CommunicAsia-BroadcastAsia 2014 diary, VII 

End of a blockbuster, four day extravaganza                                                                                          

Interview with Anshul Sharma, Technical and Operations Head for APAC Region, Mobile Viewpoint, which provides broadcast solutions to the BBC, NBC and Al Jazeera

Q. Where is your company located and what products does it make

A. It is a Netherlands-based company, having its direct offices at Netherlands, India, Bangkok, the UAE, the US, China and some other places. We are into Broadcast solutions, Video Streaming Solutions, 3 G Backpacks, Security and Surveillance products.

Mobile Viewpoint has been developing and manufacturing portable video transmission technologies and equipment for more than 15 years. We are the worldwide leader with the most advanced and truly portable platform for live video transmission and content management solutions. With a staff of over 175 employees, covering more than 80 countries, we are truly a global player. Our client list includes the world’s largest broadcasters, such as BBC, Al-Arabiya, NBC, Al-Jazeera, Sky News, MBC, Sky Sports and many more. Our technology is used in news gathering, security, sports, healthcare and education. With a robust and diverse platform, we can custom build any solution for any client regardless of size, with complete scalability.

Our company offers a complete line of technology solutions, ranging from smart-phone apps to portable backpack units to satellite backup and replacement technology. With our patented WMT platform, we are able to provide multiple bonded IP connections such as CDMA / 2G / 3G / 4G / LTE / WiMAX / WiFi / Ethernet and Satellite, that allow for the live transmission of audio and video in real-time, from anywhere in the world. Using our complete line of products, you can transmit live to television, the web and the cloud, with complete control and the ability to manage all your assets and content, from one customised web manager, accessible from any internet connection.

Q. Tell us about the latest products you have launched.

A. 1. The WMT Content Exchange Platform

2. The revolutionary new WMT Expert with embedded H.265 and VP-9 technology and support

3. The all new Android App with unlimited bonding capabilities

4. The all new HLE-1 rack-mount encoder

5. The advanced WMT LiveKart

Q. Have you participated in CommunicAsia-BroadcastAsia before? How many times? When was the last time?

A. We have been participating from the last three years, up to this year, in succession.

Q. How was the event in 2014, compared to earlier years?

A. 2014 was much better, or the best until now. In 2013, due to haze from forest fires in neighbouring Indonesia, the number of clients visiting the event was lower than expected. (Record haze levels were seen in Singapore during June 2013).

Q. Your overall experience at CommunicAsia-BroadcastAsia 2014?

A. Good.

Q. What do you feel about the venue, Marina Bay Sands?

A. It is the best possible venue.

Q. Which are the other exhibitions you have participated in, recently? Which other exhibitions will you participate in during 2014-15?

A. NAB, IBC, CabSat, BA, BES, BI and some others. IBC in Amsterdam is just round the corner, from September 12 to 16.

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Nazir Husain Keshvani and Hare Rama Hare Krishna

In the Media room at CommunicAsia-BroadcastAsia, I noticed an Indian looking man, apparently in his late 30s-early 40s, bespectacled like me, offering a gentle smile. We soon got introduced to each other. He has the odd name of Nazir Husain Keshvani and prefers to be called Naz, which might be stylish and short. Nazir Husain is a name that is common in India and Pakistan, and we had a popular character actor-cum producer-director of Bhojpuri dialect films, called Nazir Husain in India. Keshvani is a surname that you will find among many Indians, but one would readily associate it with the Sindhi or Kutchhi communities because of the last three letters: a..n..i. A majority of Sindhi’s and a large number of Kutchhis have surnames that end in ani. Nazir is an Ismaili Khoja Muslim, a follower of the Aga Khan. Naz means pride, while Nazir means ‘comparable’ or ‘in the vein of’. Nazir’s father migrated to Singapore from India in 1950, as a teenager, to work with the famous Jumabhoy family of Singapore that developed some landmark areas of the young country.

Family patriarch Rajabali Jumabhoy left India in 1915, to start a commodity trading business in Singapore. In the 50s, they invited workers from India, mainly from their own Khoja Isna Ashari (Shia) community, but also from other faiths, to join their projects. Over the years, the family diversified into multiple businesses, including ship-building, real estate, retail and hospitality, creating assets in Southeast Asia, Australia and the UK. Babubhai Jivabhai Keshvani left the Jumabhoys to join a film distribution company that released Hindi films in the Malaysia/Singapore of the 50s, 60s and 70s. Owned a group of Parsees from India that included the legendary film-makers, the Wadias, 84 year-old Keshvani has many tales to recount, including how he released Dev Anand’s drugs/hippies drama, Hare Rama Hare Krishna (1971-72) in Johor Bahru (across the sea-link from Singapore, in Malaysia) because it was banned in Singapore. Many Singaporeans went across especially to watch the film and went gaga over it. Dev Anand recalled the incident vividly when he met Nazir in 2008.

Nazir speaks very little Gujarati (parent state language of the Kutchhi dialect) or Urdu or Hindi (the other two widely spoken Indian languages, close to Gujarati). He says he grew-up in the cinema halls of Singapore. Currently, he works in the publishing industry as a freelance writer/editor. His passion has always been film-making and he learnt the ropes by participating in various film projects. Nazir’s film credits include co-directing Ragged (1993) and Hurt Instinct (1994). Both films won the Special Jury Prize at the Singapore International Film Festival (SIFF). He has occasionally collaborated with his brother, Nisar. He went on to direct various documentaries and the “Holidays in Hell” travelogue, which premiered at the 14th SIFF. Nazir took me a special screening of the impressive Saudi Arabian film, Wadjda, organised by Open, Participate, Enrich, Negotiate (O.P.E.N.), the public engagement initiative of the Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA).

O.P.E.N. is a prelude to SIFA, four weeks before the opening of the Festival, a curated selection of events in a casual and intimate setting, leading to SIFA, in August and September 2014. Ong Keng Sen is the Festival Director of O.P.E.N. 

Here I also met Teo Swee Leng. Swee Leng and Philip Cheah were the pillars of SIFF that I attended in some years ago. Nowadays, Swee Leng is Acquisitions Manager at Asia Pacific Films.co. Philip is there too, and so is Aruna Vasudev of India. Both are Curators.

At the show, I met a young lady related to Nazir, 20 year-old Saher Hashmi, who is half Pakistani (father), half Arab, and full of gusto and joie de vivre. She was one of the volunteers on duty. During a brief chat, I discovered that she had studied Urdu in Singapore, and spoke the language reasonably well. Pleasantly surprised, I asked, “How come?” and she replied that school students in Singapore could choose to learn a language other than the usual Tamil, and she chose Urdu. I should have known that this was the very school where I taught basic Urdu for two terms during 1997-98, after my one-year stint at ESPN Sports TV. Farah Anwar, who was the co-ordinator, in my time, has recently retired, Saher told me. The school had almost all-female teaching staff, predominantly from Pakistan, and I was an exception.

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AsiaPacificFilms.com streams culturally and historically significant films from Asia and the Pacific. Their curators and AsiaPacificFilms.com’s President Jeannette Hereniko are members of the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC), a well-respected international organisation. Every year, NETPAC awards prizes at major international film festivals. By acquiring digital rights and streaming their film collection, AsiaPacific films.com gives subscribers access to half of the world’s films: films made by Asians and Pacific Islanders. They stress that 95 percent of these films are never seen outside of their own countries, because mainstream distributors don’t bring them to the global market, or film-makers from these areas lack access to distribution channels.

Philip Cheah is a film critic and is the editor of BigO, Singapore's only independent pop culture publication. He is Honorary Secretary of  NETPAC. He is also on the selection committee of the Locarno International Film Festival and Founding Member of SIFF.

 Swee Leng has been an arts, film, and new media administrator for major international organisations for the last 26 years. She was co- festival director of SIFF for 20 years, and was instrumental in making the Festival a recognised and highly regarded international film festival, for its progressive programming and promotion of Asian cinema. Currently, she is a consultant with the Moving Image Gallery at the Singapore Art Museum and is responsible for organising the annual Southeast Asia Film Festival. She is a member of NETPAC.

Aruna Vasudev is an author, critic, editor, and former festival director with a Ph.D. in cinema from the University of Paris. She is the author of two books on Indian cinema: Liberty & License in the Indian Cinema and The New Wave in Indian Cinema.  She is the Founder-President of NETPAC; Founder-Editor of Cinemaya, The Asian Film Quarterly (1988-2006); and Founder-Director of Cinefan, the Festival of Asian Cinema (1999-2004). She has been a jury member of more than forty international film festivals. Among other honours, Vasudev was conferred France’s top cultural award, the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres; the Satyajit Ray Memorial award for promoting Asian film culture; and the Star of Italian Solidarity. (I am flattered to learn that the last honour, also called OSSI, which is short for Ordine di Stella di Solidarièta d’Italia, is something that I share with Aruna).

This seventh instalment ends my CommunicAsia-BroadcastAsia, June 2014, diary.

Hope you enjoyed a personal recollection of that eventful week in Singapore that I shared with you over the last one month.