Here it is: the reality show My First Time, produced and directed by Jesse Mann. It follows three first-time feature directors - including me - at the Tribeca Film Festival.

I’m off to Rochester (April 30), then Stuttgart for the Trickfilmfestival and Flashconference/FMX. Back May 9. I’ll only have sporadic email access until then, but will try to stay in touch. Bye New York - I love you!

I’m not leaving after all - I’m too sick with the Tribeca Plague ™ Tribeculosis which I’ve been trying unsuccessfully to conquer with sheer willpower. Now I can’t stop coughing and can barely speak so I guess I’ll try to go to a doctor tomorrow instead of Rochester. My cat will be happy though!

Pay attention, ASIFA-East. Jeans and T-shirts are for pussies.

More Sita premiere photos from Getty Images.

I made a little blog to more easily update Sita screening information.

L-R, Back: Georgia Hilton (mix), Todd Michaelsen (music), Reena Shah (voice, dance), me, Sanjiv Jhaveri (voice), Greg Sextro (sound design), Aseem Chhabra (voice). Front: Rohan (music), Aladdin Ullah (voice), Debargo Sanyal (voice), Bhavana Nagulapally (voice). I love you all!

Photo by Preston Merchant - click to see more.

loud thumping techno music will be banned. Also all food will be eaten sitting down, not standing in a crowded room off a teensy disposable plate held in one hand and a drink in the other.

Other than that, I’m having a great time at Tribeca!

Back in March the Tribeca people asked all us filmmakers to send in a little self-interview answering questions like, “what is my name?,” “where am I from?,” and “why do I make films?” Today they finally posted my video, which you can view here.

You gotta get up pretty early in the morning to hear Sita Sings the Blues mentioned on the radio. That’s what will supposedly happen on WNYC tomorrow (Tuesday April 22) around 6:30ish (FM) and 8:30ish (AM), during Morning Edition. I think it’s local only, but you can hear it online (hour 2, about mid-way through). That’s what I’m gonna do, since I plan to be asleep when it airs live. (Big ups to Publicity Bitch, whose work seems to be paying off.)

The Sita Sings the Blues trailer is up for a Freddie Award in the “Best Design” category. It’s one of those “viewer-votes” things - aka “get the filmmakers to do the publicity and spam everyone they know to go to your site and increase its ratings for advertisers and investors” things - so if you have the time and inclination and don’t mind being used as a pawn please go here and vote for it.

(Unrelated to the Freddie award, there’s a newer version of the Sita trailer featuring the soon-to-be-infamous “shadow puppets” on the Tribeca site (click the “trailers” tab). )

An article including me and Sita’s upcoming Tribeca premiere is now at Digital Filmmaker.

Berliners and other pastries can catch one (and only one!) screening of Sita Sings the Blues this April 24 9:15pm at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (House of World Cultures) immediately following the premiere of “play/dance/music/video/project” The Abduction of Sita by Joachim Schloemer.

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If you’re in Los Angeles, you should go see LOINS OF PUNJAB PRESENTS at the Arclight Hollywood (Sunset Blvd) on Saturday April 26 at 7pm as part of IFFLA.

“Loins” is one of my favorite movies ever. I did animation on its music video, and its director, Manish Acharya, is a voice in Sita.

Organizer Wolfgang Schmidt-Sichermann reminds me to tell you all I’ll be giving a presentation May 8 at this year’s Flashconference, part of the FMX conference in Stuttgart, Germany. I had a blast when I did this in 2006 and I’m really looking forward to it!

Back to our story: we last saw Sita Sings the Blues about to have her North American premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival:

Friday, April 25, 8:15 pm, AMC Village VII
AMC Village VII (AV7)
66 Third Avenue (at 11th Street)

I’m happy to announce we now have a venue for the premiere afterparty:

Leela Lounge
1 W 3rd St
New York, NY 10012

They’ll make space for us as a group at 10pm onwards, and we’ll order and pay for food and drinks like other customers. They’ll also play “our” music. Yays!

I had a great time in Copenhagen! The NATFILM festival took excellent care of me, fed me well, and sent people to pick me up when I was too tired or confused to navigate the twisty streets myself. The audience for Sita was very sweet and generous and didn’t mind that the sound mysteriously switched from Dolby Surround to quiet analog stereo mid-way through the screening. Although I didn’t attend many films, the festival program looked excellent; they programmed not one, not two, but THREE Guy Maddin films, along with Sita and Loins of Punjab Presents, so they clearly have exquisite taste.

My photos here.