Dilip Simeon's blog

This is a song at the end of the film Dark Waters (2019), about the lawyer  who became Duponts worst nightmare .  Dark Waters, tells of the toxic spills scandal that led to US chemicals giant DuPont  paying US$671 million (£516 million)   to settle more than 3,500 lawsuits in 2017.  The company’s plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia had been contaminating the water supply with perfluorooctanoic acid ( PFOA ), also known as C-8, which is used to make products such as Teflon. The contamination had a “probable link with six illnesses” among the local population, including kidney and testicular cancer.  DuPont had used C-8 since the 1950s. It had known since the early 1980s that the chemical was toxic to humans, but only   agreed in 2006   to phase out its use. Though the company continued to deny wrongdoing, it has become one of the classic cases in which business leaders pursued a strategy that could cause human harm long after the risks had come to ...

 

Two Strangers Who Meet Five Times screened at the following festivals throughout 2017 and 2018 - winning the following awards. Los Angeles Film Awards Paris Play Film Festival – WINNER BEST SHORT LA Shorts Awards Mindfield Film Festival, Albuquerque – WINNER BEST SHORT San Luis Obispo International Film Festival – WINNER BEST NARRATIVE SHORT New Jersey International Film Festival Chandler International Film Festival European Independent Film Award Jaipur International Film Festival Beaufort International Film Festival Irvine International Film Festival San Francisco Independent Film Festival Sedona International Film Festival Boulder International Film Festival Newcastle Film Festival Taos Shortz Film Fest – WINNER PEOPLE’S CHOICE Omaha Film Festival – WINNER AUDIENCE AWARD FOR BEST SHORT FILM Norwegian International Seagull Shortfilm Festival SHORT TO THE POINT International Short Film Festival Awards – WINNER BEST SCREENPLAY ANNUAL AWARDS Beeston Film Festival – WINNER BEST DR...

NB: Here are two reviews of The Kashmir Files, with different interpretations. Readers are welcome to their own conclusions. Since this is a matter I have spoken and written about for many years, I attach below a selection of my posts beneath the reviews, without further comment. DS The Kashmir Files: Cinema As Testimony. Siddhartha Gigoo K-Files impact: Kashmiri Pandit interests take a back seat. Bharat Bhushan (The second article may be inaccessible, so I attach the text beneath the list of posts -  DS ) ********************************************* Posts from my blog What is to be Undone : (This post is about the February 2016 student meeting on Kashmir in JNU that led to a major controversy and police cases) Kashmir - 16 yrs on, Wandhama victims ... Superflous people - review of 'Our Moon has blood clots' Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti Press Release ... The Other Kashmiri Dissenters ​ Kashmir Oral History Kashmiri Pandits Stage Protest March in Srinagar P...

The bhajan had a very familiar tune but the words and the off-key singing made it difficult to recognise at first. Then it came like a flash — the tune was that of “Allah, yeh ada kaisi hai in haseenon mein, roothe pal men na mane mahinon men,” a song from the forgettable 1968 Dharmendra-Sharmila Tagore starrer, Mere Hamdam Mere Dost. The film and its songs, written by Majrooh Sultanpuri and composed by Laxmikant-Pyarelal, had been a huge hit. The bhajan was being sung in the temple which I pass during my morning and evening walk. At the time of my walks, the temple is usually empty except for the priests. And yet, I hear a lone voice singing bhajans set to film songs. The harmonium playing seems to be tolerable, but the singing is not anything to write home about. The singer, Pandit Vinod Tiwari is one of the priests in the temple. Apparently, he learnt to play the harmonium in Ayodhya where he got his religious education. He sings religiously in the morning and evening. When I asked ...

You do not fight Hollywood with critical argument. You fight Hollywood with Akira Kurosawa, Satyajit Ray, Abbas Kiarostami, Elia Suleiman, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Moufida Tlatli, Ousmane Sembène, Yasujirō Ozu, Guillermo del Toro, Mai Masri, ad gloriam. You do not battle misrepresentation. You signal, celebrate, and polish representations that are works of art.... The recent release of Dune: Part One (2021), an American science fiction film directed by Denis Villeneuve, has once again raised the vexing question of Hollywood mis/representation of Arabs, Muslims, and Islam. Film critics particularly from the Arab and Muslim world are up in arms and back on their hobbyhorse of how Hollywood misrepresents them. It is time for a reality check and to come to terms with the fact that “Hollywood” as an abstraction is in the business of misrepresenting everyone. It has no commitment to truth. It has made a lucrative business of deluding the world. Native Americans, African-Americans, Arabs, Asians,...

NB : Aaron Sorkin's film The Trial of the Chicago 7 is a tribute to the people of conscience who resisted the imperialist war on Vietnam. I salute the comrades of our generation for whom the struggle of the Vietnamese people was an emblem of human solidarity against injustice. Over 3 million Vietnamese were killed, and over 58,000 Americans. It is time to launch an international campaign against militaristic culture and the glorification of warfare. It is time to work for peace.  DS Hear my voice, hear my dreams Let us make a world, world, in which in I believe Hear my words, hear my cries Let me see a change through these eyes You may think I won't be heard Still I raise this hand, spread this word These words of fire, of hope and desire And now I'll let them free Hear my voice, hear my dreams Let us make a world in which in we believe In which we believe Hear my words, hear my choice Hear my voice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnY9_DXMBis Daniel J. Berrigan, Defia...

Kiss the Ground Film Trailer (2020)    The trailer for Kiss the Ground. Watch it and discover a simple solution for climate change. The full-length film: https://kissthegroundmovie.com Living Soil Film The Basics:  Why is soil health important? Soil Solutions to Climate Problems  – Narrated by Michael Pollan Why Soil Matters  – Kiss the Ground Nature Is Speaking  – Edward Norton is The Soil | Conservation International (CI) Regeneration of Our Lands : A Producer’s Perspective | Gabe Brown | TEDxGrandForks Next Steps:  Indigenous & Earth-Based Teachings 500+ Indigenous Groups Leading Regenerative Development  Nature-Based Solutions Database (via the Equator Initiative):  Connecting communities around the world to share local solutions that work. Five continents, 500+ communities and thousands of ideas. Explore our Solutions Database to learn how outstanding local communities and indigenous ...

He was the star of my favourite film, Madhumati (1958). It was the first film shot in the Kumaon hills near our town of Nainital. For a few weeks, all of us in school strained our ears, above the teachers’ unending lessons, to hear the song, Aaja re pardesi, reverberating down in the valley, where the film was being shot. All day, the haunting music rippled and resonated around us. The film was sold out in the local Laxmi Theatres as soon as it was released, and its songs became synonymous with our town — to us at least. Young men took to lurching with a  Dilip Kumar  gait, with sweaters tied around their necks. Our old retainer muttered angrily, “Bhoot lag gaya sabko Dilip Kumar ka! (Everyone’s been bitten by the Dilip Kumar bug!)”... https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/goodbye-dilip-kumar-creator-of-our-first-dreams-of-love-7394053/

The film,  1978,  has been nominated for two awards at the Palm Springs Film Festival 2021, a qualifier for the Oscars, and is about a Christian-Goan rockstar who must decide if he can change with the times, as Pakistan transforms under a revolutionary fervour. It has been nominated for the Best of the Festival Award and Best Live Action Film Over 15 Minutes Award. The 17-minute film stars Rubya Chaudhry, Zeeshan Muhammad, Sherwyn Anthony and Naveed Kamal. The director and writer Hamza Bangash, told  Images  the film is loosely inspired by the real life experiences of Norman D'Souza, Karachi's own rockstar. "After my experiences of creating the film with him and other members of the Christian-Goan community, we have decided to launch a  Kickstarter  campaign to help Norman's band record and shoot a music video! I am very excited to help bring back a glimmer of Karachi's glorious disco era," he said.  And bring back the era they did. The recently re...

Barry Jenkins first heard the history of the Underground Railroad from a teacher when he was six or seven years old. The school lesson described the loose network of safe houses and abolitionists that helped enslaved people in the American south escape to free states in the north in the 19th century. Jenkins as a wide-eyed kid imagined an actual railroad, though, secret steam trains thundering under America, built by black superheroes in the dead of night.  It was an image, he recalls, that made “anything feel possible”. “My grandfather was a longshoreman,” he says. “He came home every day, in his hard hat and his tool belt, and his thick boots. And I thought, ‘Oh, yes, people like my granddad, they built this underground railroad!’”  That childhood image returned to Jenkins, now 41, when he read an advance copy of  Colson Whitehead’s novel  about that history, which builds on that same seductive idea. That was in 2016.... https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/may/09...

90-year-old Colette Marin-Catherine confronts her past by visiting the German concentration camp Mittelbau-Dora where her brother was killed. As a young girl, she fought Hitler's Nazis as a member of the French Resistance. For 74 years, she has refused to step foot in Germany, but that changes when a young history student named Lucie enters her life. Prepared to re-open old wounds and revisit the terrors of that time, Marin-Catherine offers important lessons for us all. https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2020/nov/18/colette-a-former-french-resistance-member-confronts-a-family-tragedy-75-years-later?CMP=gu_com Film-makers Anthony Giacchino and Alice Doyard explain how they found out about the story of Colette and why they decided to make a documentary about her.  Read the interview here Watch an interview with the filmmakers and Colette herself, hosted by the Guardian's head of video, Charlie Phillips ************************************* Noor Inayat Khan: Stat...

NB : No, not politics, but nationalism, which Albert Einstein called ' the measles of mankind '. It is a tragedy that a talented person be abused in her own country because she refuses to kneel before this false god. This is  not just a Chinese problem, its  a lesson we all need to learn. DS   The  Academy Awards this year  could have been a major moment of pride for China. Chloe Zhao, a Beijing-born filmmaker, made history Sunday by winning the best director Oscar for her movie  Nomadland  -  becoming the first Asian woman  and only the second woman to ever win the award. Zhao's movie also won best picture. Book review: ‘The Zhivago Affair’ was one of the most fascinating of the Cold War’s cultural skirmishes // Boris Pasternak's refusal of The Nobel Prize. His son's memoirs But China i s not celebrating -- at least not officially. On the contrary, this year's Oscars was not aired anywhere in China -- including on two major streaming platf...