Contacting CFSI

Contacted CFSI ( Children Film Society of India ) to see if they could help me distribute the movie. Nothing finalized yet.

Meanwhile, I got in touch with Ajay , who is a distributor of CFSI in UP region. Ajay has been a great help and gave me a few contacts with whom I am in touch with to see if I could get some help for distribution

Interesting School

Neelam , one of our actors in the movie , told me about an very interesting school

http://www.cfl.in

Need to read it up in more detail and must visit.

A visit to Marlwadi

For the past few days I had been thinking of going to Marlwadi to give a copy of the movie to both the people in Marwadi village as well as the SSY gurukulam. After a lot of debate, we set out on sunday afternoon for our drive to Marlwadi.

I was also excited about the drive, coz I knew that I could spend an hour discussing with hubby about the new projects we could take on in Kruti. So on sunday, after completing our morning tasks, we set out for our drive at around 12 pm. Discussed a few projects in Kruti and by the time we reached the ashram it was one thirty . As we entered the ashram we were told by the person assisting at the gate that there was a sadhana camp on in the ashram . Also because of the camp, Rishi Prabhakar was there in the ashram. Wow ! Thoroughly tired and hungry, we had a good darshan and first went into the dining hall to have some good ashram food. Had some good curd rice, pulav, and some healthy salads and then proceeded towards the main hall to look at the function that was happening in the ashram.

It was the final day of the '100% memory' program and the education minister had been invited. The students demonstrated their 100% memory and told the audience how much they loved the stay in the ashram . Education minister was impressed and said that he would look into how he could spread this education in the schools in the state.

After the function was over, we went up on the stage to meet Ravi Guruji to give him a copy of the CD we had made. As soon as I introduced myself , he said - you know what ! I heard that this movie has been showin in IIMB ! hehe :) Apparantly one of my seniors had recognised his children in the bus that we had shown in the movie.

Ravi guruji was very happy to meet us and then he took us to Rishi Prabhakar and introduced us as 'very creative' people who had a lot of ideas in their mind.. :) Can you believe that ! Rishi Prabhakar smiled and blessed us .

On our return back, we gave a copy of the CD to the provision shop owner and his wife and returned back to Bangalore feeling happy :)

Screening at Gurappanpalya

Today , we screened the movie at Mohan and Kavi's home .. And it was a real pleasure to see the pride and contentment in both the children and the parents :)

Was very fulfilling experience after all the hard work done. !

Screening and Dinner

Yesterday, for the first time, all the members who were involved in the movie project , sat together and watched the movie at my house. Everyone loved the end product :) Three people who were missed were - Sunil and Badri ( who had to go to chennai suddenly for their new project ) and Sundarshree.

And after the screening was a home cooked dinner ! :)

Thank you all for making this movie happen !:)

Screening at IIMB

Last friday ( 25th March ) , we had a screening of the movie at IIMB. Thanks to prof. Suresh , who agreed for this screening.. Was a very good experience - though there were hitches - since the sound quality of the conf room was not so good. :)

A letter from Cannes ..

from fbeauville@festival-cannes.fr reply-to fbeauville@festival-cannes.fr to veena.mithare@gmail.com date Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 12:17 AM subject Festival de Cannes

hide details Mar 20 (11 days ago)

Monsieur / Madame Sunil Kumar SINGH

Nous vous remercions de présenter au comité de sélection du Festival de Cannes le film THE STRANGER que nous venons de recevoir.

Nous vous informons que la conférence de presse annonçant les films sélectionnés aura lieu le 15 avril 2010.

Si votre film est sélectionné pour le Festival de Cannes, vous serez prévenu avant cette date.

Cordialement,

Christian Jeune

Festival de Cannes

Adjoint au Délégué général

Directeur du Département Films

______________________________________________________________________________________

Dear Sunil Kumar SINGH

Thank you for presenting your film THE STRANGER », which we have received, to the selection committee of the Festival de Cannes.

The press conference during which we will announce the films selected will be held on April 15^th 2010.

If your film is selected for the festival you will be notified before this date.

Yours sincerely,

Christian Jeune

Festival de Cannes

Deputy general Delegate

Director Film Department

For the want of a Cannes Submission !!

Ok.. the Last date for the DVD to be received at Cannes is 19th March. Thats why all that last minute jugglery at the dubbing and editing studio.

Somehow I had been confident that a DVD will take 4 days to reach by post to any international country - and in that over confidence , managed to keep this open till the last moment. But can you believe my surprise when I realised that all the courier shops were closed today because of Ugadi !

Now , we really have to take a chance about submitting to Cannes. Fedex promised to deliver in three days - which means that if I dispatch tomorrow - if all goes well - the DVD will reach the destination just before 19th close of day .

Crossing my fingers now !

Final Editing

On 15th, after completing the dubbing we landed up at the editing studio, to do the final editing - we cut one scene - mixed the music - balanced the dubbed voices and the music . Then we added the credits at the front and back of the movie.

Badri and the editor, worked from 3 pm to late in the night to 11 pm - but as promised by Badri - the movie was delivered yesterday night 11 pm at my home. :)

I couldnt have slept without watching the final product - and must say - I am very satisfied with the end result. Its come out well.

Now waiting to send it to the film festivals.

Dubbing...

Finally we dubbed for our movie on 14th and 15th of March. After the initial glitches, all the dubbing artists ( who were family and friends ) got an idea of how the dubbing works. And we all dubbed like pros ! :)

On 14th, we dubbed from 7 pm upto 11.30 pm - can you beat that ! And yet, we could not manage to complete the dubbing for Satish - since the children( Saurabh and Suhas - Chitkala's sons) that we had brought for dubbing , had a little older voice and did not suit Satish's character.

On 15th , we managed to get Aryan Saraswat ( Roli's son ), who completed the dubbing for us.

@ Dubbing studio

Oh! it is not easy...all dialogues ringing in my ears :-)
But it is fun.. few more steps..next 2 days we will be mastering the move. It has been long journey!