Weathering all-round criticism and discouragement, Sheikh Neelofar, 27, has become the first Kashmiri woman actor to have performed in an international film, Valley of Saints, and has managed to stand out as one of the best actors the Valley has seen in recent years.

Born in a middle-class family, Neelofar began her acting career in 2000 when she was studying in the fifth standard.

In school, she was famous for taking part in Rouf (a traditional Kashmiri dance) drama and stood out for melodious voice.

In 2000, Neelofer was busy playing with her friends in school when a team of Doordarshan Urdu in Srinagar visited the school in search of a young actor for a TV serial ‘Mapping Kashmiriyat’.
The team was headed by Maharaj Krishna Raina, popularly known as M. K. Raina, one of India’s best-known theatre actors and directors.

Along with many other students, little Neelofar auditioned for the serial and was selected. Raina was impressed with her performance and asked her to join the sets as soon as possible.
“I was happy after getting selected, but my next challenge was to convince my family, which was next to impossible,” said Neelofar. 

Once home, in Aloocha Bagh, an area of Jammu and Kashmir’s summer capital Srinagar, Neelofar decided to talk to her mother Sheikh Misra, 47, who was busy in kitchen.  She hugged her mother from behind and said “bea gayas darmahas kheatre select” (I got selected to perform in a drama). But her mother flatly refused permission, saying it would be a “social stigma” as they were living in a predominantly Muslim society.

After pleading with her mother for a week, Neelofar finally got her permission. Due to her pink cheeks, she was named Pinky in the serial. For next two years, she was the lead actor in the serial.

Soon she became popular as Pinky in her locality. However, there were many who were critical of Neelofar for being an actor. But, she left all her worries and critics aside, with her mother, Misra, emerging as her main support.

“I was young, and people kept taunting me. My mother stood by me all the time,” said Neelofar with smile on her face.

People around her didn’t leave a single stone unturned to discourage her. But, an undeterred Neelofar had faith in herself and in the artist in her and continued performing.

In 2003, her talent brought her another offer. This time it was harder to convince her family, as due to continuous discouragement from others, it became tougher for Neelofar to convince her mother.

Eventually, her passion and dedication to acting melted Misra’s heart and she allowed Neelofar to continue acting. In the Dayariyan serial, Neelofar again played the lead role. Realistic acting and dialogue delivery made her famous and everyone in DD became her fan.

She continued to act in Dayariyan for a year. In the same year, an employee at DD asked her to join classes to learn Hafiz Nagma (a Kashmir Sufi dance) at the Directorate of Information, Kashmir.

“People who were teaching there were impressed by my performance and asked me to teach other students,” she said.

For the next three years, Neelofar taught students Hafiz Nagma, and continued to participate in many stage and theatre programmes.

In 2006, Neelofar decided to enhance her skills. She attended multiple workshops in the National School of Drama in New Delhi. During these years, she continued to get roles as a lead actor. In 2006 and 2007, she received offers for many serials, such as Aalam Kariyaad Azad Azad, Meiale Kheaish Waatei Zaroor.

With back-to-back performances, Neelofar decided to take a break from acting and spend some time with her family. Besides her mother, her small family has a sister and her father, Sheikh Abdul Hamid, 50, who is a painter by profession.

In 2009, Neelofar’s sister, Dilafrooz, now 31, got married. The family’s responsibility fell on Neelofar.

Then, in 2010, a big opportunity knocked at her door.

It was an offer by international independent filmmaker, Musa Syeed, for movie called, Valley of Saints.

Musa Syeed, a Kashmiri-origin filmmaker, became the first Muslim to write a Yiddish movie, Menashe. Syeed, 32, co-wrote  Joshua Z Weinstein’s Menashe along with Alex Lipschultz and Weinstein.

Menashe, which recently held its international premiere in Berlin, is a film in Yiddish, a language used by Jews in central and Eastern Europe before the Holocaust.

Syeed, a prominent Kashmiri-origin US filmmaker and writer, has made politically acclaimed films, such as, The Big House (Al Bayt Al Kabeer), Bronx Princess, A Son’s Sacrifice. Valley of Saints is one among them.

Born in Indiana, the US, Syeed lives in New York, while his father Sayyid Mohammed Syeed, a former National Director for the Office of Interfaith and Community Alliances for the Islamic Society of North America, and mother live in Washington D.C. Hailing from North Kashmir’s Sopore township, Syeed’s parents settled in the US in the 1980s.

This was Neelofar’s first chance to play a role of lead actor in an international movie. She accepted the offer and that decision changed her life.

Valley of Saints was shot in Kashmir and won the World Cinema Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival and the Special Jury Prize at the Dubai International Film Festival in 2012.
The film was one of the biggest achievements for Musa and his team and, of course, for Neelofar. The same year, she headed the audition team in Kashmir for the Hindi flick, Jab Tak Hai Jaan, by Yash Raj Films.

In 2013, she got an offer from a local director, Dilnawaz Muntazir, for the movie Partav. This film was based on the education system of Kashmir. In all these years, Neelofar faced heavy criticism from friends and family, but continued undaunted.

Fortunately, Neelofar received offers for movies which were based on real stories. In 2014, came another offer for fim, Half-Widow, based on Kashmiri women whose husbands were abducted by the government forces and never came back.

However, she was forced to take a break in 2015 when her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.

“I spent all my money, sold my house to pay for surgeries and therapies. By the grace of god and my hard work, I supported my mother in her fight with cancer,” said Neelofar with tears in her eyes.

Without an abode and having the responsibility of an ailing mother, Neelofar worked hard and made enough money again and purchased a new house at Baghat-e-Kanipora, an area in Budgam district. It took her mother almost three years to recover.

At present, Neelofar is playing a lead role in another film, Songs of Paradise.

“I don’t follow any actress, I want to be myself, I have seen ups and down in my life, I have met people who discouraged me, but I kept myself focused on my one aim in life,” said Neelofar, her face emitting a passion for acting.

Courtesy: Newsclick.in

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If there is one artist in the history of art world who has left the longest and most cherished mark on the subsequent many generations of artists and humankind, undoubtedly it is none other than Vincent Van Gogh. In a tribute befitting to the spirit of Van Gogh himself, Loving Vincent brings alive parts of Gogh’s life on the silver screen through multitude of oil paintings, all animated in perfect sync with one-another. Loving Vincent is the world’s first fully painted film.

Loving Vincent starts with a scene from Starry Night coming down to the Café Terrace, also a painting that he painted in Arles in 1888 in a soft, dewy manner with its characters having the perfect expressions and changing colours in order to provide depth.

The very idea of having a film, frame by frame in oil paintings, and those paintings being painted, one brush stroke at a time on the screen, can be baffling for most of the creative workers, both painters and artists working to create magic. But the end result is breath-taking to say the least. As per the cinematographer, Tristan Oliver, in this guardian piece, the entire script was shot in live action in 14 days, on partial sets and in front of green screens at 3 Mills Studios in London. The footage was then given to a team of over 50 painters in Gdansk, who meticulously turned each frame into individual painting. By the end, the team had produced 65,000 frames in oil paint covering more than 850 canvasses.

Preview

This is an act of true love for someone as remarkable and endearing as Van Gogh, someone who longed for artistic recognition all his life. And even in the grave absence of it, kept painting day in and day out. In modern day art, when brush strokes have taken the place of multiple clicks on computer screens, this is a landmark attempt in the very way we are going to watch cinema.

Loving Vincent takes a simple errand of delivering Van Gogh’s last letter to his brother Theo and turns it into a plot where the postman’s son, Armand Roulin follows a memorial and investigative journey into the circumstances of his death. In an attempt to find out about his death, Armand becomes truly inquisitive about the personhood of Gogh. He takes us to the incident when Van Gogh feels delighted at the mere sight of the crow. In a world that is essentially trying to fit human beings in boxes, the loneliness of an artist is not overrated to say the least. However, through its own making, the film is asking the viewers to think and feel differently. The book, “Lust for Life”, a biographical novel written by Irving Stone on Gogh’s life takes this feeling to its depth and provides an insight into his life. Following passage describes it,

“First, we think all truth is beautiful, no matter how hideous its face may seem. We accept all of nature, without any repudiation. We believe there is more beauty in a harsh truth than in a pretty lie, more poetry in earthiness than in all the salons of Paris. We think pain is good because it is the most profound of all human feelings. We think sex is beautiful even when portrayed by a harlot and a pimp. We put character above ugliness, pain above prettiness and hard, crude reality above all the wealth in France. We accept life in its entirety without making moral judgments. We think the prostitute is as good as the countess, the concierge as good as the general, the peasant as good as the cabinet minister, for they all fit into the pattern of nature and are woven into the design of life!” 
― Irving Stone, Lust for Life

The film, introduces this side of Van Gogh through his lesser known paintings and sketches. In a truly visually delightful journey, with the stars twinkling brighter than can be ever captured through camera and reflections appearing clearer in water than photographs, the film asks the viewers to explore that, that can’t be worded, only imagined and painted. It compels the viewers to feel a degree of compassion that is otherwise missing in today’s societies, by simple and yet grand gestures, like Gogh killing himself as he comes to know about the misery of Theo through Doctor Gachet.

A lot has been said since about Van Gogh’s life. But the film makes the audience grieve for the true loss that artists still feel by Van Gogh’s premature death, only if it can be called such!

However, in asking the question, “You want to know so much about his death, but what do you know about his life?” the film contradicts itself. Though it captures the philosophical essence of his death, it could have shed more light on the life that Van Gogh was, haunted by the demons of a ‘regular life’ and yet compassionately and continuously painting the sufferings of the working people, the regular ones, the ordinary ones. That being said, the film demands to be watched, may be multiple times over to grasp its full essence.

Loving Vincent is a riot of colours!
 

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Hidden Figures // Twentieth Century Fox

There is nowhere that this is more apparent than in one of America’s greatest institutions, the cinema. The lack of diversity within the industry has dominated the conversation the past few years. It has even tarnished its glittering annual event, the Oscars, with #OscarsSoWhite going viral last year after there were no actors of colour nominated in the four acting categories for the second year in a row.

Diversity has become almost a buzzword for Hollywood’s indifference to difference, and meanwhile articles continue to be published decrying the industry, and their awards, for their uniformity. As David Cox wrote on the Guardian film blog in 2016: “The Oscars may not be anti-black, but they are hideously white.”

The 89th Academy Awards, taking place on February 26, by no means illustrate a colossal change in the industry, but there is more recognition bestowed on films starring, directed and about black individuals. Of the five nominees for best documentary, three are directed by African Americans, while a fourth is by a Haitian filmmaker. In the acting categories, Denzel Washington (Fences), Ruth Negga (Loving), Mahershala Ali (Moonlight), Viola Davis (Fences), Naomi Harris (Moonlight) and Octavia Spencer (Hidden Figures) are all nominated, in addition to British-Indian Dev Patel (Lion).
 

Pick of the bunch

These examples can be used to argue that the Oscars are embracing diversity. But of course, this may all just display an aberration – one year where the stars aligned and variety befell the ceremony. Both  arguments have been made, but what is often lost in the debates is the simple fact that diversity is not solely an awards issue. It is an industry-wide problem.

The films that are awarded by the academy are chosen as the best of that particular year, but with less choice overlooked films can easily be dismissed as not up to the standards of the award votes instead of ignored due to their focus on non-white subjects. Take DuVernay’s Selma. Each year, the Hollywood Reporter publishes anonymous academy members discussing their votes. In 2015, a female academy member commented of Selma’s two paltry nominations (best picture and best original song): “But if the movie isn’t that good, am I supposed to vote for it just because it has black people in it?”

Selma was just one example of a film about the black experience in America, but being directed, produced and starring black individuals, it became a lightening rod for debates about diversity. A positively reviewed film about Martin Luther King’s fight for voting rights in Selma, Alabama, the film was included in many critics’ end of year top ten lists. Awards are always subjective, but when films with less diverse casts and significantly less positive reviews receive more nominations (such as The Theory of Everything), it becomes more difficult to separate voting from politics.

And herein lies the central issue for the academy. While they are able to pick through countless films by white male filmmakers about white male individuals, there are generally only a handful of quality films produced each year with diverse casts and filmmakers. Snubs can be more easily accepted when there is a plethora of films to choose from, but when there are only one or two, all the hopes for a diverse industry get unfairly pinned on to one film (as happened with Selma).

Lives deserve to be told

When Viola Davis accepted her supporting actress award at the BAFTAs in London recently, she mentioned her father, who died of cancer in a McDonalds, asking if his life mattered. She went on to say that playwright August Wilson (Fences is an adaptation of his play) illustrated that “our lives matter as African Americans” and the stories of African Americans “deserve to be told”, echoing Cobb’s comment in The 13th.

The desire to be understood and represented as “full complicated human beings” is shared by women, LGBT individuals, Asian, African, and Hispanic individuals – anyone who doesn’t not fall into the category of the white straight male. Stories have of course been told about these groups, but their real entrance into the mainstream is further hampered by the film industry’s themes, narratives and characters. Too often, Hollywood produces films that rely on stereotypes, such as the prevalence of black characters as servants, slaves, drug addicts, musicians, athletes or criminals.

This year’s nominations may represent a changing tide. Stories in 2017 include that of the African American female scientists who worked at NASA during the space race (Hidden Figures) and a tale of black masculinity that focuses on sexuality and emotion more than societal pressures and systematic racism (Moonlight).

Institutional racism should certainly never be ignored, but defining the experience of an individual by only their race is to misrepresent the complexity of their lives. The white male dominance of Hollywood is so difficult to overcome because it has long been presented as a universal experience by Hollywood. The black experience, to take one example, is not universal, nor should it be presented as such. Only films that expose the socio-historical context of a variety of individuals’ lives and focus on their complexities without resorting to the stereotypes that have persisted in the cinema since its earliest days will truly promote the diversity of human life.

Until La La Land can star two actors of colour, or two women, as its leads, incorporating their particular life experience into the traditional “boy meets girl” romantic narrative, Hollywood will continue to struggle with diversity and the academy will be limited by their award options.

Julie Lobalzo Wright, Teaching Fellow in Film Studies, University of Warwick

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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With the USA about to launch a war against Iraq any day now, what will trigger the war? Obviously, Colin Powell’s revelations before Congress didn’t set in motion an immediate attack. Americans sit and wait for convincing evidence. But maybe Hollywood knows…

I previously reported on Hollywood’s uncanny foreknowledge when production of war films began prior to Sept. 11, 2001. (www.lewrockwell.com Feb. 20 and June 4, 2002) Now there is talk that a TV series called "24" may provide clues to what might set off public sentiment to attack Iraq.

In the script for "24," Kiefer Sutherland plays the part of federal agent Jack Bauer who has been called back into service in a counter terrorism unit because of the threat of a nuclear bomb hidden somewhere in Los Angeles. According to the script, a Middle Eastern terrorist cell called the "Second Wave" places the dirty bomb in Los Angeles which would put 2.5 million residents at risk for casualties.

In the TV series, "the President vows to retaliate against an unnamed Middle Eastern country that has harboured the group in much the same fashion that President Bush has done with anyone giving shelter to those behind 9/11." (BBC News, Entertainment Section, Oct. 30, 2002) Mark Armstrong, writing for E! Online News, says the "24" series story line "hits a little bit too close to home for viewers." [E! Online News July 1, 2002]

The TV series has aired in the USA and is scheduled to air in Britain soon. Oddly, the entire series was sponsored on US television by Ford Motor Company, instead of multiple sponsors.

Even if a terrorist organisation had a "dirty nuclear bomb," it wouldn’t produce a mushroom cloud over Los Angeles or any other city. A "dirty bomb" is simply a regular explosive device that disperses radioactive material. So the TV series is inaccurate and spreads inordinate fear. The American Institute of Physics reports that radiation emitted from a "dirty bomb" is likely to be too low to calculate and that the greatest risk from such a weapon is panic. [American Institute of Physics, March 12, 2002] Furthermore, Iraq has no nuclear weapons of fissionable materials according to the UN nuclear inspection agency. [Toronto Sun, Sept. 15, 2002] So don’t look towards Iraq as a possible nuclear terrorist.

Whether Hollywood productions predict reality is of course open for discussion. Certainly Hollywood has been involved in producing war and propaganda films for decades if for nothing else than helping to recruit troops. Of course America didn’t witness the detonation of a "dirty nuclear bomb" at the recent Super Bowl in San Diego, even though this was the central theme in the movie The Sum Of All Fears (Paramount Pictures) based on a Tom Clancy novel.

But maybe Hollywood scripts that contain terrorist threats from foreign groups continue to keep American citizens on edge. There is already criticism that the White House is manufacturing terrorist alerts to keep the issue alive in the minds of voters and help elevate President Bush’s approval ratings. (Capitol Hill Blue, Jan. 3, 2003).

Of course the President hasn’t been waiting for any evidence, or even a "dirty bomb," to go to war. The Washington Post recently revealed that President George W. Bush planned to go to war against Iraq only days after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. (Wash. Post Jan. 12, 2003) And why would Iraq sponsor a terrorist attack on the US knowing full well it would prompt horrific retaliation?

Last January, the Los Angeles Times ran a story about the lies that were told to get the US into its first war with Iraq over a decade ago, such as over-exaggerated claims of Iraqi troop strength and stories of Iraqi soldiers yanking new-born babies out of hospital incubators. (Jan. 5, 2003) Television news agencies certainly played a part in disseminating the misinformation leading up to the Gulf War and no American news agency today has ever apologised for airing the false "Iraqi incubator" story. Will the same kind of misinformation be used to get Americans behind this new war effort?

The White House needs something to get the stalled war effort off the ground. Time magazine recently conducted an online poll asking Americans which country, North Korea, Iraq or the USA, posed the greatest danger to world peace in 2003? Out of more than a quarter million votes cast, 83.4% picked the USA as the greatest threat to world peace. (Time magazine, Jan. 22, 2003).

Government sources continue to warn of an impending smallpox terrorist attack. But why wouldn’t a terrorist organisation have released such a terrible bio-weapon before the US had its vaccine ready? The mass vaccination programme promoted by federal authorities would offer little or no protection unless the exact strain of smallpox virus was known ahead of time. The federal government apparently had prior knowledge of the anthrax threat. The White House continues to dodge questions about its foreknowledge of an anthrax threat evidenced by administration of the antibiotic drug CIPRO to White House staff on the same day as the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. (World Net Daily, Jan. 11, 2003).

What does the federal government know about the alleged smallpox threat? The strain of anthrax used in US mail envelopes was traced back to the US army labs at Fort Detrick in Maryland, the same place where the only known stores of smallpox virus outside of Russia are housed. To date, US efforts to apprehend the anthrax terrorist appear to have dwindled. If that terrorist had access to bio-weapons at Ft. Detrick in the past, what would stop him now? 

(Courtesy Bill Sardi. Sardi is a health journalist who dabbles from time to time in current affairs. His website is www.askbillsardi.com).

Archived from Communalism Combat, March 2003 Year 9  No. 85, Cover Story 9

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