Category: Uncategorized
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Rama’s Second Thought (A Story)
Dilip was a great musician. He had been lucky. He had a great master who was feted in London, Paris, San Fransisco, Benares and Calcutta. In those days, for an Indian musician in particular, this was rare. Dilip’s Guru-ji was a rare bird – a genius – both musically and as a show man. Guru-ji…
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Being a woman in a “gentleman’s club”
It was just that I had the feeling the art scene belonged to the men, and that I was in some way invading their domain. Therefore the work was done and hidden away. I felt more comfortable hiding it. On the other hand, I destroyed nothing. I kept every fragment. – Louise Bourgeois, 1979 When…
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So you want to go to film school in NYC?
Mythbusting: You need to be rich to go to film school. No! But if you’re not, you need to be seriously tough, lucky and imprudent…. Here are some thoughts that may help you navigate this difficult but rewarding journey if you are considering film school in the States. Graduate film school is a massive investment of…
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Carrying the Cannes
This is not a round-up of all the meetings I had, films I saw, or cards I collected while at my first Cannes Festival; rather it is a moment that I would like to take just to record how saddened I am by my vivid and direct experience of racial and ethnic tension in Provence-Alpes…
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About Bubbles
Bubbles is a short film about a child’s experience of witnessing domestic violence, starring international star Shabana Azmi. Set in London, it portrays life in the South Asian diaspora from a small girl’s perspective. Written and directed by Nasheed Qamar Faruqi, the film also features Bhasker Patel, Dolly Ballea and Christopher Simpson. The little girl, Bubbles, is…
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Bubbles: Credits
CREDITS Cast in order of appearance Yasmeen Siddiqui as Bubbles Shabana Azmi as Nani Bhasker Patel as Nana Christopher Simpson as The Young Man Dolly Ballea as Adult Bubbles Sarandha Tyagi as Nani’s hands Written & Directed by Nasheed Qamar Faruqi Produced by Ashwin Anil Desai Co-Producers Sam William Mitchell, Nasheed Qamar Faruqi, Shilpa Mankikar Director…
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Bubbles… More about the cast
CAST BIOGRAPHIES Shabana Azmi An of icon of international cinema and leading actress of the Indian New Wave Movement (also known as “Parallel Cinema”) Shabana Azmi has appeared in over 120 Hindi films in a career spanning five decades, winning a record five National Film Awards and four Filmfare Awards for Best Actress. Shabana’s notable…
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Bubbles, A Synopsis
SYNOPSIS Bubbles is a tense and atmospheric short film about a little girl who witnesses an act of horrible violence at home, and how it drives her to despair and obsession. LONG SYNOPSIS Living in London with her South Asian grandparents, Bubbles sits watching Hindi film songs on the TV. Around her, the family is…
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Bubbles: Key Crew
CREW BIOGRAPHIES Nasheed Qamar Faruqi (Writer & Director) Nasheed is a London based filmmaker of Pakistani parentage, who’s made several short films and music videos. Before gaining her MFA in Filmmaking from Columbia University’s School of the Arts, Nasheed worked for Merchant Ivory Productions. She was educated at Wadham College, Oxford, where she read English. Nasheed…
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Bubbles: Our Charity Partners
Asha Projects, UK Asha is a South Asian organization that works to end violence against women and girls. If you are experiencing violence – or know a woman who is – please contact them for confidential advice and information. They offer secure temporary accommodation. http://www.ashaprojects.org.uk Awaaz, USA Formed in 2011 and based in San Antonio,…
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Bubbles: My Director’s Statement
BUBBLES is a film about a child’s shocking encounter with the adult violence; it is also about how violence is like a fog that seeps into family life and infects everyone. There are no easy answers in this short film, but I hope that it will move and provoke audiences to think about violence in…
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Bubbles in the Press
We’ve now completed Bubbles and I’m looking forward to an exciting festival run. Check out this interview in which I talk about the film.
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Bubbles: Press Links
Here is some of the coverage we’ve already had: Elle India Name to Know May 21st, 2015 The Friday Times, April 24th-30th 2015 “What the Eye Doesn’t See” Maheen Pracha in Conversation with Writer-Director Nasheed Qamar Faruqi. Ebuzz Interview, January 26th, 2015 (please note, there is currently a small error on this page. I wrote and directed Bubbles; Yann Heckmann…
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Bubbles: The Festival Journey
We began our festival journey at the Cannes Short Film Corner from May 16-21 2015.
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Picture Lock
We’ve locked picture on Outside/Bubbles. I have a strange empty feeling, that is only mitigated by anticipation for the sound mix and grade. It has been a long and rewarding journey to reach this point and I am so grateful to everyone I have worked with. So much to say, so many people to thank,…
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My Father’s Son… or Memory Lane
Sorting through photos of our shoot in 2007, I thought I’d share some of my faves….
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Outside …. OR Bubbles
After an invigorating Kickstarter Campaign – which amazed me for the generosity and groundswell of support we garnered – we completed the shoot of my latest short film Outside (now called BUBBLES) last month. I am currently working with Editor Yann Heckmann to cut the film and am really excited about getting it out into the…
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Something Delightful
On a more positive note, how I love the Moomins and Tove Jansson’s wacky sense of humour.
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Elia Kazan wrote…
Above all, permit the disruptive and the vulgar and the shocking and the revolutionary and the hateful thought.
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Ten Years Later
Ten years later after the Iraq War began, I wake to hear Radio 4’s Today programme commemorate the event. I am shocked and appalled by the level of Orwellian newspeak inflicted on me. As if to disavow British involvement in the atrocity, they refer to an offensive started ‘by the United States and its allies‘.…
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Salt
There are wounds that never heal; scars that are stubborn; memories that will not fade or be forgotten. I have dreams which return: night after night, the same images. God transformed Lot’s wife (did she have a name?) into a pillar of salt because she looked back. The unconscious is made of salt – buried,…
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Maurice
Maurice, Merchant Ivory (MIP)’s 1987 adaptation of E. M. Forster’s posthumously published novel, is playing at the BFI this week, as part of their “Out at the Pictures” Season. It is one of my favourite movies, with its profound and emotive central performances and bitter sweet ending. Seeing it on the big screen is a rare…
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Stuff & Nonsense
We don’t ask to be born, but some of us get used to the perks. The rest of us struggle. At the core of sociability is a vasty silence, a deafening hollow, implacable loss. Some weave a tapestry of consolation. Others construct a bubble of denial in which they bounce, until it – and their…
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Illiterati or Misreading Mantel
As if we needed proof that hacks indulge in wilful misinterpretation, the media is up in arms about Hilary Mantel’s quizzical and actually rather sympathetic piece about royal bodies in the London Review of Books. Metro’s Tariq Tahir roared Anger at machine made Kate! Cue irate pieces in various papers about the worst excesses of…
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Slowness
I so frequently find an outlet in the Twittosphere these days, that I haven’t written a post in criminal ages. Forgive me, faithful readers – all four point five of you. There should be plenty to say. Life is eventful, interesting – full of spectacle, loss, dreams and anxiety. And that’s just two weeks! Lots…
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iPad Portrait
In my life drawing class last week my wonderful drawing teacher, Francis Hoyland, made this sketch of me on an iPad.
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Paolo Zanotti
Last night I found out that my friend, Paolo Zanotti died on December 5th, last year. He had been diagnosed with a tumor in the pancreas six weeks earlier. He was only 41. I met Paolo in 2002 at the Synapsis School for Comparative Literature in Pontignano near Siena. At first, I was struck by…
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A Man and A Woman
Is Amour really about love? ‘Cause I’m not feeling it. Haneke’s films are secretive, elegant and cold. He is a master of his art, and nothing demonstrates this better than his casting of Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintignant: just watching them is a pleasure and a privilege. Moreover, they bring with them the intertextual connotations…
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Here and there
I’ve been meaning for sometime to write about a wonderful film made by a friend and film school contemporary. We saw it when it was screened at the London Film Festival last month. Antonio (Mendez Esparza) has made an elegant and humane film called Aqui y Alla, about a Mexican family, living through the reality…
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Beauty and the Beast
To see Holy Motors and Skyfall in the same week is the cinematic equivalent of eating surf and turf. Holy Motors is preoccupied with cinema, fantasy and representation, how we create images, and how they in turn create us. Every sequence is rich with cinematic tropes: the car, the girl, the gun, the gangster, the…
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Sputnik
I hear your voice, distant over the crackling phone line. All the years come tumbling back. I wish I had never missed you.
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Loopy
The loopholes in the time travel plot of Looper were irritating. You can give me all the filmic references you want (they range geekily from North by Northwest to Terminator), and solid performances (we have the usual saga of accomplished actors battling a loose script and poorly paced editing) but if I don’t believe in…
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Andrew Sarris, The Real Thing
The American Cinema has to be one of my favourite books about movies, probably one of my favourites on any subject. It was written by a man who had watched and loved the movies he wrote about, even the ones he didn’t like. Though erudite and authoritative, Andrew Sarris (1928-2012) wore his own expertise lightly. He…
Nasheed Qamar Faruqi 