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
Anton Yelchin and Victor Levin’s film 9 to 5, was the closing night film at the 2015 Cinequest Film Festival. I recollect vividly how patiently Yelchin and Levin stood at the Red Carpet answering all our questions. When it was my turn to interview them I checked with Yelchin if he could speak in Russian. And,… Continue Reading
Joshua Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg’s documentary Weiner is about Anthony Weiner, a former New York Congressman, who also ran for Mayor of New York in 2013. Kreigman worked as Weiner’s political consultant before becoming a filmmaker. The film takes you behind the scenes and chronicles Weiner’s political life and spotlights his 2013 run for Mayor of… Continue Reading
We caught up with filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos and actress Ariane Labed during the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival. Lanthimos was at the festival to show his first English feature film The Lobster. The Lobster has been described as a dark comedy and a dystopian Tour de Force. The film is about a parallel world with rules on… Continue Reading
Filmmaker Whit Stillman described as the Patron Saint of luxury on a budget by GQ wrote and directed Love & Friendship that is based on Jane Austen’s epistolary novella called Lady Susan. The novella was published after Austen’s death by her nephew. We caught up with Stillman during the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival, where… Continue Reading
The Man Who Knew Infinity is a 2016 film about the life of the Indian mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan, who was born in India in 1887 and died at the young age of 32 years old. Within a short period of time Ramanujan established his mathematical brilliance and became one of the youngest Fellows of the… Continue Reading
Prof. Freeman Dyson of Princeton University worked on Srinivasa Ramanujan‘s partition of numbers theory while studying at Cambridge University. In this interview Prof. Dyson shares how he first discovered about Ramanujan in ET Bell’s book Men of Mathematics, and later on he went on to work on Ramanujan’s number theory at Cambridge University and developed a tool called Rank.… Continue Reading
SOLD is a feature film about human trafficking and is based on the novel by the same name by Patricia McCormick. In this interview director Jeffrey Brown and actress Susmita Mukherjee take us behind the scenes. Brown shares how he read the book in one sitting and optioned for it the next day. He was… Continue Reading
Oscar nominated director Lenny Abrahamson’s film Room has got 4 Oscar nominations. They are for best director, film, best female actress and best adapted screenplay. That the film scored 4 Oscar nominations may come as a surprise to some, but not to those who have seen the film. We recorded this interview with Abrahamson in San… Continue Reading
In the last few years San Francisco Bay area has emerged as a hub of food startups, who are using technology to create new products and Kite Hill is one such company. We talk with Matthew Sade, CEO of Kite Hill to find out what they are doing differently about making cheese that is dairy… Continue Reading
Bill Pohlad directed and produced Love & Mercy (2015), a biopic of Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys fame. This is Pohlad’s portrait of the talented singer and composer Wilson and is not a “cradle to grave” biopic as he puts it. The film focusses on two different parts of Wilson’s life that is… Continue Reading
Quick note to let you know there will be no podcast interviews this week. Will be back next week with a new podcast interview. You can listen and download our podcast interviews from our website, iTunes and some of them are available on our YouTube channel. If you like what you hear, do share and… Continue Reading
Meet Shy Mudakavi founder and CEO of Safari Kid headquartered in the San Francisco Bay area. How Mudakavi built Safari Kid is a fascinating story of one woman’s determination to succeed in her mission and how she hired the right resources to expand. What drove her to build her school was her belief, passion and committment.… Continue Reading
Martin “Marty” Cooper is often described as the “Father of the Cell Phone.” Cooper along with his team worked on creating the first cell phone or wireless phone as it was known at Motorola. The very first call Cooper made in April 1973 from the streets of Manhattan was to his counterpart Joel Engel at… Continue Reading
Ever wondered who created the compression algorithms and all the technical stuff in the startup world that you see in HBO’s Silicon Valley. We talk to the character behind the technology. Meet Dr. Vinith Misra, the technical consultant, who worked with Mike Judge and his team on the series. He was working on his PhD with Prof. Tsachy… Continue Reading
Meet Steffi Paepcke, lead designer and co-founder of Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF), a non-profit organization based in Mountain View. OSRF is a spin off from Willow Garage, a robotics startup in Menlo Park. OSRF’s mission is to support the development and distribution of open source software in robot research, education and product development points out… Continue Reading
Lawrence Kasdan is a writer, producer and director. He is the co-writer of Star Wars: The Force Awakens that opened today in the US. Kasdan c0-wrote other Star Wars films. He wrote and directed The Big Chill. Earlier this year Kasdan was recognized for his work by Silicon Valley’s Cinequest Film Festival, which ia where we… Continue Reading
Filmmaker Jay Roach’s new film Trumbo takes you back to the start of the Cold War period and the fight for the American way of life in Hollywood. The film revisits a dark phase in Hollywood’s history and how fear propelled people in the film industry to act in different ways. The film highlights how Trumbo… Continue Reading
Jordanian filmmaker Naji Abu Nowar’s debut film Theeb is a stunning coming of age film of a young Bedouin boy. This period film is set in 1916 during World War I when the powerful Ottoman Empire was crumbling and losing its hold over this part of the Middle East. The film was shot in Jordan… Continue Reading
Ever wondered about the brains of a robot or the robot operating systems (ROS)? Is there a standardized ROS for robots? How do robots learn? How do you teach a robot? And then there other questions about Artificial Intelligence (AI), ethics and the future of robots in our society. We spoke with Dr. Todd Hylton,… Continue Reading
Filmmaker Lenny Abrahamson’s new film Room is based on Emma Donoghue’s novel by the same name. The film is about a mother-son relationship in a little room, which is where they have been confined for a few years. That little room represents the whole universe for the little boy, and the only visitor they get is… Continue Reading
Meet San Francisco Bay area’s Tava India Kitchen’s Hasnain Zaidi, Chief Operating Officer. In this interview Zaidi shares the back story of how Tava was born and what kind of food they serve. We also find out if they were inspired by the success of Chipotle, the restaurant chain that serves Mexican food. Tava… Continue Reading
Filmmaker Cary Fukunaga’s new film, Beasts of No Nation, releases today in theatres and on Netflix.This is the first time that a feature film is releasing simultaneously in theatres and streaming online. With this film could Los Gatos-based Netflix became a key player in the film industry? We spoke to Fukunaga and Abraham Attah, the young… Continue Reading
Director Cary Fukunga and actress Mia Wasikowska talk about their film Jane Eyre that released in 2011. This is Fukunaga’s second feature film. His first feature film was Sin Nombre (Nameless) that he wrote and directed. The film was received well and won him a clutch of awards. In this 2011 interview we talk to Fukunaga and… Continue Reading
We caught up the talented Avery Ruzicka, head baker and partner of Manresa Bread in Los Gatos, CA at the BiteSV conference in Santa Clara. BiteSV was the first food and technology conference that was held in June 2015 in Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara. Chef/Owner David Kinch heads Manresa, a Michelin-starred restaurant that consistently gets rave reviews.… Continue Reading
Davis Guggenheim’s new documentary He Called Me Malala is a profile of Malala Yousafzai. The brave young Pakistani Nobel Peace Prize winner needs no introduction. She narrowly cheated death in October 2012 when she and her two friends were shot by the Taliban in Pakistan’s Swat valley. The girls were on their way to school when their… Continue Reading
Filmmaker Ramin Bahrani’s 99 Homes is a powerful film about the untold American story on the housing bubble. The film picks up where the news media left off on what happened to folks who were evicted from their homes during the great housing bubble of 2007-2009. There was non-stop news coverage about bad mortgages and… Continue Reading
Why is India not innovative on a sustained basis? How do you create a sustainable environment for innovation in India? What about logistics and infrastructure? When we think of innovation in India why do we think only of tech innovation and not other areas.? What are the skill gaps in India? How can Make in India… Continue Reading
Dosas in a San Francisco street corner? South India Street Food in the heart of San Francisco? I walk by Market and Montogomery quite often and how in heaven’s name did I fail to see this? Who started Dosa Brothers? These were the thoughts flitting through my mind as I impatiently waited for the traffic light to… Continue Reading
The Kamla Show 