Director:
Laurie Hill

13 –22 April
Images Festival of Independent Film and Video

Screening:
Tuesday 18 April, 9pm
Workman Theatre

www.imagesfestival.com

For some reason items of news keep on dropping off the bottom of these pages so I’m going to try to bring them back somehow!

April / May 2006

East End Film Festival, London, UK

13th Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film, Germany

February 2006

Finalist & awarded Runner Up in Experimental Animation – Animex Student Animation Awards, Middlesbrough, UK

January 2006

Eat Our Shorts, National Film Theatre, London, UK

Halloween Short Film Festival, Institute of Contemporary Arts / Curzon Soho, London, UK

I’ve just been to Ronald McDonald’s house in Ahmedabad. He wasn’t in. His helpers did provide me with a McSashi Chicken, though.

And fries, obviously.

I’ve just been to Gandhi’s house. He wasn’t in. As I was walking down the path that leads past the house to a prayer garden, a young Gujurati man waved at me and said, “Hello, handsome.” Had ol’ Gandhiji been around he would probably have had to hunger-strike for a fortnight in protest of such a carnal outburst on his own grounds. I adopted a stern disapproving face and kept walking, but I did feel partly responsible. I suppose when you’ve got it, you’ve got it.

Anyway, this bald beloinclothed man said some wise things, such as:

Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you have seen and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your doubts and yourself melting away.”

Nice.

This evening I braved the streets and managed, with the help of two generous students, to accomplish one of my Indian shopping goals: tailored suit. We pulled up outside this plush looking glass building on a supremely dusty street. The sign read “Raymond’s Seconds”, which seems a bizarre for a bespoke tailor. Inside, I was lead upstairs to a vast room of wall-to-wall fabric shelves and mirrors. The guy behind the counter starts billowing cloth at me across a vast table, while another guy clips a fake shirt front around my neck, and from behind a little waiter guy appears with a selection of chilled drinks on a tray. Sweet.

After paying, I was gliding out the shop with fairly strong post-purchase euphoria, amid six or seven well-wishing assistants, when I swear, on solemn oath, that one of them said “come again”. It’s just about conceivable that it was a postmodern-Umberto-Eco-have-your-cake-and-eat-it “come again”, but I am choosing to believe not.

Tailoring was amazingly inexpensive, but I ended up spending a small fortune on cloth. I felt a little guilty until I started calculating what the cost would have been in London, and realised that I had made an obscene saving. I can’t work out whether I’m screwing this developing economy over, or doing it a favour, but whichever it is I shall look rather smart doing it.

I began teaching today. My students turned up at 2pm and require regular tea breaks, so this is probably the most comfortable job I ever had.

So I’m planning to spend a little recreation time while I’m here. “What shall I do? Ah! The internet. The internet will know!”, I thought (utilising the popular philosophical acronym, WWTID?). Imagine my surprise as I discovered that most tourist attractions, shops and services in an Indian old town do not have websites. Where do people get this sort of information from around here? The mouths of friends? Walking around and looking at things? Where!?.

I was about to abandon my bourgeoise western ways and try out one of these crazy suggestions, when I discovered reassuring proof that I should not leave the safety of computer screen (where I risk, at worst, exposure to pictures of naked people or accidentally joining a terrrrist cell). A final brief Google search (“Ahmedabad tailor”) to find a starting point for my street wandering reveals the following sage shopping advice:

…Last night, Abdul Razak, 60, a tailor in Ahmedabad, limped in to the musafirkhana. His legs suffered acid burns during a mob attack on the slum where he …

…A 35-year-old man, reportedly a tailor, was found with his throat slit near the …

I mean, I don’t really need step out into this beautiful and exotic city I travelled eight-thousand miles to visit. What I need is not to be limping into a hotel with acid burns. I need to stay away from tailors. Those guys are bad news.

Perhaps I can build a protective army of tea-saturated students. But I have go into town to buy my Authority-Beard! What a bind!

Despite the efforts of the local auto-rickshaw drivers I have arrived in NID unhurt. There was some incredible scenery during the journey, including crazy buildings, enormous rivers, giant wildlife, and three old men riding a rickety vehicle of their own construction the wrong way along the adjacent railway tracks.

Most of my students are away at a film festival in Mumbai until Tuesday, so I have three days to cobble together some sort of syllabus. My plan is to as much cobbling as possible today, and then hang out in the gardens, among the peacocks and monkeys, with a real book and an imaginary gin & tonic.

I met the first of my students last night. He grinned at me welcomingly and said, “I was expecting some big professor”. Tomorrow I am going to the market to buy a false beard with which I shall assert some authority. Local beards are quite impressive, so it will have to be a very big one.

I have begun learning Hindi. It is a lot like being on the phone to someone a bit boring and squiggling about aimlessly with a biro on a notepad.

So far, my book has taught me to give a false identity and lie about the size of my house. What deception these clever squiggles can harbour!

In two weeks I will travel to India to teach young, gifted traditional animators how to weild 3D animation software, so they can usurp me when the international job market is a fairer place. I’m not exactly sure what I’ll be teaching, as I haven’t been told what resources the school has. However, at the very worst-case scenario I shall just teach them hard maths, which is what computer animation looks like without the computer.

I thought my adventure was to begin on the 2nd of February, but in fact it began early, yesterday afternoon at work:

Wednesday morning, in the plush British Airways Travel Clinic in Piccadilly:

Sound of puncturing flesh

Sound of puncturing wallet

Lesson learned: Airlines should not own hospitals. Or something. My arm hurts. They tell me to drink lots of water, which requires my arm, then they make my arm hurt. Very funny. Thanks a bunch.

this is just a way to remind you all my tiny existence.
i have just reached NID and ahmedabad and as there is a proper internet connection in my room, i am crying with joy for such a blessing.
i am fine, thank you ; my projet has been nastily attacked by fate : most of my drawing have been destroyed by a sudden flood ten days ago in the middle of the night at chennai. like you see sometimes on tv, i had to carry my luggage on my head with water up to the belly, which is quite adventurous.
today i have noticed that i might have lost at this occasion my return ticket to uk, and perhaps i should do something about it.
otherwise, being a teacher is fun. indian students are beautiful as they don’t know what unrespect and despise to the authority mean. this is very lucky for me, but quite amazing for a frenchgirl.
i might start being more precise about my projet in the next days. i might as well transfer some little compressed ugly videos, cause that’s the only thing left.