Outsourced - Go and watch it.

Picture this:
A small Seattle based mail-order company is selling patriotic kitsch to Americans. And then one day their whole call center is being outsourced to India. Todd (Jeff Hamilton), the call-center manager, has no real option than going to India to train his replacement if he wants to keep working for his company. So he goes. And he´s forced to jump head-first into a life altering adventure. Having to adapt to cultural differences, wandering cows, endearing call-center employees, love and the pressure from his company at home.












Sounds corny? Not by far! It´s quite the opposite.

John Jeffcoat made a movie that captured the audience at the opening screening in Stuttgart in its first 5 minutes. (Like predicted by the german distributor before the film).
It´s funny. Very funny actually. Endearing. Smart. Schnuffelig. With a great cast (Ayhesha Dharker, Asif Basra and Jeff Hamilton in peticular) And apart from a few scenes, shot entirely in/around Mumbai.

One great thing about Outsourced is,that it is a true "cultural-crossover" film. Some reviews compare it to "My big fat Greek wedding", a statement that only true in parts. As here Jeffcoat took the American guy and put him through the "real" thing. Not only a westernized Immigrant suburb.
And really everbody in Stuttgart seemed to love it. The German Bollywood fan crowd, the Arthouse film buffs who usually frown upon mainstream movies, the Indian filmi-people. Some have been in India before and had a deja-vu experience on some of the scenes and others who only knew life in Mumbai out of movies or the news. You could sense from the timing of their laughter where the various groups sat in the cinema hall. No surprise that it won the Audience Award...











Starting September 26th it is opening on a limited release across the USA. So, anyone who has not seen Outsourced yet and lives in the vicinity of these movie theaters just needs to go and watch it. A post on the movies blog also announced a release in Germany this autumn. And there are plans for a release in India too.

Got curious? Here´s a link the trailer and the movie´s website

Revisiting Friends

I have about 20 DVDs that wait to be watched, but somehow I don´t feel like new stories today. Instead I decided to revisit some friends. Special friends:
Road to Ladakh and Little Terrorist

"Road to Ladakh"










is a short film (48min) with Irfan Khan. Its a road movie (as the title suggests) about a cocain sniffing female NRI journalist and an indian guy with some sort of agenda who meet on their way to Leh.
I first got or better met it about 6 months ago as a very bad copy (with the audio running 4 minutes behind) But now you can get it from nehaflix on the Little Terrorist DVD. Its very strange, very quiet, has Irfan in it and I love it. Somehow other people must have loved it too, as it might be made into a feature film now with the same cast.


"Little Terrorist"










Actually I am not really into short films. Especially short short films. I love long detailed stories. Complicated sidelines. Sumptuous details. All that stuff which you cant squeeze into a 10min film.
This is the one that won the Oscar 2005 for best live action short. And its sweet. Pakistani boy changes into India by accident and needs to hide in a village as borderpatrol mistake him as terrorist. During its 15 min it does not offer more then a snapshot of life at the Indo/Pak Border but, as good shorts go, it leaves you wishing for more. More insight on the characters lifes. More on the background. Just More.