You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Culture’ category.
Folks heading to the Electric Daisy Carnival today at CitiField.
Led by designer Libena Rochova, eleven students from the studio of Fashion and Footwear Design at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague are showing recent work at the Czech Center in NYC through May 31.
Their purpose is to unite traditional craft and folklore with contemporary fashion design.
Photographs: Stephen Wise
Megan Fox with Will Arnett
Photograph: Stephen Wise
Photographs: Stephen Wise
“Let us overcome our country’s lies.” from Filmistan
Filmistan was the closing night film at this year’s New York Indian Film Festival. The film’s director, Nitin Kakkar, was on hand (lower left).
Former Bollywood actress Laj Bedi, now living in a Harlem senior home, was touched by grace in a transforming experience that her granddaughter turned into a short film — which premiered at the NYIFF.
If advancing spiritually is central to the good life, Laj Bedi has it.
Film cast includes: Shelle Davis, David Andrew Stoler (Director) & Purva Bedi.
Photographs: Stephen Wise
The Only Real Game, a compelling documentary about baseball and life in Manipur, had its World Premiere at the New York Indian Film Festival.
Baseball was introduced to the people of Manipur by American GIs during World War II. Since then the country, bordering on Burma, has come under the control of India. With a corrupt government and guerrilla insurgency, the nation is poor and underdeveloped. A recent initiative, aided by Major League Baseball and Spalding, sent baseball equipment and baseball ‘envoys’ to Manipur to train coaches — many of whom are women. A film crew went along and a powerful story of human solidarity and possibility was documented.
Would that world leaders spent as much money proliferating sport’s envoys and equipment as they do weapons. It would be a different world.
Photo: Jeff Brueggemann, formerly with the Minnesota Twins and a baseball envoy in the movie, and Mirra Bank, the film’s director, attending the NYIFF.
Update: The Only Real Game received the Best Documentary Award at NYIFF.
This year’s New York Indian Film Festival (April 30-May 4) is celebrating 100 years of Indian Cinema. Festival films will be shown at the Tribeca Cinemas in NYC.
Mira Nair, Director of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, made welcoming remarks at the festival opening. She said the festival offers an opportunity for “films that speak about the beauty, speak of the truth and speak of the political — that show a mirror to our world.”
The opening night film was Dekh Tamasha Dekh — directed by Feroz Abbas Khan, joined here by Aroon Shivdasani, Executive Director Indo-American Arts Council.
Photographs: Stephen Wise
“Who am I and who am I serving?”
Mira Nair, director of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, made an important movie with plenty of food for thought for anyone who cares about the direction of society. This dialogue driven film with impressive cast — combine to create a thriller that exposes fundamentalism, from Wall Street to Lahore.
After a screening in New York, Ms. Nair described her work as a “lament over the monologue” that exists, and hopes that people will “engage and question what they are handed as truth.”
The Testament of Mary, a play by Colm Toibin, opened this week in NYC. the one-person play, directed by Deborah Warner and starring Fiona Shaw, presents the Blessed Mother as bitter, self-absorbed, addled by booze and spewing bile while recalling the events of the Gospel. She sneers at Jesus’s (‘misfit”) followers while denying the resurrection (a “dream”). The last line of the play has Mary wailing as a vulture looks on “I fled the cross before it (Crucifixion) was over. If you say he redeemed the world, I will say it wasn’t worth it!”
The play brings to mind the Billie Holiday recording of: Darn That Dream — “Without the dream I never have you, But it hounds me and it won’t come true.”
Evil triumphs when union with God is rejected or dismissed as unreal, and ‘autonomy’ is embraced as the real way to be. This can even happen to believers.
“Every spirit that dissolveth Jesus is not of God. And this is Antichrist.” 1John 4:2,3
The Blessed Virgin Mary (Mother of God) is real and very much alive in the world today, seeking to heal hearts and unite them with her Son and Heavenly Father.
Photograph (top): Paul Koluik
