories, almost like folklore, are part of the memory – scape of rural Punjab. In this documentary these long suppressed experiences become accessible in public domain for the first time.
The screening of Rabba Hun Kee Kariye will be followed by a Q&A with Dr Meena Dhanda, Amarjit Chandan and Amin Mughal.
Showing at:
Watermans
40 High Street
Brentford
TW8 0DS
Box Office: +44 (0)20 8323 1010
www.watermans.org.ukTicket price: £10 for both films and Q&A
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About Ajay Bhardwaj
Ajay Bhardwaj (b. 1964) is a documentary filmmaker based in Delhi. He holds two Master’s degrees, in the fields of Political Studies and Mass Communications, and has worked in media for the past two decades. His documentaries have been screened at international film festivals, academic conferences, and community and activist events.
