Splendid Land, Review: Xinjiang is a many splendoured place The China-Greece co-production documentary, Splendid Land, directed by Eleni Vlassi and Jin Huaqing, presents the wonderful land of Xinjiang, China and its ancient customs, through a musician pursuing the Mukam music and the spectacular landscape.  Seldom has so much splendour been captured in such a short span. The film is only twenty minutes long, but it flows along seamlessly, and when it ends, you are left craving for more. ...

IFFI 51, 51: My ‘golden peacock’ moment and the denial of recognition to IFFI Veterans It’s not the real thing, only a memento. Nevertheless it is not the lesser for me, in terms of value. How did I come about getting a replica of the much coveted Golden Peacock, which is the main prize at the International Film Festival of India? I was not part of any film shown at IFFI, nor had I contributed in any way, other than writing 51 articles on IFFI 51, attending some 30 film sho...

  IFFI 50: IFFI delays and avoids recognising, honouring veteran journalists This is my 50th posting about IFFI 50, Panaji, Goa, November 20-28, 2019. It deals with an issue that is close to my heart, that of recognising and honouring veteran journalists who have attended 25 or more IFFIs and/or completed 50 years in film journalism. Having identified 14 such individuals, I call them IFFI Veteran Journalists’ Group (IVJG). Since 19 November 2019, I am campaigning to get them...

MFF 21, 2019, 3: Excellence in Cinema Award goes to Deepti Naval Mumbai Academy of Moving Image(MAMI), organisers of the Mumbai Film festival, 17-24 October 2019, have chosen Deepti Naval as the recipient of the Excellence in Cinema Award, in the Indian section. Fernando Meirelles is the recipient in the International section. Born in Amritsar, Punjab, India, in 1952, Deepti Naval is an acclaimed actor. After her schooling, she migrated to the United States, where she was educated at the C...

Fighting with My Family, Review: Soap opera in spandex Somebody must tell biopic makers, especially true stories about sports personalities, that there is very little difference between one and the other. They all follow, more or less, the same road map, and get to the same place. And because these are true stories, the writers and directors do pretty little to enliven the journey, lest they be accused of taking too many liberties, or, worse, earn the ire of the personality in person, if aliv...

Still from A War to End All Wars directed by UK animator Ruth Coggins The Montreal International Animation FIlm Festival is proving itself to be the hippest animation festival. Discovering the film on social media, MIAFF will deliver a world premiere of UK film  A War to End ALl Wars by director Ruth Coggins. Festival director Laurie Gordon recalls noticing a few stills and trailer of the animated film she first noticed on a Twitter feed a few months ago. She recalls, " It wasn'...

Siraj Syed covers CommunicAsia 2017, Post-event reportage, 03: Object Matrix and Fortium Partner for Content Security Object Matrix and Fortium Technologies launched a joint solution, offering secure media management for digital content archive storage. It combines security certified solutions from each provider, to offer protection of media assets throughout their lifecycle. The solution combines the MatrixStore object storage and Digital Content Governance platform from Object Matrix, wh...

Shaun the Sheep Movie, Review: Shaun is on An animated comedy from a non Pixar/Disney/Dreamworks DNA, Shaun the Sheep could be the mouse that roared. Just above 80 minutes long, this Aardman Animations (Bristol, UK) production provides plenty of laughs in the ‘stop motion’ technique of old-style animation. Humans, animals, birds, fish, cars, buses and an entire city are all ‘cartoonised’ to come across as credible, endearing and detestable, according to the storyline. ...