vanaja

G1* and I have been spending a lot of time together lately. She had hernia surgery the day her girlfriend went overseas and sent out an email asking friends to bring her food, visit her, help her out. I went over last Monday with some buffet items from Whole Foods.

G1 spends summers away from Austin, August at the Michigan Women's Music Festival, time in New York City, etc. She always visits a particular record store known for it's religious LPs while she's in Michigan. She won't spend more than 50c for a record, and often chooses them based on their cover art. She played some stuff for me. Definitely the best find in the bunch was Those Singing Rambos with their wanna-be 70s rock-n-roll Christian stuff, including one song I remembered from church camp and now can't get it out of my head, "I Wish We'd All Been Ready":

There's no time
To change your mind,
The Son is gone
And you've been left behind...
(It's about the Rapture.)

The GLBT film festival (aGLIFF) is back again. G1 has a short film in it -- actually, I'm in a couple of scenes as well... Since her girlfriend would still be out of town when the festival started, G1 asked me if I wanted to go see some movies with her (she has two passes). Of course I said yes. I offered to pick up her festival passes at the Arbor because S1 and I were going out there on Thursday night to see a movie. It was the first night aGLIFF had a booth set up at the theater.

The movie S1 and I went to see wasn't part of the festival, but it was a special screening presented by the Austin Film Society (which I get notices about because I am a member). The movie is called Vanaja, and it is about a 14-year-old Indian girl. It is an absolutely amazing film. Sweet, sad, beautifully directed and filmed. This is Domalapalli Rajnesh's first film; I guess he just graduated from Columbia University because it was produced by the film school there (S1 and I didn't even know Columbia has a film school). It is heartbreaking and just so good. It seems a little long -- 111 minutes -- but I can't think of anything I'd want to be cut out. The dance sequences made me alternately beam and weep. I can't recommend it highly enough.