Attention Sikh Art and Film Enthusiasts!!
It’s that time of year again!
For those Southern California natives, you (hopefully) know it rolls around once every year. This year, SikhLens is proud to announce its annual Sikh Arts and Film Festival to be held November 18th – 20th, 2011 at the prestigious Dodge College of Film and Media Arts at Chapman University in Orange, California. As avid supporters of Sikh Arts, and creativity in general, I am hoping our readers would be especially interested in this event coming up in the next couple of weeks.
The Sikh Arts and Film Festival serves as a central venue for artists to showcase and share Sikh heritage and culturethrough the mediums of film, literature, art, music, social media and fashion. As an often-misidentified minority, this type of forum has proven to be essential for Sikhs to transcend cultural boundaries, generate awareness, and connect with the broader community.
For tickets, scheduling and more information, visit www.sikhlens.com.
8 Responses to “Attention Sikh Art and Film Enthusiasts!!”
I hope it comes to Portland OR soon …!
I do support art/culture events but lets not be mistaken – if we want to create a legitimate foundation of this we need to raise the bar. Theses Sikh film festivals are not going to be respected in the wider film-making community if the festival focuses more on random “celebrities” than on the standard of the films. The films aren’t even screened – if you have a camera and know how to turn it on, your film will be shown. After having attending this event for the past several years and as a film student – this is my personal observation.
Mohr-
As far as I know the organizers DO go through a screening process (with an active, engaged and diverse committee), as well as actively look for quality content themselves. Not everyone that submits gets into the festival. That being said- the organizers can only screen content that is submitted (or found by their hard work), and there is not a huge pool to work with.
I have also attended this (and other) Sikh film festivals and have personally seen how the quality of the content improves year after year.
Since you are a film student- you should contact them and give them your honest feedback and suggestions. Maybe even get involved if it's a cause you're willing to take up!
Rab Rakha
Breakaway – 'Critically acclaimed' – hahaha….name one film critic who has 'acclaimed' this nonsensical film. When will these groups of rich sikhs stop promoting any movie just because it has pug wearing characters in it. Ajaib Kaur – We expect something better from your keyboard. Maybe you haven't seen the movie yet!
Fauja Singh – All thumbs up.
Jugraj – Have you watched the film? I watched the audience react to this film, and they took the good out of it… There were some touching scenes and a handful that touched a chord with the viewers, and if you were to poll the audience on that evening you would have found more positive reviews than negative. Was the film perfect? no. Was it worthy of an Oscar? no. But, was it a decently made, positive movie that was wholesome enough to watch with the family and have enough "Sikh-centric" content to be played at the festival? IMHO – yes.
Don't even get me started on your comment "these groups of rich sikhs…"
Ajaib Kaur – I appreciate your positive outlook towards this community event.. It is so rare that our community puts on these types of events, and it's so easy for us all to sit here and criticize these events, picking them apart one by one. We should appreciate and support. And if we think we can make it better – let's get involved (myself included)
I attended the SikhLens film festival.
Watching Sach Productions' "A Little Revolution" and meeting Fauja Singh ji were the highlights for me. I am grateful to SikhLens for bringing both to California.
However, I was shocked to see a coupon for free brow threading along with a full page advertisement for Ziba Beauty included in the gift bag. Ziba Beauty's owner Sumita Batra was quoted in a recent LA Times article as telling Sikh women “Let’s put religion aside and be real. Who … is attracted to a hairy-legged, mustached woman?”. This move to not only promote a company founded on committing kurats but also provide free coupons for Sikhs to do so is especially confusing given that every year SikhLens shows at least one film focused on celebrating Sikhi saroop.
I chalked it up to a mistake. I have yet to hear any response from the organizers but I did learn that a few volunteers had objected to including those items but were ignored.
I hope others will also write to the SikhLens film festival at info@sikhlens.com. Please ask them to acknowledge making the wrong decision and to ensure this does not happen ever again.
Response came in from SikhLens:
Fateh ****** Singh ji,
We appreciate your kind words towards the festival.
Our team strives to uphold our mandate of "celebrating culture and heritage" through all mediums, including the gift bags and program guides. This year, an oversight was made with the gift bags, and we will make a conscious effort to ensure that that does not happen in the future. Both Sikhlens and our Sponsor are aware of the mandate of the festival and are sensitive towards those goals.
Once again, we appreciate your thoughts and continued attendance.
Guru Rakha,
Sikhlens Sevadars
School, college and university are organized the different function for students because increase the level of confident and show the talent. In this procedure every students feeling fresh and tell to other friends my college is the best college all over the world.