[Sarai Newsletter] August- 2008

[The Sarai Programme]

*Newsletter-August 2008*

*[[CONTENTS]]*

*Fellowship at Sarai
FLOSS Fellowship Final Presentation*
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*Films at Sarai- Noir Trends
August- September

MEMENTO
*Directed by Christopher Nolan
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*NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
*Directed by Ethan Coen and Joel Coen
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*SPELLBOUND
*Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

The Films will be curated by Anita Cherian
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Dear Readers,
After a brief summer break, the Sarai newsletter returns. This August we 
begin with the FLOSS Fellowship summary presentations. We are also 
reviving our Friday afternoon screenings from the third week of this 
month with shows of critically acclaimed films depicting the criminal 
underworld and cynical characters.

Hope you will access the particulars announced and make yourself 
available for the events.

Best,
Mitoo Das
Programme Coordinator
Sarai, CSDS
Email me at: mitoo at sarai.net
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*Fellowship @Sarai:*
*FLOSS Fellowship Final presentation*
*Date: 9th and 10th of August*
*Venue: Seminar Room, CSDS*

The Independent FLOSS Fellowships enable programmers to research and 
develop different kinds of open source software-based applications. 
Typically, these are projects of concrete and practical value, 
especially for social and educational ends. They are also the kinds   of 
projects that would not usually find support in formal,   institutional 
or market-driven settings, either because of the   intent / nature of 
the goal or because of the 'open' nature of the knowledge thus 
produced/created.
The FLOSS Fellowships seek to tie software developments into existing 
requirements for software within the social sector, and support the 
writing and dissemination of well-researched technical papers in key 
areas of research.

In 2007, Sarai had a total of nine fellowships awarded, in collaboration 
with the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation which funded six of the scholarships. 
Rajiv Gandhi Foundation (RGF) provided support for work in the specific 
area of computing, and localisation in five Indian languages, namely, 
Assamese, Hindi, Kashmiri, Oriya, and Urdu.

The summary workshop-presentation is a forum for fellows to present 
their work to the larger community. All are invited to take part in 
enriching discussions.
The Sarai- CSDS FLOSS Fellows 2007:  
Sawood Alam, et al: Urdu localisation of GNOME, a FOSS desktop for 
computers.
Anand Kulkarni: Localisation of guides to OpenOffice, and other software 
in Marathi, and Urdu.
Sachin Joshi, Venkatesh Keri: Speech-to-text in Hindi, with application 
to other languages.
Rakesh Pandit, et al: Localisation of the GNOME desktop in Kashmiri.
Dr. N. M. Pattnaik, et al: Two fellowships for technical glossary in Oriya.
Ravishankar Shrivastava: Hindi localisation of a FOSS computer desktop.
C. S. Yogananda, and D. Shivashankar: Publishing in Indian languages 
using TeX, applicable to all major Indian languages.
Amitakhaya Phukan: Assamese localisation of GNOME, a FOSS desktop for 
computers.
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*Films @ Sarai: Noir Trends
Curated by Anita Cherian
*
Anita Cherian teaches at the Department of English, Indraprastha College 
for Women.  She's interested in the study of Policy and Performance, 
and, is working on a book length project which develops her doctoral 
dissertation. She has an interest in film that transcends genre, but 
favors work that is stylish and challenging.

The films Anita has chosen for the current series combine stylistic 
sophistication with moral ambiguity. The three films, though separated 
in time are linked by their thematic concern with identity, memory, 
guilt, revenge/ exemplary punishment; their unforgiving dissections of 
character; their exploration of black comedy; and their mastery of craft.

*MEMENTO, 2000
Director: Christopher Nolan
Cast: Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano
Length: 113 mins
Language: English

Date: 22nd August, 2008
Venue: Seminar Room, CSDS
Time: 4:30 pm*

Memento is a psychological thriller film written and directed by 
Christopher Nolan, adapted from his brother Jonathan's short story 
"Memento Mori." It stars Guy Pearce as Leonard Shelby, a former 
insurance fraud investigator searching for the man he believes raped and 
killed his wife during a burglary. Leonard suffers from anterograde 
amnesia, which he contracted from severe head trauma during the attack 
on his wife. This renders his brain unable to store new memories. To 
cope with his condition, he maintains a system of notes, photographs, 
and tattoos to record information about himself and others, including 
his wife's killer. He is aided in his investigation by Teddy (Joe 
Pantoliano) and Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss), neither of whom he can trust.

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*NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, 2007
Director: Ethan Coen and Joel Coen
Cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, Woody Harrelson, 
Kelly Macdonald
Length: 123 mins
Language: English, Spanish*

*Date: 29th August, 2008
Venue: Seminar Room, CSDS
Time: 4:30 pm
*
In rural Texas, welder and hunter Llewelyn Moss discovers the remains of 
several drug runners who have all killed each other in an exchange gone 
violently wrong. Rather than report the discovery to the police, Moss 
decides to simply take the two million dollars present for himself. This 
puts the psychopathic killer, Anton Chigurh, on his trail as he 
dispassionately murders nearly every rival, bystander and even employer 
in his pursuit of his quarry and the money. As Moss desperately attempts 
to keep one step ahead, the blood from this hunt begins to flow behind 
him with relentlessly growing intensity as Chigurh closes in. Meanwhile, 
the laconic Sherrif Ed Tom Bell blithely oversees the investigation even 
as he struggles to face the sheer enormity of the crimes he is 
attempting to thwart.

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*SPELLBOUND, 1945
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov, Leo G. Carroll, 
Rhonda Fleming
Length: 111 mins
Language: English

Date: 5th September, 2008
Venue: Seminar Room, CSDS
Time: 4:30 pm*

Drawing on psychoanalysis to frame a transcendent love story, Alfred 
Hitchcock's SPELLBOUND is a mind-bending study of just how far people 
might go to escape trauma or to pursue passion. The head of the Green 
Manors mental asylum Dr. Murchison is retiring to be replaced by Dr. 
Edwardes, a famous psychiatrist. Edwardes arrives and is immediately 
attracted to the beautiful but cold Dr. Constance Petersen. However, it 
soon becomes apparent that Dr. Edwardes is in fact a paranoid amnesiac 
impostor. He goes on the run with Constance who tries to help his 
condition and solve the mystery of what happened to the real Dr. Edwardes.
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*[[END OF NEWSLETTER]]*
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