We sat down with Vic Vanni of Solis Winery of Santa Clara Valley to talk about how his family got into the wine business and also taste some wine from his winery. Vani remembers the good old days when they lived in the “Valley of Heart’s Delight,” which is now known as Silicon Valley. His… Continue Reading
Here are 3 more picks from me for this year’s 39th Mill Valley Film Festival that runs from Oct 6-16,2016.. These 3 films take you on a culinary and mediation journey across the world. In case you missed it, here are my first 3 selections of films from this year’s film festival. The Last Dalai… Continue Reading
Meet Tom and Sandy Moller of Satori Cellars of Santa Clara Wineries. Tom is a techie-turned-winemaker, while Sandy is a yoga teacher and winemaker. The Mollers started Satori Cellars over 10 years ago and have gone on to win awards for their wines. We spoke to them to find out how they got started with… Continue Reading
Movie lovers are in for a 4-day treat of Vienna And The Movies at the historic Stanford Theatre in Palo Alto. The silent film series is curated by film historian David Thomson. One of the joys of watching silent films at the Stanford Theater is the opportunity to listen to the Wurlitzer organ. Dennis James will play… Continue Reading
Filmmaker Matt Johnson’s Operation Avalanche is set against the space race between US and the USSR during the Cold War period. The film is about the fake landing of Apollo 11 on the moon. The film was part of Johnson’s Masters project at York University in Canada. Johnson directs, acts and co-wrote the film with Josh… Continue Reading
Gino Fortino of Fortino Winery in Gilroy talks about Charbono wine, which is made out of an Italian grape varietal. There are only 80 acres of the Italian grape varietal Charbono grown in California and Fortino’s grows some of them. “Cult wine,” is often a phrase used when talking about Charbono. Fortino Winery was founded in… Continue Reading
The 39th Mill Valley Film Festival (Oct 6-26,2016) is packed with so many wonderful films that it is going to be a challenge to figure out which ones to watch. For the next couple of weeks I will share a few of the films that caught my eyes. Here are my first 3 films that had me… Continue Reading
Meet Rasika Kumar, who has learnt the fine art of balancing her twin interests in technology and dance. You could say Kumar combines the professional interests of her parents – her father is an engineer and her mother is a dancer. And growing up in Silicon Valley she was surrounded by cutting-edge technology and tech… Continue Reading
The annual Mill Valley Film Festival, which is one of the last film festivals in California before the Oscar season starts is back this year with a fantastic mix of films. Next year marks the 40th anniversary of the festival that started the same year the first Star Wars film was released. The 39th Mill Valley… Continue Reading
Mythili Kumar is the founder, choreographer and artistic director of Silicon Valley-based Abhinaya Dance Co. This year marks the 35th anniversary of the award-winning dance company that is recognized for teaching Indian classical dance & innovative dance dramas. Besides teaching dance, Kumar also teaches classical Indian dance forms at the University of California in Santa… Continue Reading
Tula Goenka teaches film production and multimedia storytelling at Syracuse University, NY. A few years ago Goenka started a first-of-its-kind Bollywood internship program for under graduate students. As part of the internship program students spent time in Bombay or Mumbai, the entertainment capital of India and home to Bollywood film industry. Some students went on… Continue Reading
Justin Tipping directed and co-wrote Kicks, a coming-of-age film set in the San Francisco Bay area. The film revolves around a young teenager Brandon (Jahking Guillory), who dreams of owning a trendy pair of sneakers or kicks. He owns an old and frayed pair of sneakers, while all his friends sport brand new, funky shoes. And… Continue Reading
Meet Gene Guglielmo, a third generation winemaker from Santa Clara county, the oldest wine growing region in California. Guglielmo Winery is the oldest continuously family owned and operated winery in Santa Clara Valley. We sat down with Guglielmo to find out the history of his family’s winery and taste a couple of Guglielmo wines. Guglielmo shares how… Continue Reading
We are celebrating California’s wine month with a series of audio, video and blog posts. In the San Francisco Bay area we are surrounded by wineries and vineyards from Sonoma, Napa, Livermore to the wineries of Santa Clara county. Santa Clara Valley is home to the oldest wine growing region in California. Tucked away in Silicon… Continue Reading
We sat down to talk with Master Sommelier Richard Dean of San Francisco’s Taj Campton Place. There are less than 240 Master Sommeliers in the world. He was the youngest in the world and the second American to become a Master Sommelier in the world. He became a Master Sommelier about 40 years ago when California was not… Continue Reading
Nachiketa Yakkundi is a musician and an engineer, who has the rare distinction of being associated with the same Silicon Valley company for over 2 decades. Music is his central passion and we talk to him to find out what propelled him to study engineering and put his music on the back-burner? Yakkundi studied with Pandit… Continue Reading
Morris From America is a coming-of-age film about a young American teen in Germany. The movie is told from a 13-year old boy’s perspective and how he tries to fit in with his German school mates and falls in love with an older teenager. The film screened at this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival… Continue Reading
Karavalli is your ticket to taste the wonderful cuisine of Southwestern coastal region of India. Chef Naren Thimmaiah of Karavalli at Taj Gateway in Bangalore takes us through a quick culinary tour of this region that is a rich tapestry of different communities. Each community has a rich repertoire of dishes that use a wonderful… Continue Reading
Meera Menon’s new film Equity is billed as the first female driven Wall Street picture. It is not often we get to see women investment bankers in films. Neither do we see women bankers admit they love power and money. Such dialogs are usually reserved for male characters. Manon previously wrote and directed Farah Goes… Continue Reading
Amy Love is the chief marketing officer of Violin Memory, a publicly traded Silicon Valley company. As a kid Love enjoyed playing baseball and soccer. Then she discovered she was barred from playing soccer in her youth team in Northern California. And the reason? She was a girl. Girls ware banned from playing soccer and… Continue Reading
That is a picture of the Gleason family consisting of Michel Varisco, her husband Steve Gleason and their son Rivers Gleason. In 2011 Gleason, a former NFL player for the New Orleans Saints was diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). A couple of months later they discovered that Varisco was pregnant. Those two developments changed the course… Continue Reading
Matt Ross is a filmmaker, writer and actor, who is well-known for his role as Gavin Belson, CEO of Hooli in HBO’s Silicon Valley. We sat down with Ross to speak about Captain Fantastic that he wrote and directed. We wondered about the title of the film. How did he come up with Captain Fantastic?… Continue Reading
Former NFL player Scott Fujita is one of the producers of Gleason, a documentary on Steve Gleason, who has myotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Fujita and Gleason became good friends when they played for the New Orleans Saints. Fujita shares how one of his uncles lost his life to ALS and was aware of the challenges the… Continue Reading
Dr. James Schamus is a filmmaker, award-winning writer and a teacher at Columbia University. After writing, producing and distributing films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain, Dallas Cowboys Club, Milk and Lost in Translation, Dr. Schamus makes his debut in feature films with Indignation. He wrote and directed the film that is based on… Continue Reading
A wonderful mix of films will feature at the annual San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF). This year marks the 36th year of the festival that starts tomorrow – July 21 and will continue through August 7, 2016. Some of the guests expected to attend the festival include filmmakers and writers like Daniel Burman, Norman… Continue Reading
Matt Ross essays the role of Gavin Belson, CEO of Hooli in HBO’s Silicon Valley. We wanted to find out more about Belson and got an opportunity to do that. Ross has a new film out coming out later this month called Captain Fantastic that he wrote and directed. Stay tuned for a longer interview… Continue Reading
A few weeks ago I got to see Alex Gibney’s new documentary Zero Days. I recollect how quiet the theatre was once the end credits finished and the lights came on. Most of us were trying to process the film and the impact it had on each of us. Afterwards Gibney along with 2 computer security… Continue Reading
Susanna White talks about her film Our Kind of Traitor based on John le Carre novel. We caught up with her in San Francisco when she was here to screen her film at the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival. The first question we asked White was on Benedict Cumberbatch. She worked with him in… Continue Reading
Filmmakers Morgan Neville & Caitrin Rogers talk about the making of their film Music of Strangers:Yo-Yo Ma & The Silk Road Road Enesemble. We caught up with Neville and Rogers during the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival where their documentary was screened. On the surface the film appears to be about Yo-Yo Ma and his quest… Continue Reading
Pico Iyer is an author and essayist, who divides his time between Japan and the US. We caught up with him in 2015 in San Francisco and spoke to him on a wide variety of topics ranging from how he defines his writing to his love for film, sports, American pop culture, the peristence of… Continue Reading
The Kamla Show 