Up close with 'From Afar' and Lorenzo Vigas in Miami

Director Lorenzo Vigas, lead actor Luis Silva and the presenter

(Warning: text contains some spoilers)

There is a first time for everything. I had never earlier been at the presentation of a winning film at any of the world’s 3 premier film festivals (Cannes, Berlin, Venice) when the director would be there in person. Sunday 6^th of March, at the MDC Tower Theater changed all that when director Lorenzo Vigas, and Luis Silva, one of the lead actors from the Venezuelan film “Desde Alla” (“From Afar”), winner of 2015 Golden Lion at Venice, and the first ever Latin American film to do so, presented their film at this year’s Miami International Film Festival.

I was with my buddy Jesus, who is of Venezuelan origin. I understand it must be a proud moment for all Venezuelans and Latin Americans in general (Latin American films in particular had a breakout year at 2015 Venice). Given that Venezuela has a near minimal cinematic output year to year, this being the first ever to even get a nomination at Venice made its success even more spectacular.

Prior to the screening, there was a brief introduction; Mr. Vigas mentioned they maintain strong ties with the Miami community – to me that underscored the importance of the Miami festival in terms of Latin American cinema, because that is definitely the area of emphasis and consequently draws a lot of the cast and crew you would have a hard time anywhere else getting close access to.

After the screening, the director had an interesting way of addressing the Q&A by posing a question himself first on why the audience thought Armando called the cops on Elder; he also asked if we thought Armando had fallen for Elder by the end of the film. He emphasized he had some thoughts while scripting, but now the film belonged to the audience.

After the formal Q&A, both the director and the actor were gracious enough to entertain further questions and pose for pictures with people who stuck around. Their humility and approachability were remarkable. I asked Mr. Vigas, that seeing how he indicated he may have had a skeletal idea of the story, but really felt the film was open to interpretation, I wondered who his influences were, and if Michael Haneke was among them. He said yes, and also Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Bruno Dumont.

(In his interviews, Michael Haneke provides insights on his own films that are at once loaded with historical context, and impossibly frustrating, as he impishly relishes in reiterating there is no single definitive way of deciphering the codes he provided. I couldn’t help remembering his interviews while sitting at the Q&A.)

I also asked Mr. Vigas if while making the film which has pretty strong content, they had thought about its reception in a traditionally Catholic country like Venezuela; he said that had not been a concern.

I felt that the presenter had a somewhat imposing way of introducing the film. It was a “breath of fresh air” (of course) from a country known for its “bad presidents” and beauty pageants (really?). Also he reiterated at least twice the significance of the Venice film festival – I guess he just didn’t want to make assumptions about the audience’s intellect. And that may be alright. In the process though, I found a ring of commonality that applied to Indian cinema as well. A cinematic culture that is now synonymous with Bollywood, had its first Golden Lion with Satyajit Ray’s second instalment of the Apu trilogy back in 1957 (see table), and the second Asian only after Kurosawa’s ‘Rashomon’.

At last year’s Toronto film festival I had to skip the screening of “From Afar”. Barely a week from winning the top prize at Venice, it had an early Saturday afternoon screening at the TIFF, and I started driving from Boston the morning itself. In a sense, I had unknowingly saved myself the opportunity to see the film alongside its creators.

Footnote -

Dating back to the Fascist days, the Venice film festival is the oldest of the big three; awarded its first Golden Lion in 1949; subsequently ran into doldrums in the late 60s, and no Golden Lion was awarded from 1969-79.

Golden Lion winners from outside Europe and North America -

Year	Film	Director	Country
1951	Rashomon	Akira Kurosawa	Japan
1957	Aparajito	Satyajit Ray	India
1958	Muhomatsu no issho (The Rickshaw Man)	Hiroshi Inagaki	Japan
1989	Bei qing cheng shi (A City of Sadness)	Hsiao-Hsien Hou	Hong Kong/Taiwan
1992	Qiu Ju da guan si (The Story of Qiu Ju)	Yimou Zhang	China
1994	Ai qing wan sui (Vive L’Amour)	Ming-liang Tsai	Taiwan
1995	Xich lo (Cyclo)	Tran Anh Hung	Vietnam/France/Hong Kong
1997	Hana-bi (Fireworks)	Takeshi Kitano	Japan
1999	Yi ge dou bu neng shao (Not One Less)	Yimou Zhang	China
2000	Dayereh (The Circle)	Jafar Panahi	Iran
2001	Monsoon Wedding	Mira Nair	India/USA/Germany/Italy/France
2006	Sanxia haoren (Still Life)	Zhangke Jia	China/Hong Kong
2007	Se, jie (Lust, Caution)	Ang Lee	USA/China/Taiwan
2009	Lebanon	Samuel Maoz	Israel/France/Germany/UK
2012	Pieta	Ki-duk Kim	South Korea
2015	Desde Alla (From Afar)	Lorenzo Vigas	Venezuela/Mexico

(Source: IMDB)

How does your city stack up in pro sports?

U.S. metro areas in professional sports in this millennium

Winner / Runner-up

Year	NFL	MLB	NBA	NHL
2000	Baltimore Ravens / New York Giants	New York Yankees / New York Mets	LA Lakers / Indiana Pacers	New Jersey Devils / Dallas Stars
2001	New England Patriots / St. Louis Rams	Arizona Diamondbacks / New York Yankees	LA Lakers / Philadelphia 6ers	Colorado Rockies / New Jersey Devils
2002	Tampa Bay Buccaneers / Oakland Raiders	Anaheim Angels / San Francisco Giants	LA Lakers / New Jersey Nets	Detroit Red Wings / Carolina Hurricanes
2003	New England Patriots / Carolina Panthers	Florida Marlins / New York Yankees	San Antonio Spurs / New Jersey Nets	New Jersey Devils / Anaheim Ducks
2004	New England Patriots / Philadelphia Eagles	Boston Red Sox / St. Louis Cardinals	Detroit Pistons / LA Lakers	Tampa Bay Lightning / Calgary Flames
2005	Pittsburgh Steelers / Seattle Seahawks	Chicago White Sox / Houston Astros	San Antonio Spurs / Detroit Pistons	-       (lockout)
2006	Indianapolis Colts / Chicago Bears	St. Louis Cardinals / Detroit Tigers	Miami Heat / Dallas Mavericks	Carolina Hurricanes / Edmonton Oilers
2007	NY Giants / New England Patriots	Boston Red Sox / Colorado Rockies	San Antonio Spurs / Cleveland Cavaliers	Anaheim Ducks / Ottawa Senators
2008	Pittsburgh Steelers / Arizona Cardinals	Philadelphia Phillies / Tampa Bay Rays	Boston Celtics / LA Lakers	Detroit Red Wings / Pittsburgh Penguins
2009	New Orleans Saints / Indianapolis Colts	NY Yankees / Philadelphia Phillies	LA Lakers / Orlando Magic	Pittsburgh Penguins / Detroit Red Wings
2010	Green Bay Packers / Pittsburgh Steelers	San Francisco Giants / Texas Rangers	LA Lakers / Boston Celtics	Chicago Blackhawks / Philadelphia Flyers
2011	NY Giants / New England Patriots	St. Louis Cardinals / Texas Rangers	Dallas Mavericks / Miami Heat	Boston Bruins / Vancouver Canucks
2012	Baltimore Ravens / San Francisco 49ers	San Francisco Giants / Detroit Tigers	Miami Heat / Oklahoma City Thunder	LA Kings / New Jersey Devils
2013	Seattle Seahawks / Denver Broncos	Boston Red Sox / St. Louis Cardinals	Miami Heat / San Antonio Spurs	Chicago Blackhawks / Boston Bruins
2014	New England Patriots / Seattle Seahawks	San Francisco Giants / Kansas City Royals	San Antonio Spurs / Miami Heat	LA Kings / NY Rangers
2015	Denver Broncos / Carolina Panthers	Kansas City Royals / NY Mets	Golden State Warriors / Cleveland Cavaliers	Chicago Blackhawks / Tampa Bay Lightning

Note:

• Not all cities/metro areas have teams in all 4 pro sports
• Following metro areas have multiple teams in one sport
• New York: NY Yankees, NY Mets in MLB, NY Giants, NY Jets in NFL; NY Rangers, NY Islanders in NHL
• Los Angeles: LA Lakers, LA Clippers in NBA
• Chicago: Chicago White Sox, Chicago Cubs in MLB
• Team dynamics since 2000:
• Detroit Red Wings moved out of Western to Eastern Conference effective 2014, their appearances in Stanley Cup Finals were as WC champions
• Anaheim Angels were renamed L.A. Angels of Anaheim in 2005
• Florida Marlins were renamed Miami Marlins in 2012
• St. Louis Rams will transfer to L.A. effective 2016

Trophy cabinet:

City	NFL	MLB	NBA	NHL	Total
Boston	4	3	1	1	9
Los Angeles			5	2	7
Chicago		1		3	4
Miami		1	3		4
New York	2	2			4
San Antonio			4		4
Detroit			1	2	3
Pittsburgh	2			1	3
San Francisco		3			3

Takeaways:

• Boston is the only city to have won a championship in all 4 pro sports
• How close the top 2 metro areas came to getting another championship:
• Boston 4 times (2 NFL, 1 NBA, 1 NHL); Los Angeles 1 time (NBA), discounting the recent move of Rams from St. Louis to L.A.

Identity, pride and Internet trolls

Among many instances of bashing specific communities and peoples on social media, one in particular drew my attention, which I wanted to talk about. Not because it is going viral yet (or may be it is, I’m not sure). But probably because while many such trolls, relished unabashedly by highly educated folks, are borderline perverse, there are ones like this with a bullet-point pithiness that makes it consumable as a seemingly fine assortment of historical truisms.

It runs something like:

“Someone asked me, what is the difference between an Indian and a Pakistani. This picture should do the job.

• CEO of Google is an Indian
• CEO of Microsoft is an Indian
• CEO of PepsiCo is an Indian
• CEO of MasterCard is an Indian

.....

• CEO of Taliban is a Pakistani
• CEO of Al Qaeda is a Pakistani
• CEO of Lashkar-e-Taiba is a Pakistani

.....”

Now if we evaluate the statements themselves, as historical truths, they appear accurate, individually. However it’s not about the statements, it’s about the underlying claim which, per my understanding, is as follows.

-   Pakistani lives, historically, have promoted, primarily a culture of violence and terror. Lives of Indian origin, on the other hand have (eschewed all that, and) primarily been devoted to pursuit of excellence and betterment of humankind.

And then that constitutes the basis for shaming of one national identity by comparison with another, the two tortured identities themselves being created in the aftermath of the 1947 partition.

This claim, which seems absurdly out of context, will be revisited afterwards. For the moment though, it will suffice to say, that the claim can be shown to be false for the simple reason that the glorification of Indian history is laughably selective, perhaps done deliberately. A look at Indian military policies in the last 30-40 years should be enough to wipe off any claims to a moral superiority. Kashmir, Punjab, Bangladesh border. And the narrative has been the staple narrative of any state that uses terror. We don’t commit war crimes, we just use counter terror.

It is at that point that the pride and self-righteousness that so beset the Indian national identity perplex me. And at two levels.
-          German history has seen both Goethe and Hitler. While both have shaped that history, neither typifies it. That is how their history has unfolded; that is how history generally unfolds with a statistically distributed share of ageless intellectuals and mass murderers. Likewise, for every Sundar Pichai one might be able to locate a policy maker who made possible large scale murder a daily event in Gujarat in 2002. For every Primo Levi, we could find one IDF soldier who shoots at Palestinian children with impunity.

-          But it is at a more fundamental level that such hubris seems incomprehensible to me. One really has no role in his/her birth - Pakistani, Indian, German or Jewish. So why should the onus of guilt and shame fall on anyone and everyone that shares that ethnic identity? Does every German-born child have to inherit Nazi guilt? I mean, I understand the argument of citizens being accountable for an elected government and its actions, but that’s hardly the argument being presented in those bullet points. In fact, if that was the argument, I don’t see how Indians could get around it, when the state uses so much repression and terror in its troubled areas.

Back to the claim itself, why that part of the Indian subcontinent has been a breeding ground for terror is a complex subject, which is outside the scope of discussion here. I’ll say this though - the claim is meaningless without a context. There is no understanding of pro-Kashmiri terrorism without understanding repression and torture by the Indian army. There is no understanding why 19 people flew planes into buildings, no understanding of ISIS, no understanding of anything we would like to label as “terror” without acknowledging other forms of terror we give a free pass all day long. Just that such terror has a different form – occupation, missiles and bombs; not the suicide belts or beheadings that suit our narratives.

I may have to contradict myself now – but as an Indian American, I find it quite shameful, yet somewhat comical also, that so much negativity has recently been spewing out of people of Indian origin, mostly Hindus, who would set out with the objective of self-glorification, but in the process establishing themselves as bigger bigots.

Primo Levi carried a different kind of guilt – the burden of living, the oppressed who survived when so many had perished. That guilt made him end his own life eventually. So did Tadeusz Borowski, another oppressed soul who had provided us a gleaning into that abyss where humanity had sunk.

As long as I can breathe and be able to read Levi and Borowski, I would try and have the humility to acknowledge that my sharing an ethnicity with successful CEOs means nothing; I am just a speck on the wall, and all of humanity has given us dark abysses to stare into. What we make of our lives is something else.