Gita Pullapilly and Aron Gaudet and India - US Film Summit

Award-winning, Hollywood filmmakers, Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly, are inviting one Indian-based Bollywood filmmaker to learn about the process for creating Hollywood films with a global reach. As part of the India-US Film Initiative, the selected filmmaker will be set up with one-on-one meetings with key leaders in the film industry during one week in November in Los Angeles, California.

This year’s honored Indian filmmaker is Nikhil Taneja, a Mumbai- based film producer and screenwriter, who is working on a documentary to empower and engage youth in India.

This year, Gaudet and Pullapilly are directing their feature comedy, QUEENPINS, starring Kristen Bell, Leslie Jones, and Josh Gad.

Emmy-nominated filmmakers, Gaudet and Pullapilly, recognize the importance of sharing stories from India and the United States on a global scale. “As an Indian-American and having spent much of my childhood in India, I value the importance of incorporating Indian values and beliefs in the Hollywood system. And I believe there are tremendous opportunities for U.S. filmmakers to learn from working professionals in the largest film industry in the world,” said Pullapilly.

Uploaded by Post Production on 2019-04-29.

Gaudet and Pullapilly started their creative partnership in 2004 as a husband and wife filmmaking team. Together, their unique cultural perspectives allow them to create authenticity and truthfulness to their films. “It is important for us to expand this partnership to other filmmakers, working in the film industry in India and the U.S.”

Mentors to the program include top Hollywood casting agents, film producers, studios executives, financiers, and distributors as well as other high-profile filmmakers based in Los Angeles.

During the week, the invited filmmaker will learn about the inner workings of the Hollywood system as well as the independent system of making both documentary and narrative films for worldwide release. One-on-one time will be set aside with screenwriters and film directors, Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly, to help the invited filmmaker brainstorm the best ways to move their project forward as well as create an action plan and next steps.

NIKHIL TANEJA BIO:
Nikhil Taneja is a Mumbai-based writer, producer, storyteller, teacher, entrepreneur and mental health advocate. He is the co-founder and CEO of Yuvaa (www.instagram.com/weareyuvaa), a youth media company, that aims to curate and create socially conscious content to empower young Indians. With Yuvaa, Nikhil recently traveled across 25+ cities and 70+ colleges of India to record the mental health and identity issues faced by India's Gen Z through a docu-series, and to create safe spaces for young people to express themselves on ground and online. He won the Goalkeepers Youth Action Accelerator Award for his work on this documentary. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QadlLTxFkAU&feature=youtu.be

He currently serves on the Global Advisory Board of The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s community and international UNGA week event, Goalkeepers, that brings together change-makers from across the world who are working on United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

Nikhil started out as an entertainment reporter for MTV India and a Senior Reporter for the Hindustan Times. Having been in the media and entertainment industry for a decade now, Nikhil has been responsible for the biggest hits in the digital space at Y-Films, the youth wing of Yash Raj Films, where he headed development and production. At Y-Films, his work on the 6 Pack Band, India’s first transgender pop group, won the Cannes Grand Prix Glass Lion Award, among a host of international accolades.

He has also consulted with Girl Effect, a Nike-Powered international non-profit that aims at empowering the girl child. He currently serves as the Festival Creative Director of the India Film Project for two years and is also a TV critic on 94.3 Radio One, where he has a weekly radio segment. He is a former host of a YouTube show for Film Companion called ‘The Awesome TV Show’ and hosts a podcast as well. He now works across film, digital, TV, advertising, print, radio and teaching in any capacity that gives him happiness and meaning, especially if it is about the youth.

He has given a talk on how stories can heal the world at TEDx Bandra 2018, on Kindness at TEDxSRCC 2015, and given lectures at over 100 colleges across India, including premier institutes like IIT Kanpur, IIT Mumbai, AIIMS, SIMC Pune, AIIMS Raipur, IIM Kozhikode, Sydenham Institute of Management Studies Mumbai, IP College for Women Delhi, Amity University Mumbai, Symbiosis College of Economics Pune, NIT Kurukshetra, DY Patil College of Engineering Pune, PIMR Indore, and many more. Most recently, he has been doing giving corporate talks and workshops on the art of storytelling, as well as on mental health and self-care at YouTube Space, Mumbai, The Startup Buddy Conference Delhi, Social Nation Festival Mumbai, Girl Effect, East India Comedy and more. He also does workshops on telling stories with kids in lesser-privileged and low-income areas. In 2019, he went to 70 colleges across 26 cities of India to give talks on how sharing stories can be empowering, as part of a Yuvaa campaign.

Nikhil graduated from NIT Kurukshetra as a B.Tech in Computer Engineering and currently resides in Mumbai.

In my father’s House (4/4)

In my Father’s house is a documentary about Che « Rhymefest » Smith and his father. Che comes from a single parent home, he was raised by his mother and his grandparents, and has only seen his father a few times in his life, when he was a kid. Che decides to buy the house in Chicago that his father used to live in the few times he saw him. Evidently, he starts wondering about his father, where is he now ? What is he upto ? This movie is about their relationship, it is about growing up with an absent parent, reconnecting, rehabilitation but it is also and foremost a message of hope.

Spoilers Begin:

Che « Rhymfest » Smith grew up in Chicago, with a teenager mother, and help from his grandparents. His father was never really in his life. In 2006, he encountered great success, co-writing an Emmy winning song with Kanye West. He talks about his hit, the impression that you won it all, but also when it doesn’t work as planned (his album did not do too well), and how he encountered more and more financial difficulties whilst still trying to maintain an image of success. Che has children on his own and starts wondering about fatherhood after buying his father’s house. He decides to try and find his absent father.

His father is homeless and alcoholic and is still in Chicago. They meet and gradually, very genuinely, a relationship blossoms between the two of them.

Naturally, Che decides to help his father and gets him into rehabilitation programs, recovery programs, to the point that his father, that has been homeless for 20 years, gets his own apartment.

The documentary treats so many different subjects that it’s hard to summarize. It deals mainly with parenthood; Che explains that 75% of African American children grow up in single parent households. He has been through this and explains why growing up without models, some of these children end up being in gangs, to feel like being part of a family. Che is coming to term with his own fatherhood too, he admits he has not always been the greatest father, and he tries to help the kids in his community. One scene is very poignant of a young kid rapping about death, Che tells him « Your father was killed right? Your brother was killed, why are you talking about killing people? This is your material right there ». He later goes to the same kid and asks him « Who do you have that you can talk to? «  The kid is crying. Truth is, he has no one so Che gives him his number, now he has someone. There is something so real and heartbreaking about that scene. Those kids have to learn to behave like adults, they want to be the “heroes”, they want to make it but also they have to be tough, to be strong. This scene shows how deep inside, they are still kids, lost, without anyone to talk to, just pretending to be grown ups, to be unaffected when they are holding up their tears.

Che helps his father, Bryan, in every way he can, but his father has been living in the street for the past 20 years, he has been drinking for atleast that much time too. This documentary also deals really well with rehabilitation, how much work and efforts it takes. Bryan tries so hard to do better, to go to the classes, to find a job, to live on his own but we feel how lonely he is because he is between two very different standards of living, opposite realities. On one side, he has his son, Che that has now taken the role of a father, checking in on him, encouraging him but also reprimanding him, asking him to do more, do better. On the other side, he has his « old life », what has been his life for the past 20 years. His homeless friends that he does not connect with much anymore, most of them being high but also, that don’t want him around, telling him he has become arrogant. He is so lonely, seeing both sides of it is heartbreaking. You see this man doing his best, but that doesn’t seem to make him necessarily happier, even though he has food, and clean clothes and an apartment, because he is alone, misunderstood by all. Che is afraid that Bryan will relapse into alcohol, and constantly reminds him of it. Bryan feels like he has no control over his life, while Che worries he does not control him enough. At the end, Bryan has a relapse and Che has a very strong reaction at first, he says he is done, he cannot help anymore. However, and that is the beauty of Che, and of this movie, relationships and human beings are not simple. This is not black and white. Yes, Brian relapsed, but that is to be expected, the road to recovery is full of relapses and of forgiving, over and over. Che understands that, he understands that he has to accept his father for who he is, for his weaknesses and failures, but also his strengths and achievements, no matter if they are not the attributes we would give to an « ideal’ father. There is no ideal father, there are just human beings, doing the best they can, trying, failing and trying again.

In the end, Che has become the father, he has managed to forgive, he has opened his heart, he has become a whole and accomplished person, but most importantly he has given his father what his father did not give him when he needed it the most, unconditional support and love: a family.

All the people in this documentary are incredible, they are really what you would call « good people », no matter if they have done bad things, if they have been selfish or else, they are humans and you never judge them. Bryan has not been a father to Che, he knows it although he has troubles admitting it. But Bryan, also had an abusive father, what notion does he have of fatherhood? Of family?

Che did not have a father and he could have done, just like Bryan did, abandon his own children because he didn’t know better. But he, instead, broke the circle. He decided to build his legacy, to build his family, he becomes the one people can lean on.

Spoilers End***

This documentary is truly amazing, you understand how complex relationships are, how forgiving is necessary to love and be loved but most importantly, it is a message of hope. It shows that you can truly change your life around, that you can build things on your own and it also completely redefines the notion of parenthood. What is parenthood if not two people having a child. Are those two people suited to do so? Are they grounded? Are they good role models? Are they responsible? Well, not necessarily and comparing them to an ideal can only make them look worse. Accepting them for who they are, forgiving, learning from their mistakes, and being the bigger person is how you learn to love, and how you become a better parent and a better person yourself.

The Three Hikers

View fullsize

The Three Hikers is a documentary about the three Americans hikers, Joshua Fattal, Sarah Shourd and Shane Bauer (Sarah and Shane are a couple) who were arrested in Iran for entering illegally the country.

The documentary starts by giving us a brief introduction about three young Americans, which goes like this: Three good kids who are interested in international relations, travelling and helping through NGO, teaching or a more journalistic approach. 

They were travelling for a week-long holiday in « the other Iraq », in the Kurdistan part of the region, that shares a border with Iran. They decide to go hiking but somehow loose the hold of their trail. That is when they mistakenly enter the Iran territory and everything goes downhill from there as they get arrested and imprisoned.

The documentary approaches the subject in a very humanistic approach. We understand the horror of the situation through recollection of the pictures they took during their trip, they are happy, they are on holidays, having a good time, but in a fraction of time, they are put into tiny cells and taken hostage of a bigger political context.

We meet their family and live the entire process with them, from the shock of the news, but also, and that’s the most interesting part, their willingness to act, to help any ways they can. It is very interesting to see the transition from a regular family with regular jobs into spokespersons, organizing demonstrations in order to make the release of their kids/siblings, a national priority. Not to mention the inextricable complexity of the political situation, all ties between Iran and the United States having been cut since 1979.

Many questions arise: Who could be the most suited representative to negotiate their releases? Those interlocutors are, in fact, a mix of different representatives through time, the Swiss ambassador, The sultan of Oman mainly but also other supports from Muhammad Ali, Sean Penn or Ban Ki Moon.

The documentary depicts well the terribly slow passing of time in the cells, the boredom (especially for Sarah, being the only woman, that is alone in her cell while the two others are at least together). It depicts how such a situation changes all family dynamics because now their families in the US are revolving entirely around their kids arrest and how to organize better, how to make people and the media talk about it, how to be seen. The ones that are left are in prison too, a different one, yes, but a prison never the less. They are awaiting answers, awaiting letters form the hostages, their entire life has been taken over, their ties to each others are weakened, no more daily routine, it is about doing as much as possible, raising money to continue the mobilization, surviving on hope.

The mothers are allowed to go to Iran and meet their children, after months of anxiety and disruptive communication. We share their joy as they reunite and their suffering when it is time to say goodbye.

Sarah is the first one to be released, after 14 months in detention and very actively seeks the release of her friends. She becomes the most represented in the media and the new, unified, face of the campaign; she has the legitimacy of having been one of them. The different tactics used to continue a dialogue with Iran are well depicted in the movie.

The trials for the two remaining hostages in Iran starts and they are charged with espionage. Ironically this charge is reinforced after Shane admits he was covering American wrong doings in the Middle East.

Eventually after more than two years, hundreds of protests, media coverage, talk shows, marches, many negotiations, ups and downs, delayed information and over two years of imprisonment, Shane and Joshua are released to the Sultan Oman.

The documentary is very well done; the recollections of the visuals are impressive, even the reconstitutions that can sometimes appear cheap are done in a way that adds interesting visuals to voice-overs. The different relationships in terms of politics between the actors in this crisis are also well depicted.

A few critics (in my opinion) are: the emphasis on the emotional instead of the political. There were a lot of interviews and shots of the families going though anxiety /fear/ despair and some were not needed, it would have been interesting to have more insights into what it is like to suddenly become the face and spokesperson of an international complex situations, how do you start ? how do you prepare for interviews and the media madness ? Did they have to study the subject deeply to avoid any misconceptions that could hurt their case?

Some events were not explained well in terms of the underlying’s interests or politics. For example, why would Iran allow their « prisoners » to meet with their mothers (and in a hotel)? What is the underlying motive?

Another thing is the very happy ending; it would have been interesting to deal, even lightly, with the possible traumatisms and how prison affected their lives (especially in the case of Sarah that is release a year before the others and becomes a main figure of the campaign).

All in all, I would recommend this documentary, it is enjoyable, interesting and gives you some insights into complex international relations and diplomacy.

Note: These ratings and review are personal opinion of the author.