We are thrilled to announce that filmmaker Soham Mehta will be attending Slant in person on August 11 at the River Oaks Theatre. Though now based in New York, Soham grew up in Houston (where he founded the theater troupe Shunya), and got his film degree at UT Austin.
We will have the Houston premiere of his latest film, Fatakra, which just won a Student Academy Award. Click here to learn more about the film and Slant 11.
Posted in Slant Event Preview
Slant is proud to screen Soham Mehta’s Fatakra at our festival this year. Fatakra (which means “firecracker” in Gujarati) has been playing at festivals around the country (including SXSW) to critical acclaim and we’re delighted to present its Houston premiere. It recently won a Student Academy Award. Not too shabby, Soham!
The film tells the story of Naveen (Samrat Chakrabarti), an immigrant who left his family behind three years ago to work in Texas. Now, his wife and young son are joining him in the States, and the reunion is filled with tension and high emotion.
Soham told Austin 360 in an interview, “I was looking for stories about relationships that had a separation and were now coming together. I went through different story ideas, and this was the most obvious choice, because in a way it is the experience of my parents and many people like them. So in a way it allowed me to pay tribute to their experience but not just make a tribute film because it had an emotional core that I could relate to.”
Posted in Slant Event Preview
The 11th Annual
Slant: Bold Asian American Images Festival
Thursday, August 11, 2011, 7:30 p.m.
River Oaks Theatre, 2009 West Gray, Houston (Map)
$10, Free for Aurora Picture Show members (Click here to buy tickets)
Filmmaker Soham Mehta and curator Melissa Hung in attendance
This annual Aurora program showcases an eclectic mix of the best new short films made by Asian American artists. From a mockumentary that follows a self-important spoken word artist to a sci-fi tale featuring a malfunctioning android, the five short films selected for Slant tell diverse stories. Curated by Melissa Hung, founding editor of Hyphen, Slant will screen for one night only. Don’t miss it!
Films
Jaime Lo, small and shy by Lillian Chan
Jaime Lo, a shy Chinese Canadian girl, observes the world around her through her drawings. When Jaime’s father is sent to Hong Kong for a year-long work assignment, Jaime must use her creativity to cope with his absence.
Fatakra by Soham Mehta
Naveen left India to chase his dreams in America. Three years and a recession later, his wife and son join him. Sparks fly as a family reunites.
PIA by Tanuj Chopra
In San Francisco, in the year 2063, much of human labor has been replaced with service androids called PIAs. One night, a mysterious and malfunctioning PIA appears at Syama Raval’s front door.
Digital Antiquities by J.P. Chan
In the year 2036, a woman in an antique electronics shop meets a desperate young man seeking to recover data from an old CD.
Asian American Jesus by Yasmine Gomez
In this mockumentary, Samantha Chanse plays six different characters including Truth is Real, a self-professed ‘mad scientist of the spoken word,’ and the subject of college freshman Suzette Law’s final project for her ethnic studies class.
Special thanks to Hyphen and River Oaks Theatre for their help with this program.
Asian American Jesus, by Yasmine Gomez
Digital Antiquities, by J.P. Chan
Fatakra, by Soham Mehta
Jaime Lo, small and shy, by Lillian Chan
PIA, by Tanuj Chopra
Posted in Slant Updates
Slant is moving! No, not away from Houston. But on the calendar. For the past 10 years, Slant has taken place in May or June. This year, we’re in August. Mark your calendar for Saturday, August 13. We’ll see you at the movies then.
UPDATE: We’ve moved it again. It will now be August 11. 11 years of Slant on August 11!
Posted in Slant Updates
Slant Film Festival celebrates 10 years. Photo by Camilo Gonzalez.
Q&A after the screening with filmmaker J.P. Chan. Photo by Han Wang.
Thanks to everyone who made it out to our 10th annual festival. We had a great time hiding out from the Houston heat by watching intriguing movies and performances indoors. We kicked things off on Friday, May 21 with a screening of 7 short films. Filmmaker J.P. Chan was in town from New York and after the screening he answered questions about knives, his day job, and how he bypassed film school and just started making films.
Continue reading
Posted in Slant Updates
Neelanjana Banerjee and Robin Sukhadia will perform neo-benshi at Slant. Photo by John C. Liau.
We are super excited to bring performances to Slant this year. Bay Area artists Neelanjana Banerjee and Robin Sukhadia (pictured above) will be performing their hilarious take on neo-benshi. Focusing on Bollywood’s Golden Era, they’ve written their own scripts and soundtracks to film clips starring the megastar Amitabh Bachchan, which they’ll be performing live.
Neela is a writer and editor who also has a new book. She co-edited Indivisible: Anthology of Contemporary South Asian American Poetry. Robin, who puts a modern spin on his classical tabla training, is also known as DJ TablaPusher.
Neela and Robin go on at 7 this Saturday at Super Happy Fun Land. Tickets are just $7 (and free for Aurora Picture Show members.) More details about Slant 10: The Neo-Benshi Experience here.
Following their performance will be singer songwriter Goh Nakamura. Goh will be performing a live score to a new animation by Dino Ignacio, as well as playing his own songs. “Armed with an acoustic guitar and an active imagination, Goh Nakamura strums to the beat of a processed drum machine, singing the minimum wage, dial-up connection blues,” says Hyphen magazine. “Like Neil Finn gone broke or a male version of Mary Lou Lord, Nakamura could be a patron saint for lonely code warriors with good record collections. Geekdom doesn’t get any more pronounced than on ‘N.P.’, a wistful stalker anthem about a girl in a Star Wars trilogy.”
Goh’s got lots of videos on YouTube if you want a preview of Saturday’s show.
Here’s his cover of Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature.”
Posted in Slant Event Preview
Unlocked plays Friday at Slant. As you can see, there’s a little bit of everything in it. It has bikes, a foot chase with law enforcement, and one little mother with a big, big temper. The film marks the film-directing debut of Mio Adilman.
Mio, though, is no stranger to making films. He has collaborated as a writer and actor with his brother Nobu Adilman on many films, all of which have screeened at Slant.
Mio is also known as a TV and radio personality in Canada. He appears on CBC Radio One’s Q with Jian Ghomeshi where he gives the weekly internet report, the Download Down-Lo and is perhaps best known for his recurring appearance in season five of Trailer Park Boys.
Posted in Slant Event Preview
