In addition to winning Best Picture (and seven other awards) at the Oscars last week, Slumdog Millionaire passed a major box office benchmark. It has now grossed more than $100 million in the U.S., which is pretty astonishing for a film with one-third of its dialogue in a foreign language. But is Slumdog’s popularity a one-shot in terms of its audience’s interest in India, or are moviegoers actually now more curious about the nation and its own films?

Some websites are simplifying the question of whether or not Slumdog will be a gateway film with polls asking if American moviegoers will now “go Bollywood” (40% of Cinematical readers flat out answered, “no.”), which is rather silly since Danny Boyle’s movie bears no resemblance to the majority of Bollywood pictures. In fact, Americans have in the past received far greater entry points into Indian cinema by way of films involving Anglo or NRI (non-resident Indian) protagonists directed by culturally bridging filmmakers (such as NRI helmers Deepa Mehta, Mira Nair and Gurinder Chadha), than the more-touristy type of filmmaking represented with Slumdog.

If someone truly wants to become familiar with Bollywood, he or she should probably just jump right in and then patiently get used to the style, which can be quite difficult for Westerners to immediately grasp. The extremely interested might benefit from reading the section on popular Indian cinema in Dimitris Eleftheriotis and Gary Needham’s Asian Cinemas: A Reader & Guide, a book that does a really great job acquainting the Western spectator with Eastern film form. Or, the more casually curious cinephile could simply follow our guide to accessible Indian (or India-based) films for the Slumdog lover to watch next:
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One of Karina Longworth’s favorite undistributed films of last year is available to watch for free on Reel 13. Sita Sings the Blues won the Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You award at the 2008 Gotham Awards. In Karina’s review from Tribeca 2008, she called it, “a strange and beautiful little film, a potentially wispy slice of autobiography smartly elevated through irresistible, orgiastic style.”

Watch the movie and read Brandon Harris’ interview with director Nina Paley from last November (republished) after the jump.

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I’ll be heading out to the Denver Film Festival on Wednesday, to sit on a jury and moderate a panel. The festival started last night, and through next Sunday they’ll be showing a ton of my favorite films from the 2008 festival circuit (like Intimidad, Guest of Cindy Sherman, Prince of Broadway, Finally, Lillian and Dan, SIta Sings the Blues, Two Lovers, and Everything is Fine), plus a number of titles that I’ve missed at over festivals but hope to catch up with (like Three Monkeys, Woodpecker, Song Sung Blue). Also, they’re doing a tribute to pioneering video/performance artist Carolee Schneemann, which is awesome.

The panel I’m moderating, called DIY Filmmaking in an Indie Apocalypse, will bring together a number of filmmakers who have found some success (with critics, with festival juries, or even financially) making personal films outside of the broken indie film stuctures that we’ve all been wringing our hands over for the last couple of years. It’s on Friday, November 21 at 7pm. If you’re going to be in town, do stop by.

IFP has announced the nominees for the 2008 Gotham Independent Film Awards (formerly known as just the Gotham Awards), and just by virtue of nod count, Ballast is the big winner with nominations in four categories:Best Feature, Breakthrough Director (Lance Hammer), Breakthrough Performance (Michael J. Smith) and Ensemble Performance.

Also very exciting: Barry Jenkins will compete against Hammer in the Director category for Medicine for Melancholy; Sita Sings the Blues, one of my Tribeca 2008 favorites, will compete against Tom Quinn’s The New Year Parade and SXSW winner Wellness for the Not Coming to a Theater Near You award; and The Wrestler, Rachel Getting Married and Synecdoche NY, some of my favorite American films of the year, all received attention. The full release is after the jump.

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Of the 14 films that I saw during Tribeca Film Festival, only three were so under-accomplished that they begged the question of why they were programmed in the first place. This is an improvement over past years. Meanwhile, I saw four films that qualify as serious discoveries. With the exception of Shane Meadows’ Somers Town, over which I’ve already raved, these films are imperfect but thrillingly risky, and fascinating in their flaws. It’s maybe worth noting that only one of these titles arrived in Tribeca as a World Premiere, and that film, The Guest of Cindy Sherman, is set and was made just blocks away from the festival’s theoretical (but no longer physical) home. It’s shocking that there isn’t currently a festival in New York City that’s seriously focused on celebrating locally-produced work. Tribeca, so in need of a refined identity, might want to take note that the niche is up for grabs.

My notes on each of the 14 films, in order of preference, follow after the jump.

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Nina Paley’s Sita Sings the Blues is a strange and beautiful little film, a potentially wispy slice of autobiography smartly elevated through irresistible, orgiastic style. The 82 minute feature cross cuts between the story of the director’s own divorce, and a loose retelling of the ancient Indian myth Ramayana; we’re led back and forth between the two milieu by three silhouetted figures who colloquially comment on the events in Indian-inflected English. There are also musical numbers, set mainly to songs by 1920s jazz siren Annette Hanshaw, which drop psychedelic Bollywood versions of the Ramayana characters into Busby Berkeley configurations. It’s an infectiously personal work, and all the more admirable as a sterling example of animation meant resolutely for adults.

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