Damn’d

Not too many great movies going around these days…The Japanese wife is one of them which manages to stand apart from the pack.

Its the story of two pen-pals, one a bengali living in rural west bengal and the other living in Japan. Yes, as the title suggests, the girl lives in Japan.

What starts off as a friendship via regular letters takes a strange turn as Miyage offers herself to Snehamoy as his wife. Though they never meet during their lifetime, they are pretty devoted and behave as much like husband-wife as any other couple… Gives, long distance relationships a whole new meaning.

Detailed synopsis here.

The movie moves along almost poetically with a amazing background score and before you realise it, its the end. And it hits hard. Not something that you would expect.

Dont want to spoil the climax for you so go and watch it if you can. If you don’t understand Bengali, try and get a sub titled version as its interlaced with english and bengali (though you will really enjoy the nuances if you understand bengali, especially the bangladeshi accent).

One thing that did strike me at the end though is, we go through life waiting for something, and in the end when we finally get it, its almost always too little too late….Just goes to reinforce the fact that the journey is more important than the destination.

So whatever super urgent/important thing that you may seem to be doing, take some time out to watch this movie. Might help you see your life from a different perspective.

The tagline says, ” You will never look at dinner the same way”.

And after watching the movie, I did indeed have a different perspective on the food we eat.

Its amazing the changes that have taken place in the food industry…and slightly scary too…The movie covers a wide range of issues, ranging from the need to buy locally grown organic food, the ‘factory model’ of farming and meat production, to the global impact which major food corporations have had on the environment…

Highly recommended for watching.

Here is the official website. And if you want to do more, click here.

Yep, The South Asian International Film, now in its 6th year opens on the 28th of October with the world premiere of Aladin, starring Amitabh Bachchan.

It boasts of an eceletic collection of films from directors in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and England.

While there are indie commercials and comedy capers like Fatso and Raat Gayi baat gayi from the Pritish Nandy stable, there are also shorts and documentaries covering a wide range of subjects including Kashmir, the innocence of children, social awakening in rural india and parental pressures in America.

See the entire line up here.

So if you love films and are in New York City from the 28th of October till the 3rd of November, drop in for a dekko.

For more details, go to www.saiff.org

Updates on : http://twitter.com/southasianfilms

Community at: http://www.facebook.com/southasianfilms

P.S: I am volunteer at SAIFF, helping them with their Digital Marketing campaingn, so please help spread the word