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programme part: Grand Competition 9

Friday, 5. June 20:30, Europa cinema

Saturday, 6. June 21:00, Movieplex cinema, auditory 3

Nina Paley

Nina Paley

Sita_01

Sita Sings the Blues / Sita Sings the Blues

Nina Paley

United States / 2008 / 90' 0''

Director: Nina Paley

Production: Nina Paley Productions

Animation: Nina Paley

Screenplay: Nina Paley; na osnovi Valmikija / based on Valmiki

Editing: Nina Paley

Music: Todd Michaelson, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Masala Dosa, Nik Phelps, Rohan

Sound: Greg Sextro

Cast: Annette Hanshaw (Singing Sita), Sanjiv Jhaveri, Nina Paley, Carrie Keranen, Aladdin Ulah, Reena Shah, Deepti Gupta, Pooja Kumar, Aseem Chhabra, Bhavana Nagulapally, Manish Acharya

Synopsis

Sita is a Hindu goddess, the leading lady of India’s epic the Ramayana and a dutiful wife who follows her husband Rama on a 14 year exile to a forest, only to be kidnapped by an evil king from Sri Lanka. Despite remaining faithful to her husband, Sita is put through many tests... In her first feature length film, Paley juxtaposes multiple narrative and visual styles to create a highly entertaining yet moving vision of the Ramayana. Musical numbers choreographed to the 1920's jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw feature a cast of hundreds: flying monkeys, evil monsters, gods, goddesses, warriors, sages, and winged eyeballs. A tale of truth, justice and a woman’s cry for equal treatment. Sita Sings the Blues earns its tagline as "The Greatest Break-Up Story Ever Told."

Nina Paley

Nina Paley (1968, Champaign IL, USA) is a longtime veteran of syndicated comic strips, creating "Fluff" (Universal Press Syndicate), "The Hots" (King Features), and her own alternative weekly "Nina's Adventures." In 1998 she began making independent animated festival films, including the controversial yet popular environmental short, "The Stork." In 2002 Nina followed her then-husband to Trivandrum, India, where she read her first Ramayana. This inspired her first feature, Sita Sings the Blues, which she animated and produced single-handedly over the course of 5 years on a home computer. Nina teaches at Parsons School of Design in Manhattan and is a 2006 Guggenheim Fellow.

Selection of works: The Stork (2002), Fetch! (2001), Pandorama (2000), Luv Is... (1998)  

Selected awards: Jury Special Mention (Berlinale),Cristal for Best Feature (Annecy), Jury Honorable Mention (Ottawa), Best Script (Atene IFF)

Selected festival history: Leeds IFF, Seattle IFF, Anima Mundi, Stuttgart ITFS, Holland Animation Film Festival, Anima Brussels, Anifest