Zinemaya Blog

A story of an East Indian family in Montreal.
A story of Forbidden Love.
A story of passion vs tradition.
A story of order in chaos and confusion.
A story of hope.
As the river of life flows…

Watch it on zinemaya.com

Vijay Chatterjee (Mohan Agashe), a widowed Indian Canadian man, is trying to find a wife for his son, Ashish (Vijay Mehta), and decides that Maarya (Nandana Sen) will fit the bill nicely. But Ashish isn’t exactly brimming with excitement. To make matters worse, Vijay secretly falls in love with Maarya himself. But Vijay’s not the only one with a devastating secret in this battle of old-world values and new-world sensibilities.

Reviews

… Captivating and enticing- alluring audiences with its taboo subjects…”
Lehka Shankar, Bangkok Post

“Seducing Maarya overflows with exotic heat…”
“Seducing Maarya is a Canadian film, and it comes with a boiling emotion that you don’t often seen in homegrown cinema. Boy, does it boil. It practically overflows with an exotic heat…
Director-writer Hoe sometimes fills the screen with scenes of transcendent beauty… Seducing Maarya has a visceral power that stays with you after it’s over. There is something about her you cannot easily dismiss, a texture that Hoe has inserted into the material that gives it a power beyond its humble style and disharmonic reactions. Seducing Maarya is a film that sets out to be provocative and somehow, despite itself, succeeds.”
Jay Stone, Ottawa Citizen

“…Not since Like Water for Chocolate has food played such a key role in seduction…”
T.S.Warren, Ottawa X Press

“…a sizzling film.”
Madhu Jain, India Today

“I enjoyed SEDUCING MAARYA very much- shattering preconceptions about the family, the libido as being the arbiter of action, the quagmire of allegiance to things such as homeland, religion, family, all being echoes, or microcosms of the others… the innuendoes of cuisine…”
Steve Seid, Pacific Film Archive

“…a blend of humour and tragedy that breaks thru’ the cultural, religious, sexual taboos that bind us…”
Wendy Wellington, Ashiana, Toronto

“…One of the most provocative films, which showcases Nandana Sen in her first fleshed-out role and a profound performance by Dr.Mohan Agashe…”
Janet Fine, Indian Express

“…among the film’s many strengths are its vibrant soundtrack, a compelling story, strong performances, and a mood/ sensibility that is refreshingly different…”
Jeff Miller, Utica College, USA

“…Hunt Hoe’s film is for a sophisticated audience…”
Pratik Joshi, The Tribune, India

“Fascinating… an extremely satisfying adult drama about the basis of all human sales, seduction, jealousy and violence…”
Hawaii International Film Festival

“Seducing Maarya is the kind of low-budget but fascinating film that could build a cult following… It veers wildly between melodrama, social documentary and farce. An ethnic movie informed by a gay sensibility, taking forbidden love as its theme and explores it from just about every angle… I laughed until I cried.”
Pat Donnelly, The Gazette, Montréal

“…This is a film about crossing boundaries- personal, cultural & sexual- which in the hands of Hunt Hoe, we are assured of unusual turns and twists and dramatic visual images in the narration of this new-style morality tale.”
Gautam Hooja, Hindustan Times

You can watch “Seducing Maarya” Instantly on zinemaya.com

Everyday guy Kabir (Ranvir Shorey) is thrown for a loop when he meets Kuhu (Mallika Sherawat), a freewheeling party girl. Now, he’s a changed man, dancing, running half-naked through the streets and donning ladies’ shoes at her whim.

What Kabir doesn’t realize is that Kuhu is fighting with her own boredom by transforming a nerdy guy into her obnoxious equal. Their love may not be destined to last, but at least Kabir’s having fun along the way.

Click here to watch
Augly Aur Pagli at zinemaya.com

Despite rough-hewn elements and devices, Satish Menon’s first feature, “Bhavum: Emotions of Being,” aims high in its attempt to marry traditional Malayalam cinema — with its strong literary roots — with contempo social issues for intermittently potent results. Winner of top awards among this year’s entries in competitions in the southwest Indian state of Kerala, the drama is conversant with local politics and cutting-edge national topics, although Menon has been based in Chicago for years. A probable mid-level B.O. success with regional audiences, “Bhavum” may be tapped in the West by scrappy fests.

While critics and Menon himself have already noted his tale’s ties to “A Streetcar Named Desire,” there is just as much of a link to Ibsen’s dramas of private and political angst, from the portrait of an imploding marriage to a sub-plot involving poisoned public water sources. And like the typical Ibsen couple, university literature professor Lata (Jyothirmayee) and her newspaper-editor husband Joy (Murali Menon) are introduced as a happy pair, living an upwardly mobile lifestyle in the coastal Kerala town of Cochin. To compound the uptempo mood, Lata is four months’ pregnant.

Bliss proves fleeting when Lata’s older sister, Subhadra (Mita Vasisht), unexpectedly enters their lives. Vasisht comes on screen full of shifty glances and thick stares, rather crudely telegraphing that no good is going to result from Subhadra’s presence.

Outside their home, Joy and Lata work in very different worlds, which Menon suggests may be the deeper cause for their eventual alienation. While Lata is futilely trying to make her students think about the ethical meaning of Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” (with an emphasis on the notion of guilt), Joy is seduced more and more by consumer products as he’s sucked into the corrupt politics (and advertisers) that drive his newspaper’s editorial content.

In Menon’s fairly schematic and ambitious script, Joy faces two dilemmas: his reluctant attraction to the beautiful but demure Subhadra, and his anger that the water company backed by his newspaper caused an environmental disaster in Kerala. Though the politics are laid on polemically and Menon appears to be struggling not to overact, this portrait of a middle-class man caught in his own multi-layered ethical drama raises “Bhavum” a few notches above the standard Indian drama.

Vasisht’s Subhadra is on the run because she is a suspect in the killing of her abusive husband, but she never becomes the sympathic character it appears she was intended to be. Jyothirmayee, however, evokes Lata’s increasing consternation as her tidy world collapses.

Camera doggedly remains at shoulder-height throughout, and a visual plainness is the rule of the day. Cutting and tech elements are a bit rough.

Camera (Prasad Laboratories color), Sunny Joseph; editor, B. Ajith Kumar; music, Isaac Thomas, Kuttukapally; production designer, Shaji Raghavan; costume designer, Aziz Palakkad; sound, Rajmohan; sound designers, Krishna Kumar, Raj Marthandam; supervising sound editors, T. Krishnan Unni , N. Harikumar; assistant directors, P.M. Sukumaran, M. Sunil Kumari. Reviewed on videotape, L.A., May 28, 2003. (In Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles.) Running time: 111 MIN.
(Malayalam, English dialogue)

Review contributed by Variety.com, Tue., June 10, 2003
By Robert Koehler

Bhavum is available for download at zinemaya.com
Click here to download the movie

In a busy world we often forget to live. To experience the joy of the sun on our face. Of letting ourselves be one with nature. Of being like Ravi Roy. The central character of the film Manasarovar, Ravi, is a passionate young man with a rawness that appeals to one’s mind. With a motto that ‘Certainty makes life stagnant’ Ravi makes you want to redefine insanity.

An offering by debutante director Anup Kurian, Manasarovar is bound to enchant you. Ravi Roy (Atul Kulkarni) meets Malathy Chandran (Neha Dubey) in Pune and falls in love with her. A few years later, Ravi’s brother George Nair (Zafar Karachiwala) happens to meet Malathy and she learns that Ravi has disappeared.

She goes back and forth in time with an end that leaves you thinking. Encapsulating the youth of today, these three make you laugh and think about your decisions, ambitions, priorities and love. Made in seven months and shot in 30 locations in India, Manasarovar leaves you wanting answers. It questions you and yet places the answers right in front of you.

Anup Kurian with scenes from his film.Called Manasarovar to indicate ‘the quest for clarity’, the film uses locales in Kerala, Maharashtra and Dharamsala so eloquently that they do not distract you from the main action. The overcast skies at Mulshi Lake, the boats of Kerala and the monks at Dharamsala are offered to you in a span of 90 minutes.

Visually attractive with excellent use of hues and colours, the movie is a refreshing change from the otherwise large sets and bright costumes. The music sounds fresh as different foreign artists come together.

The theme song Falling through the Clouds is by an Irish group Random who have added a soothing effect to the film. Use of the lampshades as lights, well-etched characters and the narrative flow makes it an absolute delight to watch.

Neha Dubey as Malathy speaks through her body language. Be it her eyes, her hair or her silence, Malathy conveys the confusion and the determination of an ambitious girl. Zafar as George is honest and true to his character. But the one who leaves a mark is Atul Kulkarni who plays Ravi.

Unassuming, wild yet so adorable, Ravi tugs at your heart with an innocence that is rare to find. Portraying a rural Malayali man, Atul seems absolutely comfortable with himself. The film does reflect the rawness of a first time director but the actors captivate your attention.

It is no surprise that it has won numerous awards at film festivals across the globe including Best Film and Special Jury prize at the International Film Festival of Mumbai in 2005. Readying itself for the Fukuoka International Film Festival in September 2005 in Japan, the film has the privilege of being one of 20 movies to be selected for the festival from Asia. An honest effort by a team that believes in what they are doing

You can download the full DVD of the movie from zinemaya.com
Click here to download and DVD and watch the trailer.

Review contributed by cybernoon.com

Review by Acclaimed Indian director Sri Adoor Gopalakrishnan

Raj Nair’s film, The Exhibits communicates to the viewer at different levels. At the basic level, the filmmaker is ‘visiting’ his maternal grandmother who is the widow of the literary stalwart, Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai. It is also a visit to a time and period we all struggle to preserve now but cannot in the onslaught of changes that are economic, political and social. The changes are all pervasive and they do not exempt anything in its massive and merciless sweep.

At another level it is about the widows of his ancestral village, one of whom happens to be his grand mother herself. Their plight in today’s situation is looked at with a lot of empathy and understanding. In the evening of their lives, these women who have struggled all along find no respite from their toils. But then they are determined to brave the hardships and adversities of life accepting them as fate.

The writer’s residence which has become a museum today is visited by hordes school children led by their teachers. As the of young boys and girls peer at the manuscripts and other memorabilia of the celebrated writer in awe and curiosity, a few admiring souls among them cannot help craving for a look at the writer’s widow who occupies a corner of her own house as a tenant. Now, living all alone with only her memories for company this grand mother has turned into an exhibit herself.

The working of the ‘museum’ that opens and closes on the official schedule of 10 am to 5 pm and the routine of a life in isolation for the widow, are some of the lingering images this film leaves as it runs its length. Only the periodical clattering of the passenger trains dare disturb the quiet and silence of this time warp.

This is a fitting homage from a filmmaker to his very special grand mother and her time.

Click here to download the movie at zinemaya.com

Zinemya is bringing you ‘Kaazhchavasthukkal’ (Exhibits), a 59-minute docu-feature by Raj Nair, the great writer’s grandson, which tells the story of his ‘Ammoomma’ and ‘the realities of ageing, conflicts between the past and present, the depressing colour of loneliness, but, above all, the redeeming power of love and memory.’

Beautiful, lyrical, poetic, moving. That is the only way to describe this film by Raj Nair, grandson of the Indian writer, Thakazhy S. Pillai. The film is not explicitly about the late writer, but about his wife of 65 years, who lives a simple life in what used to be her residence but has now been made into a museum.

A good example of indirect being more powerful than direct. Because the writer’s presence is felt throughout. The sensuous views of the house. The fecund life surrounding it. The group of school girls who visit the museum on a field trip and have the rare pleasure of a meeting with the writer’s widow who, in a bizarre way, has herself become a living museum piece.

We also have the opportunity to hear about the life the writer and his wife lived, through a period of Indian, or more correctly, Kerala history that has seen drastic changes take place in the social fabric.

There is no voice-of-God narrator telling us about the period of history. Only the woman’s voice who has lived them, the voices of her friends and neighbors of many years.

Poignant flashbacks take us to the time a young girl broke with tradition and married a man introduced not by her uncle, as was expected, but by her brother. The man was to become one of the most noted writers in modern India. The girl now the 86-year-old woman we see going about her daily rituals, carrying with her all those memories.

If you’re the kind of person who is used to wolfing down your cheeseburger in three minutes, this is not the film for you. But if you’re one who prefers to let the finest delicacies melt in your mouth, then there is much to savor in this film. The beautifully choreographed moving shots of the widow going about her daily life evoke an emotion that necessarily takes more time than the Discovery Channel could ever afford.

The film documents the realities of aging, of past and current social issues and the colour of loneliness. Trying to (re)discover those milestones in the lives of Malayalee (people of Kerala) women, which made a sweet baby girl of the distant past just another grandmother, an exhibit of modernisation, one of the many silent victims of a much globalised face of Kerala increasingly being uprooted from its own tradition, ethos and milieux.

“Sankaramangalam” at Thakazhi in Allapuzha district, remains to be fulfilled even years after his death. The project to upgrade the Sankaramangalam house to a world-class museum was announced by the former Cultural Affairs Minister, Mr T.K. Ramakrishnan, two years after Thakazhi’s death. According to the master plan prepared by the State Government, the museum was to include an auditorium and halls where scenes from Thanazhi’s various novels would be enacted.

Following the announcement of the Minister, the Sankaramangalam house was acquired by the State Government on February 8, 2001.

Reveiew contributed by Len McClure

Click here to download the movie at zinemaya.com

Zinemaya is bringing you critically acclaimed and most loved children’s animation video from India. Manchadi (Manjadi) video series comes with great animation and slew of worthy characters singing folk songs and telling stories which are taken from the Panchatantra and Aesop’s fables, and also folk stories from different parts of India. Click here to download Manchadi Volume one

Onnanam kochuthumbi ente koode porumo nee…
Ninte koode ponnalo enthallam tharumenikku…’

Do these lines strike a chord? Yes, these are the lines of a

Malayalam folk song that grandmothers of yesteryears used to sing to children. Today, many of these couplets and rhymes are on the verge of fading out of our lives as a new generation of kids tune into English nursery rhymes and songs.

However, thanks to Madhu K.S. and his city-based team, these folk songs and rhymes have been given a new lease of life by compiling them into an animation video series and thus was born `Manjadi.’

The two volumes of Manjadi comprise an interesting collection of folk songs, and stories taken from the Panchatantra and Aesop’s fables.

And once again tiny tots are swinging to `Kakke kakke koodevide’ and retelling the stories of the hare and the tortoise narrated in Manjadi. With a cute little animated girl Twinkle as its narrator, Manjadi transports young minds to a world of animals and birds, songs and stories that also convey a moral to two.

Old rhymes

The CDs come as music to the ears of young parents. “There is something fresh and different about Manjadi. Both my children watch it everyday,” says Sindhu Rajesh. Although the CD banks on old rhymes and stories, what makes it unique is brilliant presentation, good music, interesting characters, simple dialogues and cute animation. The success of the venture is a vindication of Madhu. K.S.’ conviction that made him choose the road less travelled.

Madhu, a postgraduate in Product Design from IIT Bombay and an Electronics Engineer from College of Engineering, Trivandrum, came up with the idea of doing something creative and unique in the area of animation when he was working with C-DIT.

Says Madhu, “The field of animation and multimedia was throwing unlimited opportunities and we had this urge to do something different Animation was just restricted to making an animation video on fairytales or on something that was already there. But we wanted to experiment.”

So, he, along with a few of his colleagues in C-DIT, quit their job and decided to tread a new path. They started Hibiscus Design through which they did many projects and eventually evolved the concept of Manjadi. Initially, Manjadi was a 30-minute kids’ programme on Kairali TV. However, the concept novel had to be stopped after a year owning to financial problems.

“But the programme was a success among kids and so they decided to compile it in a cd. Thus `Manjadi’ was launched as a CD during a flower show in 2005 during the flower show.

We took a stall in the exhibition ground and we could sell 600 copies in seven days. This success encouraged us to proceed and we brought out the second volume in the next six months,” recalls Madhu.

This volume was also well received in the market and the team started getting feedback from children and their parents. “I remember a father telling me that he had to buy a new DVD player when his computer had some problems because his daughter wanted to see `Manjadi,”‘ adds Madhu.

Folk tales too

The team has now produced `Poopy.’ Poopy is a cute and adorable puppy. Through the puppy, the makers have tried to explain many scientific phenomena through simple stories.

In `Poopy,’ we have tried to convey seven different ideas through seven stories with the help of Poopy, the main protagonist,” explains Madhu. The scripts of `Manjadi’ and `Poopy’ have been written by Manu K.S, who quit his job as a lecturer in Mahatma Gandhi University to join his brother’s venture.

The 17-member team of Hibiscus Design also has Madhu’s colleagues from C-DIT like Sunil Kumar B, who looks into the animation side. “There is a value system that we are trying to incorporate in `Manjadi’ and `Poopy.’ There are no stories of violence and cruelty in these series. It’s the Indian culture that we are trying to incorporate into the series,” adds Manu.

In `Poopy,’ we have introduced a scientific temper and an inquisitive nature. We are planning a series on a cat family, a humorous series intended to shape the behavioural pattern of children,” says Deepu Prasad A.L. who heads the technical and design side.

The third volume of `Manjadi,’ a compilation of folk tales from different parts of the country, is also in the making. Madhu and his team have now set their sights on the global market by presenting local content in a new media and format.
– Kerala, southern most state of India also called Gods own country
– Review by Jaya Smitha Menon , the Hindu

Manchadi and Poopy are available for download at zinemaya.com

Zinemaya is proud to feature Naalu Pennungal (Four Women) the latest movie from Six time FIPRESCI prize winning director Adoor Gopalakrishnan. As deeply rooted as they are in the soil and soul of his native Kerala, Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s films speak to universal truths. None does this more than Four Women.

The film distills to a rare purity four tales of village women in south India. Their titles are elemental: “The Prostitute,” “The Virgin,” “The Housewife” and “The Spinster.” In each, a woman submits to a role society decides for her. Each role offers a paradox of freedom and bondage in nearly equal measure.

In the first story, Kunju Pennu accepts a proposal from Pappukutty and enters into an informal marriage, giving up her profession as a prostitute to do so. Both are desperately poor and live outdoors on the pavement, but they believe in the honour of their new status. That honour is shattered when police catch the couple in a compromising position one night and drag them to court on obscenity charges. Their only defence? They are husband and wife.

In “The Virgin,” Kumari’s parents are happy to marry her off to a man from another village, but disgusted when he returns to visit and eats every last morsel of food they can offer. These scenes are both comic and alarming. After the meal, her new husband leaves, never to return. Kumari must face the shame of the situation, but also the ironic fact that her husband’s only gift to her was the one thing he should have – by traditional right – taken.

The last two stories play out in a similarly trenchant fashion. A housewife is unable to produce a child. An old school friend offers himself to her as a surrogate stud, and his moustache is no doubt tempting. But what of the consequences? And in “The Spinster,” Nandita Das gives a heartbreaking performance as a woman, whose younger sister marries before her. With spinsterhood fast approching, she eventually moves in with her sister and husband, but that causes more problems than it solves. She soon opts to face the world on her own.

Gopalakrishnan’s combination of deft narrative strokes and delicate characterization produces deeply satisfying insights. Wherever one finds parents anxious for their daughters, gossips eager to talk and women navigating the deep waters of men and social standing, Four Women will resonate.

Cameron Bailey – Toronto Film Festival Critique

Four Women is available to download at zinemaya.com

This week zinemaya.com is featuring Nerkku Nere (Face to Face), a poignant humanist drama by acclaimed Indian director P.N Menon. Neo-realism to its core, that is this movie is all about, no actors, no make-up, no artificial lights, only human beings with a real story to tell.” What gave me confidence was the movies made by Vittorio De Sica” says P.N Menon, the famed Italian master of neo-realism and director of classics like Bicycle Thieves.

Born in a poor family in a small town called Vadakkancherry in Kerala, the young Menon found pleasure in visionary sketches. Sometimes his dreams took the form of verse too. But all those dreams were rooted in the tents that often found their way into the open village grounds, where films were shown.

P N Menon’s Olavum Theeravum based on M T Vasudevan Nair’s script released in 1970, still holds as one of the most realistic and sensitive films ever in Malayalam. Menon didn’t resort to melodrama or sentimentality, just narrated the tale of some characters plucked from real life.

All that, very realistically. “I’m proud to say we didn’t compromise at all. All of us worked in unison and it was the creative effort… We didn’t use a single light. There were no actors in it. We camped on the banks of Aluva river and the whole film was shot in a small hut. But we enjoyed the process. We did win some awards, including the Best Film award from the Kerala state. But even if we hadn’t won any awards, we wouldn’t have been disappointed; it was one film all of us enjoyed making.

Menon’s boldest film is Kuttiyedathi (Eldest Sister), again based on a short story by M T Vasudevan Nair. Kuttiyedathi was about a girl who goes through hell just because she isn’t attractive. Menon was courageous enough to cast a heroine who wasn’t really good-looking in the title role. And that made it a poignant film. “I don’t like to tell stories in films. Stories strangle me. I like to take an incident and develop on it through images. I feel that is true cinema. Films should not be used to narrate stories. We have several other media to tell stories.

“I’d never ever thought of making money through films. I don’t consider it a way to make money. To me, films are creative. And I feel pure creative work can never be appreciated by all. If you look at the history of any creative art, you will understand that. So, I actually feel contemptuous if films are big commercial hits.

If a film of mine is a hit, then I know it is not a good creative work. I feel ashamed if a film of mine runs for 100 days. I can’t even think about that. Personally, I’d feel disappointed if a film of mine is a commercial success. I don’t like my film liked by an illiterate. I like it only when my film is appreciated by an intellectual, someone who has a good idea about films…”

Very Interesting revelations by a film maker.

Click here to preview Nerkku Nere (Face to Face) at zinemaya.com

Trivia – Did you know P.N Menon is uncle to the famous director Bharathan?

Courtesy for P.N Menon’s interview Rediff

There are few movies and books that brings us emotional trauma and cause mental pain, some stays with us and gives a blissfulness of seeing real human life with full of art.

Kadal Theerathu (On the shores of the sea) directed by Sherry is one such neo-realistic film which will stay with us for a long time. Rejecting the illusory glamor and set-bound artificiality of conventional film-making, neo-realism took its stories from the struggles of the working class, went out into the streets to record them, and used non-professional actors to tell them. Director Sherry just did that with his film, his cast is non-professionals and brings the sorrow of working class, yet portrays the universal truths of human minds.

Based on a short story by O.V Vijayan, renowned Indian writer, this movie tells the story of Vellayiyappan, a working class man who is on his heart-breaking journey to the prison to receive his son’s body. He meets his friends and acquaints on his way to the prison. Marackar who he owes 15 rupees and Neeli who is deeply sorrowed by Vellayiyappan’s fate. There are few great scenes, portrayed beautifully in this movie, the scene where vellayiyappan meets his son for one last time before his son passes away and another shot where father and son exchanges emotions in silence.

The long shots from the sea shore where Vellayiyappan accompanies his son’s body is a perfect marriage of music and visuals which shows the master work by the director. Wandering in the hot sun Vellayiyappan reaches the shores of the sea. He finds the sea shore as the only burial ground for his son’s body. Vellayappan performs the rituals for his son with the rice balls he makes out of the meal packet. The movie ends with the scene when somewhere from the height of the sun, ravens descended to peck the rise balls. Bhaskeratten, plays the central role of this movie is completely adapted to the character of Vellayiyappan.

Its no surprise this movie won the best film award at the International film festival of Kerala. It is unique story telling and the direction is versatile as it has the power to touch the hearts of the viewers. This is no emotional overdose in this film, eventhough the story-line is heavily emotional. The half an hour journey through Kadaltheerath will be a memorable experience to all of it’s viewers. Credit goes to Sherry its director and the renowned writer O.V Vijayan.

O. V Vijayan was almost certainly India’s foremost fabulists in the recent past. An extraordinary writer with enormous range, he wrote everything from a semi-fictional history of his feudal-landlord family. His works have often been compared with those of William Faulkner and Gabriel García Márquez. O V Vijayan was unlucky not to win India’s principal literary prize, the Jnanpith, possibly because he did not endear himself to the political powers-that-be through his trenchant cartoons. Vijayan’s fans were also perennially hopeful that the Nobel Prize would finally recognize him. In 2003, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan.

This movie is available for download at zinemaya.com