SquiggleBooth

Ajit says:

Love this confident little film by my friend Nic Beery. The film revels in being lost in its own thought, following its own impulses for what it deems fun and interesting.

I created this intro for the recently completed Carrboro Film Festival, the intro played before each block of films. Music was created by Carrboro local Jay Manley. A big thanks to my wife Kelly Cook and Jennifer Evans.

It was a great festival, a packed and enthusiastic audience, talented filmmakers and a wonderful group of festival organizers.

To learn how to submit your own favorite childhood photos, check this page for instructions and guidelines. To see other submissions, check here.

Rob Baldus reviewing the Secret City Film Festival shorts for the Tennessee local paper Metropulse says this of my short film Dear Stranger:

In his quietly aching study of bereavement, Ajit Anthony Prem reminds us that it’s the invisible world that is the real one. Not only that but he proves that cinema can portray this inner life as effectively as any novel. Just a few silent seconds spent in the company of a stranger on a subway train are enough for Rosie (Nikki Alikokos) to spiral out of control, losing herself in a deep, grief-stricken fantasy of a life she will never know. Dear Stranger has a voiceover but works perhaps even better as a silent film, illuminating the arbitrary, capricious nature of love, the emotional continents that separate us from our partners, and the virtual impossibility of living just one life. The effect is almost unbearably poignant.

So well expressed. All the ideas that excited me about this film can be found in this article.

To learn how to submit your own favorite childhood photos, check this page for instructions and guidelines. To see other submissions, check here.

Our first submission!

To learn how to submit your own favorite childhood photos, check this page for instructions and guidelines. To see other submissions, check here.

I love to hear people talk about their childhood, their stories, their perspective, the little details. It is especially interesting, when you have a photo to refer to.

So, here is what I hope is a start to a great collaborative project. I would like for all of you to submit your favorite childhood photos. As an example, I have used my favorite photo from my childhood as a start.

To learn how to submit your own favorite childhood photos, check this page for instructions and guidelines. To see other submissions, check here.

My podcast Banana Bus will be playing at the 10th annual Hi Mom! Film Festival. It will be part of the Matineevening block which will screen at the Arts Center in Carrboro at 6pm on Saturday, September 6th.

For those who are new to the site, you can view Banana Bus here. The Hi Mom! Film Festival is one of the premier festivals in North Carolina showcasing international films with a certain amount of flair and fun (translation: not boring).

Hope to see you there.

It is sad to see such a talented actress as Madeline Walters leave my neck of the woods. So the day before she left, we shot this little podcast that highlights some of the inner turmoil she faces as she heads to Hollywood to seek stardom. We wish her all the luck in the world.

Shot beautifully by Todd Tinkham. With tons of help from Amanda Gurkin & Kelly Cook.

Ajit says:

Another entry by Todd Tinkham, this short film is one of his early works. Like many of his films, there is an undercurrent of religion which normally reveals itself in unusual and surprising ways. Like it were prehistoric relic with a dark past waiting to return to its former glory.

Todd:

It’s strange looking back at your own films. One begins to see unplanned patterns emerging on the screen. Although I am not religious, religion plays a big part in many of my films, comedy and drama.

I grew up Catholic and attended parochial schools at a time when the vast majority of the teachers were still nuns. But very few of them were under 60 years old, and many were well into their 80s - which meant they were pretty worn out and more than ready to retire to wherever it is they send aged nuns. Some of the oldest nuns would literally fall asleep at their desks during class. Needless to say, all hell would break loose – until they opened their eyes. Punishment fell fast and hard at Saint Ann’s School.

Brutality was common among the Sisters Of Mercy that I knew. I witnessed severe beatings by gangs of nuns and was given more than one nosebleed for my quick and clever remarks. One day in the 5th grade, I was beaten by three nuns and then locked in a closet for the rest of the day. When my mother found out that I’d caused trouble at school, she beat me some more and grounded me for a month. A good Catholic, bless her soul.

AND THEN THERE WERE NUN, one of my earliest films, is mostly fun, but it’s also heavy and frightening, much like Catholic schools. Surprisingly, AND THEN THERE WERE NUN did very well on the festival circuit – screening at more than 30 film festivals in 2006 and 2007, including the Vienna International Film Festival in Austria and the Rebel Planet Short Film Festival in Hollywood.