Left or Right?

Objectivity in journalism is a lost concept. The way we see news and even facts have changed drastically over time. In this highly subjective media scenario, party-owned newspapers are the most biased, or heavily biased, to borrow a term from solid-state electronics.

Every news is twisted, tilted, or blown out of proportion. Every grain of truth is slanted, till the whole news shifts to left or right, according to the political party associated with the paper. While it is okay for a newspaper to have a perspective, red or saffron or green tinted glasses are an absolute no-no in journalism.

Should journalists have a minimum qualification?

Image: thewondersofinternet.wordpress.com

Should journalists have a minimum qualification? Isn’t a nose for news enough? These are the questions “professional journalists” are facing today, especially from the citizen-journalists. The popular answer would be, “Sure, anyone can be a journalist.” But in reality, this is far from the truth.

There is no law regarding minimum qualification for journalists. There is not a universal definition for a journalist. There is not even a definition for news. The “man-biting-dog-makes-news” is no longer valid. So in this chaos, why should anyone insist on a qualified journalist?

Labour, The Wealth of Nations

Labour was the first price, the original purchase-money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased                                                    -Adam Smith

The first day of the fifth month, May 1, is celebrated as International Labour Day. It is, at its heart, a celebration of man’s ability to produce, his ability to chose, his ability to think. Man is the only animal capable of barter. He can exchange his time, his labour, for the fruit of another’s.

Website Review- പത്തനാപുരം വാർത്ത

പത്തനാപുരം വാർത്ത (http://www.pathanapuramvartha.com/) എന്ന മലയാളം വാർത്ത‍ വെബ്സൈറ്റ് പേര് സൂചിപ്പിക്കുമ്പോലെ തന്നെ പ്രധാനമായും പത്തനാപുരത്തെ വാർത്തകൾ ആണ് പ്രസിധീകരിക്കുന്നതു. ചെറിയ തോതിൽ മൾടിമീഡിയയും റ്റെക്സ്റ്റിനൊപ്പം ഈ സൈറ്റിൽ ഉപയോഗിച്ചിട്ടുണ്ട്. ഇതൊരു ജൂംല സൈറ്റ് ആണ്. ഫിന്സോഫ്റ്റ് ഐ റ്റി സൊലൂഷൻസ് എന്ന സ്ഥാപനമാണ്‌ ഇതിൻറെ ഡിസൈൻ ചെയ്തിരിക്കുന്നത്. വിഷ്ണു ഗോപിനാഥ്, പ്രദീപ്‌ ഗുരുകുലം എന്നിവരാണ് ഈ സൈറ്റിന്റെ മാനേജിംഗ് ഡയറക്ടർമാർ. പത്തനാപുരം, പൊളിറ്റിക്സ്, ബിസിനെസ്സ്, സ്പോർട്സ്, ട്രാവൽ  എന്നിങ്ങനെ പല വിഭാഗങ്ങളായി തിരിച്ചിട്ടുണ്ട് സൈറ്റിനെ. വളരെ സിമ്പിൾ ആയ ലേയൗട്ട് ആണ്. ഫേസ് ബുക്കും റ്റ്വിട്ടെറും ഗൂഗിൾ പ്ലസ്‌ ഉം അടക്കം അനവദി സോഷ്യൽ നെറ്റ്‌വർക്കിങ്ങ്  സൈറ്റുകളിൽ ലിങ്ക് ചെയ്യാനുള്ള ഓപ്ഷനും ഉണ്ട്. 

Thoughts of a Film Festival Virgin

“This is my first time.”

“I don’t know what to expect.”

“What if I get bored?”

These were the words running constantly through my mind and mouth during the fortnight preceding my first film festival. I practiced and perfected a look of cold, intellectual indifference, to mask my nervousness! But more difficult to hide was my absurd, yet always present, fear of being left alone. What if I ended up alone, stuck inside a stuffy theatre, watching a “high-brow” movie, with absolutely no company? Little did I know then that when I walk out of the closing ceremony, I would be doing so in the company of a new, best friend, who, quote, don’t believe in the institution of best friends, unquote..!!

A Terminal Trust/Tsui no Shintaku(2012)

Director: Masayuki  Suo

Country: Japan

Synopsis: Internist Ayano Orii, having made a failed suicide attempt after a romantic breakup, finds herself unusually sensitive to the pain of her patient Shinzo Egi, whose severe asthma attacks will soon threaten to kill him. It helps that Egi, stoic about his own pain, finds indirect ways to assuage hers. The two have long, heart-to-heart visits that may look like fantasy to anyone who's ever fought for two more minutes of a busy doctor's time. Coming to feel that he can trust her more than his own family, Egi asks Dr. Orii to promise she will end his life once things get bad enough that his body can only breathe and be nourished through tubes. Orii sadly agrees, and some time later -- in a scene suggesting that "pulling the plug" can be a violent, terrifying thing even when done lovingly -- she helps him die. We see all this in flashback, as Orii sits, three years later, in the waiting room of a prosecutor investigating her actions. –hollywoodreporter.com

18 Days (2011)

Director: RETENTION by Sherif Arafa

                 GOD’S CREATION by Kamla Abou Zikri
                 19-19 by Marwan Hamed
                 WHEN THE FLOOD HITS YOU by Mohamed Ali
                 CURFEW by Sherif El Bendari
                 REVOLUTION COOKIES by Khaled Marei
                 #TAHRIR 2/2 by Mariam Abou Ouf
                WINDOW by Ahmad Abdallah
                INTERIOR/EXTERIOR by Yousry Nasrallah
                ASHRAF SEBERTO by Ahmad Alaa

Country: Egypt

Synopsis: A group of ten directors, twenty or so actors, six writers, eight directors of photography, eight sound engineers, five set designers, three costume designers, seven editors, three post-production companies, and about ten technicians have agreed to act fast and shoot, with no budget and on a voluntary basis, ten short films about the January 25 revolution in Egypt. Ten stories they have experienced, heard or imagined. –Official site

I.D (2012)

Director: Kamal K M

Country: India

Synopsis: Charu and her friends share a rented apartment in a sky-rise in Mumbai. All in their mid-twenties, and each hailing from different parts of the country, they have come here to make this bustling metro their home. One day a labourer comes to paint a soiled wall at her house. Irritated that her flat-mate did not inform her, she asks the man to hurry up. A few minutes later, she finds him unconscious on the floor. Charu, panicked and desperate to do what’s right, gets entwined in a series of incidents that take her through the city. Anywhere that might lead her to some identity of the man. Even a name. –Official site

With You, Without You/Oba Nathuwa, Oba Ekka (2012)

Director: Prasanna Vithanage

Country: Sri Lanka

Synopsis: When lonely, tortured pawnbroker Sarathsiri meets and marries the beautiful, enigmatic Selvi, he thinks he has finally found a way to put his past behind him. But a chance visit from an old friend opens up wounds that threaten to tear open the barely healing fabric of a mutilated nation coming to grips with the unspeakable cost of a thirty year civil war. Will love help them cross the bridge? Or will the past continue to colour the present? –Official site

Caesar Must Die/Cesare deve morire (2012)

Director: Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani

Country: Italy

Synopsis: The film was made in Rome's Rebibbia Prison, where the inmates are preparing to stage Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. After a competitive casting process, the roles are eventually allocated, and the prisoners begin exploring the text, finding in its tale of fraternity, power and betrayal parallels to their own lives and stories. Hardened criminals, many with links to organised crime, these actors find great motivation in performing the play. As we witness the rehearsals, beautifully photographed in various nooks and crannies within the prison, we see the inmates also work through their own conflicts, both internal and between each other. –rottentomatoes.com

Today/Tey (2012)

Director: Alan Gomis

Country: Senegal

Synopsis: Today is the last day of his life. He knows this to be true even though he is strong and healthy. Nonetheless Satché (played by American actor-musician Saül Williams) accepts his imminent death. Walking through the streets of his home town in Senegal he takes in the sites of his past as if he were looking at them for the last time: his parents’ house, his first love, the friends of his youth, his wife and children. Time and again he hears the same reproach: why didn’t he stay in America, where he would have a future? Satché encounters his final moments full of fear but also with a sense of joy. –BIFF

Present Tense/Simdiki Zaman (2012)

Director: Belmin Soylemez

Country: Turkey

Synopsis: The story of a young woman who is in search for her lost hopes. Like many in Turkish society, Mina is jobless, lonely, and unhappy. She wants to escape to the USA and start from zero; a familiar feeling to most of us. But how? She needs money, documents and a visa. She applies to a fortune-telling café, lying that she has experience. While she reads the coffee cups of many different women, she also tries to find a way out herself. Through the shapes emerging in coffee cups, she expresses her own frustrations and desires to match with those of the customers. Will she be able to get away from present tense and try her luck for the future? – Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

When I saw You/Lamma Shoftak (2012)

Director: Annemarie Jacir

Country: Palestine

Synopsis: 1967. The world is alive with change: brimming with reawakened energy, new styles, music and an infectious sense of hope. In Jordan, a different kind of change is underway as tens of thousands of refugees pour across the border from Palestine. Having been separated from his father in the chaos of war, Tarek, 11, and his mother Ghaydaa, are amongst this latest wave of refugees. Placed in "temporary" refugee camps made up of tents and prefab houses until they would be able to return, they wait, like the generation before them who arrived in 1948. With difficulties adjusting to life in Harir camp and a longing to be reunited with his father, Tarek searches a way out, and discovers a new hope emerging with the times. Eventually his free spirit and curious nature lead him to a group of people on a journey that will change their lives. When I Saw You is the story of people affected by the times around them, in search of something more in their lives. A journey full of adventure, love, humor, and the desire to be free. A story of the human spirit that knows no borders.- Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Ivan’s Woman/La Mujer de Ivan (2011)-Review

Director: Francisca Silva

Country: Chile

Synopsis: Since she was a little girl, Natalia lives captive in Ivan’s house. They live like family, despite the repressive regime they live in. When she has her sexual awakening, the kidnapper’s powers begins to weaken, showing his desire for love and a woman’s companionship. The house is transformed into an amoral battlefield, in which Ivan and Natalia struggle with each other, exchanging love for freedom. –IFFK

Rose/Roza (2011)-Review

Director:Wojciech Smarzowski

Country:Poland

Synopsis: In summer 1945 Tadeusz Mazur, an officer of the Armia Krajowa and veteran of the Warsaw uprising, whose wife was raped and murdered by the Germans, moves to Masuria, a region in former German East Prussia, which became part of Poland as a result of the Potsdam Agreement after World War II. He visits Róża, a widow of a German Wehrmacht soldier whose death Tadeusz had witnessed, to hand over her husband’s possessions. Róża invites Tadeusz to stay at her farm to protect her against marauders and the brutal rapes she had previously experienced in the lawless atmosphere of postwar Masuria. From this partnership of purpose, slowly respect and love arises - a "frowned-upon relationship" attracting the "unwelcome attention of the new Polish nationalists as well as the notorious Soviet NKVD". While Róża is regarded a German by the new Polish authorities, thus facing her expulsion, Tadeusz wants her to declare her Polish nationality as many Masurians did in a "humiliating nationality verification procedure" –Wikipedia

Being a mother.

The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new.                                                                                             -Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

 Imagine a job that has only one shift, 24x7. A job where you don't get weekly, monthly or yearly leave. A job where you can never, ever, retire. You don't get paid or get a feedback. And the worst thing is that you don't know whether you did the job right or not until 20 or 30 years. Sounds like a nightmare? Yet, almost one out of every two people you meet eventually take up this job. Confused? Welcome to the world of  mothers.