Filmmaker Mobolaji Olambiwonnu's new documentary Ferguson Rises is a portrait of this small town near St. Louis, Missouri that came into the national spotlight in 2014. On Aug 9, 2014 a young unarmed 18 year old Michael Brown Jr. was shot by a local police officer. How did the family, the community and the town deal with this tragedy? What was the path to healing the family and community are some of the questions the filmmaker highlights in the film.
Fauci is a National Geographic Documentary by filmmakers John Hoffman & Janet Tobias. The film paints a portrait of the 80 year Dr. Anthony Fauci, who became a household name in 2020 during the Covid pandemic. But, who is Dr. Fauci? What makes him tick? Watch the film to find out more about Dr. Fauci.
Frank Zappa (1940-1993) was a musician, composer and a social commentator, but this is an incomplete way to describe this unconventional human being, who believed in pushing boundaries and questioning the status quo in music, society and politics. For instance, more than once Zappa thought of running for the American Presidency, but the idea… Continue Reading
Lois Vossen is executive producer at Independent Lens, PBS in San Francisco. This clip is a highlight of our upcoming 2-part interview with Vossen, who shares how she grew up in a farm in Minnesota and never dreamt that one day she would be living in San Francisco and working with filmmakers. Imagine her utter… Continue Reading
Tom Quinn wrote and directed Colewell, a quiet and evocative film set in a rural town in Pennsylvania. The film stars Karen Allen, Kevin J. O’Connor and others. Colewell had its world premiere at the 2019 SFFILM, which is where we caught up with Quinn. We spoke about the making of Colewell, how he got… Continue Reading
The remarkable rise & fall of John DeLorean, an engineer & automobile entrepreneur, is the subject of Sheena M. Joyce and Don Argott’s fascinating documentary Framing John DeLorean. The film makes for an absorbing watch and highlights how ambition & greed undid a plucky engineer-entrepreneur’s achievements and eventually ruined his family, members of his company… Continue Reading
The 18th San Francisco Documentary Film Festival runs for 2 weeks from May 29 to June 13, 2019 at Roxie and Brava Theaters in San Francisco. The films shown at the festival range from comedy, social justice, environment, LGBT, religion, politics, music, dance, pop culture and many more topics. The festival tagline says it all:… Continue Reading
Karen Allen got her first acting role in National Lampon’s Animal House, an iconic 1978 comedy directed by John Landis. We got an opportunity to ask Allen how she got to be a part of Animal House that became a box-office hit. After National Lampon’s Animal House Allen went on to act in many feature… Continue Reading
Ask Dr. Ruth, The White Crow and Long Day’s Journey Into Night are three of the films that are currently playing in a theatre near you in the US. Two of the films are biopics and the third is a moody film noir from China. Director Ryan White’s biopic Ask Dr Ruth makes for an interesting watch.… Continue Reading
The 24th Annual San Francisco Silent Film Festival is back and runs from May 1 through May 5, 2019 at the Castro Theatre. This annual 5-day event is a wonderful tribute to the silent film era from the the 1920s and 1930s before talkies took over and became popular. The festival is studded with fantastic… Continue Reading
Ever wondered how to correctly pronounce actor John Turturro’s last name? I wondered about the correct way to pronounce his name since he is one of my favorite actors. I got an opportunity to ask Turturro that question in 2014. Turturro was in San Francisco for the press junket of Fading Gigolothat he wrote, directed and… Continue Reading
San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM Festival) is the longest running film festival in the US. This year marks its 62nd year and the festival runs from April 10 through April 23, 2019. San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland are the 3 venues where you can catch the films and listen to filmmakers talk about their… Continue Reading
We bring you highlight of our conversation with Megan Smith, who was part of the team at General Magic. In the early 1990s General Magic was one of the hottest startups in Silicon Valley. Smith shares some of the hardware challenges the General Magic team faced in developing their pocket crystal or personal communicator. General… Continue Reading
Cinequest, an annual film festival in Silicon Valley is back this year from March 5 – March 17, 2019 in San Jose and Redwood City. Cinequest is not just about films, but it also features Virtual Reality (VR) experiences and conversations with actors and film makers like Nandita Das, Billy Nighy and others. The opening… Continue Reading
What about all this initial Oscar buzz for Glenn Close for her role in #TheWife? This was a question on my mind when I got an opportunity to interview director Bjorn Runge in 2018 just before the release of the film. “I don’t dare think those thoughts,” he replied. “What happens next is out of my… Continue Reading
We speak with Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck about his Oscar nominated film Never Look Away that he wrote, directed and produced. Never Look Away is on the final list for the 2019 Oscars in the foreign film category. In 2007 Donnersmarck won an Oscar for his debut feature film The Lives of Others that was… Continue Reading
Filmmaker Alexis Bloom’s new documentary Divide and Conquer:The Story of Roger Ailes chronicles the rise and fall of the powerful and influential former Chairperson and CEO of Fox News. Ailes’s skillful use of television goes back to 1968 and continued all the way into the 21stc. “He was canny…and could read people and feel the temperature… Continue Reading
I recently watched The Ballad of Billy Scruggs and Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. Strangely, both the films left me disappointed in varying degrees. Joel and Ethan Coen are back with a new film The Ballad of Billy Scruggs – a Netflix original. I was really looking forward watching their new film where the Coen… Continue Reading
This year’s 3rd i’s Annual San Francisco International South Asian Film Festival: Bollywood and Beyond (SFISAFF) is back with a wonderful repertoire of films from South Asia, US and Canada. The festival has an interesting mix of feature films, documentaries, shorts and conversations with filmmakers. SFISAFF runs from Nov 1, 2018 to Nov 4, 2018 in… Continue Reading
Prof. Annete Insdorf is a teacher, author, film historian and an interviewer. She teaches at Columbia University and prior to that she taught at Yale University. To say that Prof. Insdorf is consumed by films is an understatement. She got hooked to films as a graduate student at Yale University and her love for films grew… Continue Reading
We spoke with filmmakers Darren Foster and Christina Constantini about the making of their lover letter of a film called Science Fair. The film won an audience award at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. “Olympics of Science Fair,” is how one of the students describes this annual science festival that changes the lives of high school… Continue Reading
We talk to filmmaker Noel Dockstader about the making of “Point of No Return.” This is the first documentary feature film of Dockstader and his film parter Quinn Kanalay. They like making environmental films and were looking for their next big thing when they came across an article on how Bertrand Piccard and Andre Boschberg… Continue Reading
Swedish filmmaker Bjorn Runge talks about the making of his film The Wife based on a novel by Meg Wolitzer. The film stars Glenn Close, Jonathan Pryce, Christian Slater, Max Irons and others. Jane Anderson wrote the screenplay for The Wife, who also wrote the screenplay for Olive Keterridge and Mad Men among others. The Wife… Continue Reading
Bill Atkinson and Andy Hertzfeld dropped out of their respective PhD programs and joined Apple Computer when it was still a young company. Steve Jobs persuaded them to join the company and they share how his persuasion worked. Both Atkinson and Hertzfeld made key and valuable contributions to Apple’s early products and some of them… Continue Reading
Filmmaker Noel Dockstader shares why his creative partner Quinn Kanaly and he were drawn into making their “in the moment” film Point of No Return. The filmmakers spent over 3 years in making their film about the first solar plane – Solar Impulse – that flew around the world by using renewable energy. What drew them… Continue Reading
Last week I watched a preview of filmmaker Jon M. Chu’s Crazy Rich Asians in Silicon Valley. It was pretty entertaining and I was laughing throughout the film as were other Asian-Americans in the audience. I connected with the film and realized that I was not bored even for a wee bit. But to my puzzlement… Continue Reading
Filmmaker Kimberly Reed shares how and why she made her new documentary Dark Money. Reed looks at how dark money enters the domestic politics of her home state of Montana and influenced the outcome of political elections. Dark money means money that cannot be traced to its source, Dark Money is a phrase that people… Continue Reading
Filmmaker Ben Rekhi grew up in Silicon Valley surrounded by entrepreneurs and startup. It was not tech startups, but making films that was his passion. We sit down with Rekhi to find out why he left Silicon Valley and why he headed south to Los Angeles to become a dream merchant. There is a lot… Continue Reading
Kimberly Reedis the director & producer Dark Money(2018), a documentary that traces the role of dark money in the state politics of Montana. What did Montana do differently compared to other states in tracking the role of dark money in their elections? How did Republicans and Democrats in that state come together to take this… Continue Reading
Filmmaker Guneet Monga is consumed by films and filmmaking and it should come as no surprise that earlier this year she became a member of Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. We caught up with Monga earlier this year in San Francisco Bay Area to find out how she became a filmmaker and what… Continue Reading
The Kamla Show 