'Metroxical New York' wins Cinema Paradiso Award

Helloooo hellooo Peeps, exciting news! Our documentary film 'Metroxical New York' has won the 'CINEMA PARADISO AWARD' for great Cinematography, interesting Concept and being a truly International film at the Auroville Film Festival 2013. It has won in the category 'Films made by Aurovilians, residents of Bio-region and Guests of Auroville' and has been chosen among 53 other films in the category. More than the award itself, we had a lot of people in the audience say some really nice things about it. The reason we feel high is that it connected with people at some level, the same way we connected with the project when we created it. Thanks universe, we owe you more exciting work!

Metroxical New York at Auroville Film Festival 2013

Folks, our recent Documentary Film 'Metroxical New York' - A poetic narrative about the underground subway music in New York City and how it forms the basis for a futuristic collective society - directed by Koushalya and created by Accessible Horizon Films is now screening at the Auroville Film Festival. Everyone's welcome and friends in Pondicherry, do make it! It screens on September 19th, 2013 at 7:30 p.m at the Outdoor Venue to be announced by the Auroville Film Festival. Please see their website for details - http://aurovillefilmfestival.org/

Gettin' Leh'ed!

SECMOL - Short Documentary Film - Ladakh, India
In 2012, during our 33-day backpacking trip in the Himalayas, Ladakh(of course) was an eye-opening, mind-altering drug-stop. I say mind-altering because it really was one hell of a trip to yonder-land, or should I say, a different planet altogether. And vacation is a bad word to use here, because if you are taking a trip to the Himalayas, especially Ladakh, it is an adventure that will rattle your bones(literally and figuratively) and your core. It will change the way you look at things, people and what-the-hell - life itself.
And during the stop-over there, we called up our then-new friend, Sonam Wangchuk, the revolutionary extraordinaire and a simple man with a singular vision. We didn't know much about him then, as we were wondering where really we were heading when we took the taxi to Phey, about 18 kms from Leh city. We only knew that he was the founder of SECMOL(Student's Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh) which was founded in 1988 by him and a group of young Ladakhis with the aim to reform the educational system of Ladakh.
It is rumored that Sonam Wangchuk is the real-life Phunsuk Wangdu, the character played by Aamir Khan in the Hindi film, 3 Idiots. But anyways, during our stay there and our interactions with him, his team and the students, we realized that there's a lot than meets the eye. We observed that students identify themselves with their Ladakhi culture, as Ladakhis, and rarely do they associate themselves with the Pan-Indian identity. Like hell that's necessary. But well, let's get to this.

This short profile documentary film was shot in 2012 as a way of bringing to light the result of the efforts of Sonam, who has created waves in educational and cultural reform. We filmed this during our 1 week stay at SECMOL, volunteering for them, teaching Ladakhi students and culturally exchanging ideas and basically having a great time with them.
A couple of changes to the above film:
1. Rebecca should have been labelled Volunteer Advisor/Instructor instead of Co-founder as labelled above.
2. The volunteers for ice-skating are from various countries in the world as opposed to just US or Canada, as mentioned above.
Camera provided by Subheer from Always Outbound.
Created and presented by us, yours truly, the Accessible Horizon Films team.

'Metroxical New York' Schedule at IDSFFK

THE FILMMAKING PROCESS!! JIGSAW PIECE No:9

The social consciousness called Internet..and the many souls who help with the DO-IT-YOURSELF informations...who teach the world what they know..share resources...and the souls who believe that change is possible..and who encourage new ideas..with all due respect..with gratitude..

Trailer New Doc - Metroxical New York

Here's the trailer for our new documentary film, Metroxical New York.

Metroxical New York - New Documentary Film

Music. Metro. New York city. Future of society. A poetic narrative about underground subway music in New York city and how it forms the basis for a futuristic collective society. Metroxical New York is our latest production in the roster of Accessible Horizon Films' documentary genre. The doc. is about music, the musicians and the New York city subway. Well, it's actually much more than that. 
It really started out with our exploratory subway commutes over time interacting with musicians from almost every part of the world, eventually leading upto this moment where we just burned DVDs for submissions to various international film festivals. Audio post-production was really tedious but we made it through. Still tons of things to learn. Anyways, will add more stuff about it soon. Trailer's on the way.

Sax Player in New York City Subway

This was shot during our documentary film shoot about the Subway Music in New York City Times Square Stattion. Something about his pathos inducing note made us wanna obscure his identity. Think his name's Ahmed or something, couldn't quite catch it coz his voice was broken. He himself seemed a broken man and his music was haunting enough to prove it.

ReelChanges- Audience Funded Documentaries

Change the World - One Film at a time!
ReelChanges.org is owned and operated by the Center for Media Change, Inc., a 501c3 non-profit corporation based in Palo Alto, California. The mission of the Center for Media Change, Inc. is to enrich our culture by facilitating the creation and distribution of more high-quality documentaries. Contributions to the Center for Media Change, Inc. and to individual documentary projects posted and displayed on the site are tax deductible as allowed under U.S. federal law.
So, what are we waiting for?
Let us create change, propose a socially relevant documentary and get help from the world to make films!

Wings Of Evolution Screening at Scarsdale Public library, New York

We had a screening of Wings of Evolution yesterday at the Scarsdale Public Library,New York, at 1pm. The screening was arranged by Susan Grosz, a friend we made from the South Asian International Film Festival in October 2007. We did not have to do anything except show up for the screening at the library because Susan had taken care of everything that was needed; right from the publicity to the arrangement of the venue including all the formalities involved. Jeff took care of the technical part of things and arranged for a projector for the screenings. We have wonderful people to help us in this journey and they volunteer their time and effort for this cause.
Susan introduced us to the audience and said that amidst all the chaos in the world and news every single day, Wings Of Evolution was there to give hope. What an introduction!
We were inspired by just those words!
A group of around 40 people showed up for the screening even with the weather being so cold outside. The after-session of the screening was very interesting with people asking us questions about a lot of things.
Firstly, the overall response was amazing and the audience said that indeed they agreed to Susan's introductory comment that there was hope in the film. There were around 6-7 school teachers who were very interested to know about the details of the syllabus at the School. They were interested in the fact that the children at the Siragu School were allowed to take any classes they preferred whether it was the reading corner or writing or math or science or anything they chose to attend. Some of them voiced out their concern about the public schools in India and how the attendance worked there. They were impressed at the kids' openness to the learning process in spite of being first generation learners and also appreciated the kids for teaching their parents English when they went home.
Some of them voiced out their concern for the exam patterns in schools in the world and how competitive children have forced to become.
Well, they were also keen on the World Wide Postcard Sharing project and said they would ask their kids to participate in it.
So, the overall response was very positive yesterday.
We also introduced our non-profit organization POSITIVE PEOPLE TODAY to the audience and requested them to take a look at the cause. We are trying to raise funds for the Siragu School through Positive People Today. Please go to the following link to take a look at the fund raising page of Siragu School.
We reminded the people that remaining positive about things changing for the better in the world was very important and PPT was one such attempt to spread Positivity!

The More Than Warmth quilt project !

More than Warmth is an educational project for students of all ages to learn about world cultures. It fosters understanding, knowledge and compassion among cultures through nonviolent, nonpolitical, and nonreligious means.

They create a forum allowing American students a place to process international events. While helping to create a growing awareness of world cultures, students also learn about regions of strife and conflict in the world. More Than Warmth offers students a chance to effect positive change in their world.
For more click here...
This is so encouraging for kids all over the world and is similar to our World Wide Post Card Sharing project where children from all over the world share their art, creativity, love and time for kids all over the world...See how many humans are coming together to unite the world!
I am so inspired...our children of today, all over the world, will bring the world together...!
Picture Courtesy: MORETHANWARMTH

WINGS OF EVOLUTION - TRAILER!!

1st Annual NJISACF

The weekend of June 2-3rd had the inauguration of the New Jersey Independent South Asian Cine Fest 2007. This was way overdue. Given that this was its first time, it did decently well. Quite a decent turnout although it wasn't overflowing. Georgestreet Playhouse was a good choice as the venue and yeah good food at the cafe. One concern was that, during the inauguration ceremony, it seemed more like an election campaign for the NJ Senate, no, really, for some time, it seemed like we were all sitting in the auditorium waiting to vote and register ourselves and even suggest policy changes in the government! I didn't know why they had to bring people to campaign in a film festival(the chief guest was running for the NJ senate - even then). Well, let bygones be bygones.
Anyways, Men of Burden was screened on the first day at 8:30 p.m. We had a Q and A session later with some good reviews by the audience. The slate of films was very diverse although I had already seen quite a few of them at various festivals like IFFLA, IAAC and SAIFF. On the whole, I would give it a 6.5 on a scale of ten. Keep it up and good luck!

Post-screening of Men of Burden

Things have been crazy the last few days. But didn't want to forget about the May 12th, 2007 screening of 'Men of Burden - Pedaling Towards a Horizon'. The screening went well but wished we had done more promotion. Getting people to an independent screening, that too, of a documentary film is definitely a not-so-easy task.
Journalist(SAJA-er) Aseem Chabra was kind enough to moderate the post-screening discussion. We had a good discussion with some in the audience, some backs and forths and a couple of leads for the rickshaw projects. Hopefully things will work out towards the contribution.
Aicon Gallery was supportive with their help during the screening. Thanks to everyone who contributed towards the screening. Also gotta thank Nanda and Arvind for their help with the audio system and ALM Associates in Rahway and Ram Lakhani from Digimax for lending the projection and screen systems.
Anyways, do look out for our next screening at the NJSAICF on June 2nd, at 7:45 p.m. Hope to have a good NJ turnout.

Preview Clip (2) - Men of Burden

Here's a re-post of the second preview clip.

Men of Burden - Official Selection at NJISA Cine Fest

Hi all
'Men of Burden - Pedaling Towards a Horizon' has been officially selected at the New Jersey Independent South Asian Cine Fest and will be screened June 2nd-3rd at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick. This will most likely be the NJ premiere of the film.

New Jersey Independent South Asian Cine Fest, NJISACF, produced by the Asian American Film and Theater Project, in association with Manavi, is committed to the exhibition of independent films by and about South Asians. It promotes and recognizes the talents of the new, the established, the best and the brightest Indie filmmakers from across the globe.
The two-day festival will screen feature, short, documentary and animated films of all genres, with accompanying filmmaker Q&As, and panel discussions on various topics related to the craft and business of filmmaking. Jury and Audience Choice Prizes will be awarded for excellence in various categories.
The festival’s mission is to facilitate a thriving and dynamic interaction and dialog among filmmakers, writers, actors, producers, film critics, film scholars, film industry professionals, the movie-loving public, and the American society at large, thereby making it an essential part of the multi-cultural landscape of New Jersey.

Watch out for updates on more screenings in the NY Tri-state area.

Intro/Trailer Revisited: Men of Burden

Though the Trailer/Intro for "Men of Burden - Pedaling Towards a Horizon" has been up on our website Accessible Horizon Films for a while now, we just thought it might be a good idea to revisit it because of some new updates regarding the film (which will be out soon). More clips to follow soon.

Education in Public Schools in U.S

We recently saw a documentary that was in the YouTube and it is about the education system that prevails in PUBLIC SCHOOLS in the U.S.

It speaks for itself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfRUMmTs0ZA&mode=related&search=

Natural Consequences - PAYBACK TIME?

This is a graphic representation of what we saw on the National Geographic Documentary Channel last night...

A few questions arise in my mind right at this moment...
1. Should we feel responsible and take the blame without complaining because it is a Natural Consequence or should we blame everything else except ourselves???
2. Are we supposed to feel pity for the people who are being killed or for the Sharks who have been forced into this and are left with no choice??
3. Is this how it is all supposed to happen and end??
4. What part does our reason play here??
5. Have we drowned reason along with our consciousness in an endless ABYSS??

Films and Updates

Just a little update on what's happening with our films

1. Men of Burden - Pedaling Towards a Horizon
After the NYC premiere at IAAC, there hasn't been much happening. Although our plans for future screenings are on. We have been talking to some folks in the Cycle Rickshaw (Pedicab) industry here in New York for arranging private screenings. Hopefully by mid-January, we'll know more. So far, DIY distribution seems to be the way to go. More on that later.

2. Wait No More
Our new completed short film is all ready to go places (crossing fingers). We got some good reviews for the film from our inner circles, but still, until it hits the big screen and people outside our inner circles say something good, we aren't going to rejoice. The DVDs are burnt and ready too, and some have hit the submission currents, so let's see what's in store.

3. New Untitled Documentary film
Yes, our documentary on Siragu school based on underprivileged/homeless children in India still is 'Untitled'. We have a few options but they are just 'ok'. Nothing too exciting. We will be getting the footage in our hands next week and then we will start Post-production. Very excited. But, so long.