Hannah informed us of the 41st Annual WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival taking place at AMC Studio 30 - Westheimer at Dunvale (2949 Dunvale Road 77063) from April 11-20, 2008.  After lots of emails of what/when to watch, we decided as a group on the following:

• Hotel Very Welcome on Saturday, April 12, 2008 @ 1915.  This seriocomic ensemble piece follows five Westerners throughout India and Bangkok as they try to find themselves, or at least locate decent lodgings and a competent travel agent, while avoiding problems back home.  Sonja Heiss, 94 min, GERMANY.
• When Autumn Sunlight Comes on Thursday, April 17, 2008 @ 1915.  Trung, a college grad who can find work only as a motorbike taxi driver, and Ha, an innocent young woman who helps a friend run a bar, rely on each other for support and encouragement while trying to get by in contemporary Vietnam.  Writer-Director Bui Trung Hai, 97 min, VIETNAM.
• The Road to Partition and Daily Planet: India Unleashed on Friday, April 18, 2008 @ 1700.  Double bill of short documentaires about the history, culture and distinctive customs of India.  47 min and 60 min, CANADA.
• Magazine Gap Road on Friday, April 18, 2008 @ 1915.  A former prostitute, now working in a high-society realm of Hong Kong as curator for a private museum, thinks she has escaped her sordid past.  But all it takes is a phone call from a former colleague to place her future at ris.  Nicholas Chin, 90 min, HONG KONG.

What I learned about India when it was “unleashed” during their one-hour special:

• Mumbai’s traffic terrors are solved with the new Bandra Worli Sea Link, an eight-lane highway that, when completed, will extend out over the Arabian Sea, linking the downtown core to the suburbs.
• The “Dabbawallahs” are a highly specialized – though not computerized – lunch delivery system. They are never late and rarely make mistakes as they deliver fresh, hot homemade meals to office workers across the city – but how have they kept this intricate system working perfectly for over a century amidst the congested streets and rail system?
• Venture into the desert to see how a camel becomes part of the elite Team Indian border patrol unit.
• Travel to Maharashtra state and find out how priceless Buddhist paintings and sculptures within the famous Ajanta Caves, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, are being preserved for the future.
• Meet Dr. Rabindra D. Mehta, a researcher with the fluid mechanics lab at NASA’s AMES Research Centre in California who has been assisting cricket bowlers perfect the perfect pitch – or in cricket terminology, the perfect swing (which is effectively a curve ball).  India’s favourite sport – cricket – is relying on science to score.
• With people encroaching on elephant habitats, we follow one experiment that is designed to protect both elephants and humans in an ever-decreasing habitat.

More about The Road to Partition:

• Alan Mendelsohn:  http://www.docsonadime.com/
• Produced by Laszlo Barna and Steven Silver, this documentary is a timely look at the factors involved in the 1947 division of Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. India was divided into two separate and unequal states 60 years ago. Separations along religious lines seemed like a good idea at the time. India had just won independence from Britain, but discontent lurked beneath the euphoria and growing nationalism. The present turmoil in Iraq shows no sign of ending soon, unless, as some foreign-affairs analysts are now saying, a proposal is adopted to divide Iraq into three separate states, along Sunni, Shiite and Kurd lines. History would advise caution (”Films by Indo-Americans Set for Screening at WorldFest”: http://www.indoamerican-news.com/Stories/040408-WorldFest.html).
• “The bloody road to partition” by Vinay Menon: http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/246370
• A documentary on the partition of the Indian subcontinent billed “The Road to Partition” airs on Thursday, August 16, 2007, in India and Pakistan, one day after the 60th anniversary of the partition, on History Television’s “Turning Points of History” (”History TV to screen documentary on Partition today”: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=20078\16\story_16-8-2007_pg7_10 and http://www.pakistanuncut.com/2007/08/16/history-tv-to-screen-documentary-on-partition-today/).

Some other links to check out:

• http://www.myspace.com/jacarefilm
• http://www.myspace.com/backgrounded
• http://www.justhank.com/trailend.htm
• http://www.thedrummershort.com/
• http://www.nobudgetfilmschool.com/
• http://www.swamp.org/