TV and Radio:

BBC World

Morning Edition, WNYC

My First Time, WNBC

Magazines:

Premiere’s Top 10 Films of Tribeca 2008

“wittily written, brilliantly acted”
–Variety

“beautifully audacious”
–Premiere

“One-Woman Pixar”
–Wired

“a unique depiction of the epic”
–Zee News

“…both heartfelt and consistently witty, the type of low-fi animated musical that puts Disney to shame.”
–FilmMaker Magazine/IFP

“a strange and beautiful little film”
–Spout

“funny and eye-popping and never bogs down.”
–Nerve

“One of the best films playing at the…Tribeca Film Festival this year”
–New York Magazine

Other Blogs:

“mind-blowing…The overall look of the film was fantastic; the graphics stunning and the flow between parallel threads excellent.”
– apercevoir

“…a triumph of individual creation.”
–JTAbron

“It’s touching, encouraging, fun, and educational. I LOVE IT!”
–tiny blog

“The narration was hilarious, the quality of animation never faltered no matter what the style and the songs were the most incredible fit - astonishing that a jazz song from the 1920’s would match exactly with a story from ~500 BC. “
–Yewknee/Michael Eades

“beautiful, funny, and kind of brilliant.”
–Two-Timing My Scrapbook

“Hopefully this movie finds its way to Thailand in order to give people a glimpse of how traditional material can still be meaningful today.”
–comment on Thai Film Journal

I got back from Stuttgart, still coughing (albeit less), and slept for about 2 days. Now I’m slogging through my backed-up emails and figuring out what to do next. I looks like I’ll be touring the Eastern Hemisphere most of June and July, and sub-letting my Hell’s Kitchen apartment. Interested parties please get in touch - the apartment comes with my cat Bruno, who needs daily food and love.

You’d think I’d be all overjoyed about this, but actually I’m stressed and confused. Will Sita get a distribution deal? Will it win an award? Awards drive me crazy - I always want one, “for the sake of the film,” I tell myself, but surely it’s for my ego. Press too is like coke, I always want more; google blogsearch is becoming a compulsion. I compare Sita’s progress with other films, which can’t be good. I’d like to detach from all this, but what about the festivals? This is my big chance to attend film festivals, it’s not like I can postpone them all until next year. But film festivals are orgies of comparison: who’s getting the most press? the best reviews? whose shows are selling out first? who’s getting the award? These are enemies of the Muse, and I’m not sufficiently mature to maintain my equilibrium in their midst.

Also, I am out of money and racking up expenses like you wouldn’t believe. Take “film festival rights”: publishers charge at least $500 a song just to play the film at festivals - and I don’t get money at festivals, I spend money to make the prints and stuff. I’m spending money I don’t have to get the film out there, and although something always works out, I have no idea how I’m going to pay for French subtitles (the “honor” of attending the Annecy Animation Festival is costing me over $5,000), or legal fees, or rent. Someday the film could bring money in, but I’m not sure how I’m going to make it to that day, if it ever comes.

What a whiney post this has turned out to be. On the brighter side, I’ll post next about all the sweeet reviews Sita got at Tribeca, with tasty little quotes selected by Publicity Bitch herself. But I am not Publicity Bitch. I am a servant of the Muse who is losing her way.

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.

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.

w00t!

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.)

Someday Sita will have real nice silkscreened T-shirts and other quality merchandise. Until then, there’s this temporary on-demand cafepress store.

Even the clock keeps tickin’, Daddy Won’t You Please Come Home?

Also, you can download free posters here.

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.

An interview with me and article about Sita by Samanth Subramanian in Mint magazine.

Since I can’t afford a publicist for Sita, I’m doing my own. Yes, it’s a full-time job. No, it doesn’t suit my character. Yes, I have created an alter-ego to handle this, a new sub-personality I call “Publicity Bitch.” She is shameless and aggressive and refers to me in the third person. She writes my press releases. If you’re a journalist, Publicity Bitch kindly requests you get in touch: press at sitasingstheblues dot com.

Fortunately, some press has come to me unasked, notably a new NBC documentary/reality show called My First Time. The first episode follows me and 2 other first-time feature filmmakers as we get ready for our Tribeca premieres. It will air in New York on Saturday May 3 at 7pm on WNBC; if that goes well, NBC will broadcast it nationally. Above are photos (click to enlarge) of producer/director/cameraman Jesse Zook Mann shooting yours truly here at Nina Paley Media Empire HQ.