The 58th San Francisco Internatonal Film Festival is underway, and this year they have a really terrific lineup.The opening night film was Alex Gibney’s much talked about documentary “Steve Jobs: The Man In The Machine.” The film explores our collective fascination with Jobs, and delves into what values shaped this iconic Silicon Valley entrepreneur.
Alex Gibney’s documentary “Steve Jobs: Man In The Machine,” was the opening night film at this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival. In this 120 minute long documentary we get to see Steve Jobs up close and personal and discover facets of him like his obsession with Zen Buddhism. Jobs apparently wanted to be a monk… Continue Reading
Today is the opening night of the longest running film festival in the Americas – San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF). The festival runs from today through May 7, 2015 and is studded with a wonderful array of films, guests and talks. We sat down to speak with Noah Cowan of San Francisco Film Society… Continue Reading
Film lovers are in for a wonderful treat at this year’s 58th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 23 -May 7, 2014). With so many terrific films it is always a challenge to find out which ones to watch. Here are five films from different genres and parts of the world that I enjoyed watching and… Continue Reading
We are obsessed with Steve Jobs. We just can’t seem to get enough of him. There is a new book out about Jobs and two different films about the iconic Silicon Valley entrepreneur. This is not including the 2011 book by Walter Isaacson and the 2013 Hollywood film “Jobs,” with Ashton Kutcher that did not do… Continue Reading
Dr. Salman Akhtar talks about Bollywood or Hindi cinema’s 100 year old history in this multi-part interview. In Part-3 of our conversation he talks about female sexuality and the angry young phase of Hindi cinema during the 1970s. “I will tell you a very interesting story about female sexuality in Hindi film,” he says. And he shares the… Continue Reading
San Francisco Film Society (SFFS) is gearing up to host the 58th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 23 – May 7, 2015). This is the longest running film festival in the Americas points out Noah Cowan, Executive Director of SFFS. What is different about this year’s festival I asked Cowan. The actual festival itself won’t… Continue Reading
Take a look at the new trailer of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” directed JJ Abrams. The screenplay is by Lawrence Kasdan and JJ Abrams. The film stars Harrison Ford, Oscar Isaac, John Boyega Lupita Nyong’o and others. This much anticipated film releases on December 18, 2015. Earlier this year, I got a chance to interview Kasdan… Continue Reading
Meet Mikey McCleary, musician, composer and music producer.He has been kept busy creating music for Bollywood films and Indian advertisements, and lately he has branched out to score music for Indian-American filmmaker Shonali Bose’s “Margarita With A Straw” If his name is unfamiliar, his music must certainly be familiar to most of us. You might… Continue Reading
Meet Hollywood actor and TV star Tiya Sircar. We caught up with her at this year’s Cinequest film festival in Silicon Valley. She was here for the world premiere of her new film “Miss India America.” A couple of years ago Sircar spent time in Silicon Valley filming for “The Internship.” Naturally one of the… Continue Reading
Dr. Salman Akhtar talks about the 100 year old history of Bollywood or Hindi cinema in this multi-part interview. Dr. Akhtar comes from a family of poets and writers in India. His father Jan Nisar Akhtar worked in Hindi film industry as a lyricist and poet. His mother Safia Akhtar was a talented writer & poet. His brother Javed Akhtar is a well-known writer… Continue Reading
Chaitanya Tamhane’s debut feature film “Court” pulls you right in. That is all I am going to say about this powerful film with its slow, meditative and unhurried pace with excellent acting by Vira Sathidar, Geetanjali Kulkarni, Vivek Gombar and others. “Court” takes you to places that you tend to ignore or overlook in India. The… Continue Reading
“Kinky and cofounding,” is how this film is described. “It is obscene” says Isabella Rossellini in the the video clip embedded at the end of this post. It is a “fun romp,” says Noah Cowan, Executive Director of San Francisco Film Society. Now, don’t jump to conclusions. This “kinky and confounding” and “fun romp” is a… Continue Reading
Meet Kosha Patel, Los Angeles-based actor and writer. Did I mention funny? Perhaps, you have seen her in “Shit White Girls Say…To Brown Girls.” She has acted in “Grey’s Anatomy,” “House of Lies,” and “The Newroom” We caught up with Patel at this year’s Cinequest Film Festival in Silicon Valley during the world premiere of “Miss… Continue Reading
Dr. Salman Akhtar talks about the 100 year old history of Bollywood or Hindi cinema in this multi-part interview. What is different about Dr. Akhtar’s approach is he brings his trained psychiatrist eyes to the subject and helps us understand what socio-economics factors permeated and colored the narrative and story lines of filmmakers. And how films in turn… Continue Reading
Noah Cowan is Executive Director of the San Francisco Film Society (SFFS) that hosts the annual San Francisco International Film Festival. Cowan joined SFFS last year, and prior to that he spent a lot of his time at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). His last post was as artistic director of the Bell Lightbox… Continue Reading
The lineup of films, guests and events for the 58th San Francisco International FilmFestival (SFIFF) was announced yesterday. This year’s festival is an interesting mix that reflects the “spirit of the bay area,” as Noah Cowan put it. Cowan is the executive director of the San Francisco Film Society that hosts the annual film festival,… Continue Reading
I finally saw “Life Itself,” a documentary about Roger Ebert, a well-known film critic with Chicago Sun-Times. The film is a warm portrait of Ebert and at times it is difficult to watch the film as we see him valiantly beat his cancer. The only reason I did not bail out was because of Ebert’s happy and… Continue Reading
Art and films – that is what we are talking about with our guests in our upcoming interviews. Sherill Ingalls of San Jose Museum of Art talks about their current exhibit “Postdate: Photography and Inherited History in India” that features 9 contemporary artists from India. Actors Tiya Sircar and Kosha Patel talk about their new… Continue Reading
Academy Award winner Danny Boyle of “Slumdog Millionaire,” is busy directing his latest movie in San Francisco bay area. And the new biopic is about Silicon Valley icon Steve Jobs. The shooting of the film started in the beginning of the year. The cast and crew has spent time filming in San Francisco and in locations around South… Continue Reading
San Francisco bay area has a rich history of filmmaking. The tradition goes all the way to the early 20thc when Niles Canyon near Fremont was home to the Silent Film Industry. Many silent films were produced in the studios of Niles Canyon. Fast forward to the late 1960s when Francis Ford Coppolo and George… Continue Reading
Louis Lumiere and Auguste Lumiere, the French inventors showed their first motion picture in Paris on March 22, 1895. They made the film using Cinematographe, which in turn was inspired by Thomas Edison’s invention Kinetascope. “Workers Leaving The Lumiere Factory,” is less than a minute long and to use that hackneyed phrase the rest is history.… Continue Reading
San Francisco bay area has a rich history of filmmaking going back to the late 19th when Eadweard Muybridge demonstrated the moving picture of a horse to Leland Stanford, founder of Stanford University. In the early 20th the bay area was home to the Silent Film industry and Niles Canyon near Fremont was home to Essanay… Continue Reading
Meet Lawrence Kasdan – writer, director and producer. He co-wrote the screenplay for George Lucas’s “Star Wars” trilogy, He worked with JJ Abrams on the latest Star Wars film “The Force Awakens,” that releases in December 2015. Kasdan was honored with a Maverick Spirit Award at the recent Cinequest Film Festival, which is where… Continue Reading
How is sound designed for a film? Ever wondered about it? We did and spoke with Academy Award winner Resul Pookutty to find out how he and his team worked on Shonali Bose’s “Margarita With A Straw.” Pookutty won an Oscar for his work in Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire.” “Margarita With A Straw,” is about… Continue Reading
“Miss India America” had its world premiere at the recently concluded Cinequest film festival in Silicon Valley. This humorous film examines the notion of ambition and the lengths to which we go to achieve our dreams. The film and the cast members got standing ovation from the audience. We spoke with Meera Simhan and Ravi Kapoor, the husband… Continue Reading
Award-winning filmmaker Robert Kenner’s new documentary “Merchants of Doubt,” is inspired by the book by the same name by Naomi Orsekes and Eric Conway. Kennar’s previous film is the award-winning “Food Inc.” that takes you behind the scenes of how the food industry operates. In this new film “Merchants of Doubt,” Kennar takes you behind the scene and shows… Continue Reading
Shonali Bose’s “Margarita With A Straw,” is the centerpiece of this year’s Center for Asian American Media (CAAM) Festival at San Francisco’s Castro Theatre on March 15, 2015. We spoke to Bose about “Margarita With A Straw,” a coming-of-age film, which she describes as a deeply personal film. The story is about a differently abled person’s… Continue Reading
Food is the centerpiece of many Asian-American communities in the USA.There is absolutely no question about that and I can vouch for it. What are we eating today is a daily conversation in my family, and we cook everyday. And there are many memories and stories woven around food in my family. And food is… Continue Reading
Anne Thompson lives, breathes, talks and writes about films. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of Thompson on Hollywood at Indiewire. She is the author of the book “The $11 Billion Dollar Year.” She teaches a course on films at UCLA. A prolific writer Thompson has written for Variety, Entertainment Weekly, New York Times, Washington… Continue Reading
The Kamla Show 