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"And Wes Anderson starts coming because we have the chess night."

Interview with actor Kumar Pallana at The Believer , from March 2003. Pallana has appeared in at least 3 Wes Anderson movies. Here is a slice from the interview : "KP: The problem was, India was marching for freedom. Gandhi was just coming up, the Congress party was ten, twenty years old, and they wanted to kick the British out. And they have the different parties. There were especially two: one with the violence, one with the non-violence. The violent people were underground. My brother was involved with the freedom fighters, with the violence. My brother was involved and we didn’t know and then all those people were captured and we find out that they are freedom fighters. And they were violent. They used violence because in those days the Raja and Maharaja were puppets. They were using people like slavery and then all the army controlled the land." Read the rest here . - Sujewa

2 Actors At A Diner After An Audition :: Use of this blog

Is the working title of the new short that I am making in collaboration with a few DC area filmmakers, more here . :: I think this is how this blog will be used in the future; to point to significant posts at Wild Diner Films blog (my regular blog these days). The day to day updates on projects will be at Wild Diner Films blog - while this blog will be used to promote certain items/important items at that blog; since posts on this blog gets carried on iW's blogs page & thus has the chance of being read more widely. Most likely I will post here a couple of times a week at most. Also, non-WDF stuff, like the Water Flowing Together interview that I still need to transcribe, will be posted here. So I guess this blog is only semi-retired. - Sujewa

Links to 3 new projects :: Getting the blogging habit under control

After this post pretty much all the future posts (except for at least 2 more posts re: SilverDocs '07 stuff) at this blog will be directly about one of my movies (a little trick to get me to work on making movies more instead of writing about other people's movies), more on this below. 3 New Projects I've Heard About : Texas Snow Flying Dead Birds A Stupid Movie for Jerks :: Getting the Blogging Habit Under Control Blogging is fast, unlike filmmaking. Thus, blogging can be very addictive, something that will take up a lot of time. So, the decision has to be made re: whether I am going to spend a lot of time writing about film or a lot of time making & showing & selling films. I am going with the making films option, with blogging being used strictly for my filmmaking related promotional work. Since it is easy for anyone to start a blog, other filmmakers should definitely look into it. If you do start a blog about your indie film or indie film in general, e-mail

Photos iW BLOGGER MEET UP # 1 NYC 2007 8/23 Thu night Botanica bar :: Happy Labor Day hard working iW bloggers! :)

Sujewa Ekanayake (Wild Diner Films Blog, film Date Number One ), Eugene Hernandez ( indieWIRE ) Tom Hall ( The Back Row Manifesto blog , Sarasota Film Festival), Agnes Varnum ( Doc It Out blog ), Pamela Cohn ( Still In Motion blog ) Sujewa Ekanayake, Matt Zoller Seitz (New York Times, The House Next Door blog , film Home) Brian Geldin ( The Film Panel Notetaker blog ), Amy Peters (The Film Panel Notetaker blog), S.T. Van Airsdale ( The Reeler ) Matt Dentler ( Matt Dentler's blog , SXSW Film Festival), Mike Tully ( Boredom at Its Boredest blog , film Cocaine Angel, film Silver Jew), Alex Karpovsky (film The Hole Story ) Eugene Hernandez, Brian Geldin Wide shot of people at the event Adam Roffman ( Independent Film Festival of Boston ), Craig Zobel (film Great World of Sound ) Mike Tully, Pamela Cohn, Doug Block ( Doug Block's Doc Blog , film 51 Birch Street) Matt Dentler, i believe that is Mark Rabinovitz from The Rabbi Report , S.T. Van Airsdale, Mike Tully Amy Peters, Brian

Indie filmmaking for working people - some tips

It is Labor Day in America, so let's take a look at the intersection of other kinds of work and independent filmmaking. It is completely possible to work full time at whatever kind of job and to make movies in spare time; nights, weekends, etc. Not the ideal working situation for a filmmaker, but a way to get started and even a way to develop a significant body of work. With the low cost of production brought about by digital video this is doable. I've made 4 movies so far (1 short - Fresh Coffee , 1 one hour long doc/performance video - 17 DC Poets , 1 fiction feature on 16 MM - Wild Diner , one DV fiction feature comedy - Date Number One ) with money from other work (office work, retail work, film & video production work, etc.) being one of the main sources of financial support for making the movies. Of course it takes time to do things this way, and getting a studio or investors to put up all the money for projects is a lot more lucrative & quicker way to go proba

Got main character & story line selected for Stranger Than Hollywood :: early call for possible leads

To set my movie about making movies apart from several other art/indie/foreign type movies about making movies- the lead character will be female; so, a story about a female indie film director, to be played by a dark skinned minority actress (since I've been complaining lately about the lack of minorities in lead roles in indie/real indie films, specially dark skinned people). The rest of the cast will be multi-ethnic; "white" as well as non-"white"actors. Out of like seven possible story lines for this movie, I am going to go with a story that I've written about a weekend shoot, going from Thu - Sun, to film scenes for a crucial segment of an indie feature; a 15 minute segment. I like the limited time frame - four days, that the story will take place in (I thought 2 Days In Paris worked really well because so much was condensed into a limited amount of time; see my post re: that flick below). And that is the latest re: my new movie Stranger Than Hollywoo

Saw 2 DAYS IN PARIS, liked it a lot - will be added to my top 5 faves list, will see it again a couple more times soon

Saw the Julie Delphy written & directed comedy 2 Days In Paris last night. Movie is funny, warmly human (accepting of some human shortcomings & also appreciative of good things about people), and ultimately romantic. Even thought the movie is about a young couple & their relationship, it is not a typical romantic comedy; it is more abrasive. The flick is also, in passing, concerned with French & American relations, politics, male and female attitudes and ideas about each other, sex/attitudes regarding sex & sexuality, war, racism, crime & also ethnic relations in France. And, in the end, like I said before, ultimately romantic (just so you are not turned off by the list of mostly non-romantic things that I just gave). All in all, one of the best/most enjoyable movies I have seen in a long time. Will want to see it at least a couple of more times. Great script by Delphy, also well directed by her. Film stars Delphy and Adam Goldberg - who does a good job

September 2 Do

film, major items 1 - make the Date Number One DVD available for sale 1.2 -- send the DVD out to people it has been promised to 2 - finish writing script for Stranger Than Hollywood 3 - start preparing to shoot STH starting in Oct; to have it completed by late Nov. or ASAP/in '07

NYC trip PHOTOS 2; Theaters; Pioneer, Anthology, Angelika

Pioneer Theater marquee (sorry about the finger tip in that 1st pic) - one of my favorite NYC indie theaters (if I lived there I would probably be there several nights a week) Anthology Film Archives - the professional home of Jonas Mekas, their New Filmmakers series sounds very interesting - every week/all year long, not too far a walk from Pioneer Angelika Film Center, where I saw Tom DiCillo's Delirious on 8/23 Thu, notice the Great World of Sound poster - I hear that flick is very good, coming soon to theaters (other NYC trip photos are being prepared for upload now, all should be up this weekend) - Sujewa

Paris based Haitian-American filmmaker Michelange Quay's EAT, FOR THIS IS MY BODY to screen at TIFF

Michelange e-mailed earlier today and told me that after some initial disappointments that he is very happy that he is able to screen Eat, For This Is My Body at the Toronto International Film Festival (9/6 -15). Here is a description of the movie, from the TIFF site : "EAT, FOR THIS IS MY BODY Michelange Quay, Haiti/France An unusual relationship between a privileged white woman and her young servant, Patrick, sets them on a visceral and hypnotic journey of self-discovery across poverty stricken Haiti. For the first time, she will see and hear the land and its people, witness their suffering, and sense the reality of her own body." OK, sounds very French (and that's not a bad thing :). Good luck in Toronto Michelange & Team Eat! - Sujewa

Full Movie - SNEAK PREVIEW - Cosmic Disco Detective Rene And The Mystery Of Immortal Time Travelers

NEW - COSMIC DISCO DETECTIVE RENE (2023) - TRAILER!

The Secret Society For Slow Romance (2022) - available to rent as a new release starting January 1

Werewolf Ninja Philosopher at Vimeo VOD

Reading Material

Indie Film Blogger Road Trip