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
Meet Danielle Applestone of Other Machine Company that makes desktop milling machine. Applestone talks about how growing up in Arkansas and discovering her love for math and science and how she decided to study engineering. She went to MIT to study chemical engineering and discovered that what she really wanted to study was material science. She… Continue Reading
Academy award winners Damien Chazelle and Justin Hurwitz talk about La La Land, a film that pays homage to Hollywood musicals and French filmmaker Jacques Demy. Chazelle and Hurwitz were room mates at Harvard Univeristy and they moved to Los Angeles to pursue their dream of making films. While at Harvard they worked together on… Continue Reading
We caught up with Oscar nominee Theodore Melfi of Hidden Figures in San Francisco. Melfi directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Alison Schroder. We talked to him about the making of Hidden Figures, how he got attached to the film. the math boot camp for his actors and the music by Pharrell Williams and Hans… Continue Reading
Director John Madden’s new film Miss Sloane is about a powerful Washington DC lobbyist played by Jessica Chastain. We caught up with Madden at Industrial Light Magic’s (ILM) office in San Francisco. ILM was a fitting venue since Madden’s first American project was a radio drama of Star Wars. George Lucas is a big fan of radio… Continue Reading
Jayalalitha Jayaraman, the Chief Minister of the southern Indian India state Tamil Nadu passed on Dec 5, 2106 in Chennai. Jayalalitha (68) represents a rare breed of Tamil politicians, who built their career in the Tamil film industry before joining politics. Jayalalitha along with MGR and Karunanidhi exerted a powerful influence on their voters and on the policy… Continue Reading
Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berg share on how they came to write the screenplay for Trolls. One of the interesting things about trolls is that there was no backstory or a universe available for them. Aibel and Berger got an opportunity to architect and create a whole new world and backstory for these happy-go-lucky trolls. Their… Continue Reading
Director Mike Mitchell and co-director Walt Dohrn talk about their relentlessly happy film Trolls. Mitchell and Dorn have known each other since their time as students at Cal Institute of Arts and later on in Shrek and other films. Both are big fans of Walt Disney and HayooMiyazaki and talk about them as well as Alfred Hitchcock. How… Continue Reading
Filmmaker Barry Jenkins Moonlight is an elegant and brilliantly evocative film about coming-of-age and love.This is one of the best films I have seen so far this year. There is an aura of quiet grace about Moonlight that makes you think long after the end credits have rolled. You go away wondering what is that little… Continue Reading
Filmmaker Ewan McGregor makes his directorial debut with American Pastoral that is based on a Philip Roth novel by the same name. Roth won a Pulitzer prize for his novel. American Pastoral stars McGregor, Jennifer Connelly, Dakokta Fanning, David Strathairn, Uzo Aduba, Rupert Evans and Valorie Curry. We caught up with McGregor in San Francisco to talk about the making… Continue Reading
We sat down with Chris Garcia, curator at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View to find out about the evolution of technology and the history and legacy of Silicon Valley. The Computer History Museum is the place to see those huge computers that used punch cards to the advent of personal computers and smart… Continue Reading
Punit Soni is an engineer, investor and advistor to startups. He is an ex-Googler and the former Chief Product Officer of Flipkart, an Indian ecommerce company. We sat down with Soni to talk about his journey to America from Mumbai, India. What prompted him to pursue a MBA degree after working as an engineer in Silicon… Continue Reading
We speak with filmmaker Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra about his new film Mirzya. “It is a film about love,” shares Mehra. The film is set in two, different time periods he adds. We talk to Mehra on how how the idea for the film was born, the preparation that went into making the film, the music… Continue Reading
We caught up with Zoe Elton, Director of Programming for the 39th Mill Valley Film Festival (Oct 6-16, 2016) to find out what they have in store at this year’s festival. We spoke to her about the film, actors and the new sections they have on Latin America & Culinary Cinema. This is one of… 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
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
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
Filmmaker Jason Cohen’s Silicon Cowboys traces the rise and fall of Compaq, the personal computer (PC) company. Compaq was the company that challenged IBM and changed the PC landscape in the 1980s. Compaq was founded by Rod Canion, Jim Harris and Bill Murto in Houston, TX. The founders were partially inspired by Silicon Valley’s culture. At one point Compaq was the… 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
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
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
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
Shampa Banerjee is Chief Product Officer at Silicon Valley-based Eros Digital, which is the digital arm of Eros International, the world’s largest integrated studio for Bollywood films. We were curious to find out how she developed an interest in math and science and came to work in Silicon Valley. Growing up in India Banerjee developed… Continue Reading
Hannah Kain studied International Relations in Denmark and was interested in politics. So, how did she end up in Silicon Valley? And how did she end up founding a company in the manufacturing space? We spoke to Kain about her journey from Denmark to Silicon Valley and the challenges she faced in running her company.… 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
The Kamla Show 