January was the last time I wrote. Since then, I turned twenty-five, injured my wrist, stopped writing, started working harder, and began sprinting toward the finish line to complete post-production on our movie Divided We Fall. Now the movie is almost ready (as you can tell by our smiles) and my wrist has healed enough to write this big update...

(Photo by Ejen Chuang appears in this month's Hyphen Magazine).

UPCOMING SCREENINGS

Divided We Fall will officially premiere this September during the fifth remembrance of 9/11 and tour around the country in the upcoming year. Join our mailing list for more info. In the mean time, we invite you to these special upcoming screenings of the Director's Cut:

SUNDAY MAY 7, 2006 at the HARVARD FILM ARCHIVE
7pm, Carpenter Center, Harvard University
Director’s Cut followed by Q&A with the filmmakers
For details contact: info@dwf-film.com

JUNE 3, 2006 at the N. CALIFORNIA SPINNING WHEEL FILM FESTIVAL
TBA, Stanford University
Director’s Cut followed by Q&A with the filmmakers
For details contact: info@dwf-film.com
(Pictured above right: Toronto's Spinning Wheel Film Festival)

Check out DWF in the news:

"Divided We Fall" in Furman Alumni Magazine by our own Tracy Wells (Pictured right). A must read - click here for the full story.

"The Untold American Story" in Hyphen Magazine by Neelanjana Banerjee. In stores now - click here for an online preview.

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AMERICAN MADE'S TELEVISION PREMIERE

Before directing/producing Divided We Fall, Sharat Raju wrote and directed the acclaimed short film American Made -- scheduled to make its broadcast premiere on PBS' Independent Lens this May! With 529 air dates on 200+ station affiliates, American Made (pictured) will likely be the first fictional film about Sikh Americans post-9/11 to screen on national television.

American Made is a moving story about a Sikh American family in the aftermath of 9/11. When the Singh family’s car breaks down in the desert, Ranjit tells his father that no one will stop to help because “he looks like a terrorist.” What follows is the heart-rending struggle between a father and son and a larger exploration of assimilation, tradition, and acceptance. Told with humanity and humor, American Made has won seventeen awards from film festivals around the world. We hope you spread the word about the television premiere and tune in with us!

A NOTE

Since October, I’ve spent many weeks in our tiny editing room in Los Angeles, working with our extraordinary editors Scott Rosenblatt and Sharat Raju on shaping 130 hours of raw footage taped over four years into a final movie about a journey into the heart of post-9/11 America. After a dozen drafts and a handful of screenings for my classmates and professors at Harvard Divinity and our filmmaker friends in Los Angeles, we will lock picture in one month to premiere this fall. With American Made premiering on television next month, we are very excited about the possibility of sharing these stories with large audiences. I am deeply grateful for the feedback of our friends (you know who you are): many patient hands have brought DWF this far. To support the film, click here.

More news and reflections to come...

[This entry is cross-posted on "Into the Whirlwind."]