Monday, June 9------Dutch director Paul van den Boom was born in the Netherlands in 1973 and studied film and visual arts in Brussels. Since 1999, he has been living in Canada, working on many Canadian and American film and television projects. In 2004, he completed his first documentary, ACROSS THE ATLANTIC, and is presenting his newest film AMERICAN PSYCHE at Festroia."I wanted to meet everyday Americans, those that we don´t see on television or hear on the radio. I wanted to grasp the A...

The Seattle JAC (Jewish Action committee) film Festival entered its second day with a full agenda of seven films including features, documentaries and shorts. Highlight of the day was the new Canadian feature, "Steel Toes" starring David Straithairn as a liberal minded Jewish attorney engaged to defend an unrepentant skinhead Neo-Nazi in the racist "hate murder" of an Indian storekeeper. This is basically a two-man show somewhat similar to Truman Capote's visitation of one of the killer's of "I...

"The Vande mataram - A shit version" music video using the "Patriotic" remix album on visuals of manual scavenging (Dalits removing other people's shit manually) is a conscious attempt to question the pseudo patriotism of the song and a society which allows such heinous practices on casteist lines.Some Hindutva people protested against this video after its screening at the VIBGYOR festival on 23.2.06, 3 pm at Thrissur Sahitya academy, Thrissur. As they continue their 'struggle' for preserving na...