Interviews / Medium
Bulgarian documentarian Mimi Chakarova — one to watch
Mimi Chakarova, a Bulgarian-American documentarian, has attempted to redefine ‘taboo’ over the years. Starting out as a documentary photographer, she gradually moved to film; and founded the production house A Moment in Times. Chakarova has illuminated various social concerns — corruption, sex trade, war. When first hearing her on The Kitchen Sisters Present podcast, her serene voice comforted me while she spoke of jarring things.
“Just because you film someone who is suffering and feeling on the verge of taking his or her own life does not mean that it defines who this person is or will be. It’s the responsibility of the filmmaker to make that clear and also leave room for change and hope.”
Storytelling mediates reality: In conversation with Eric Molinsky of Imaginary Worlds Podcast
Eric Molinsky is the host of Imaginary Worlds Podcast, a thought-out production on everything sci-fi and fantasy. His expanse knowledge and ability to set sci-fi and fantasy stories, characters, tools, into context is brilliant. Recently, I thought of writing him hoping he would be up for a short chat about his podcast and more. He said yes.
Molinsky’s childhood Star Wars figures, over 40 years old
Reviews / Medium
Forget it, let’s eat a mango — ‘A Case of Exploding Mangoes’ by Mohammed Hanif
Pakistan is usually noticed by various unfortunate issues ranging from hindrance of women rights and economic recession to political assassinations. One such act is wholly captured in Mohammed Hanif’s fiction novel, A Case of Exploding Mangoes, 2008. Belonging to an army background, Hanif explores the many apparent perks and faults of a soldierly life through the eyes of Ali Shigri who struggles under a dictatorship that transformed the social nature of Pakistan, that of Zia-ul-Haq’s.
Colson Whitehead in Utrecht
Whitehead, down seven novels now, has shown incredible versatility: from hidden slave travels to a wasteland of zombie civilisation. On September 9, 2019, the book talk at the International Literary Festival Utrecht (ILFU) began: “Zombie is someone who stops pretending,” says Whitehead, “located in a social anxiety” where those you once loved have become monsters. Each novel he writes about is an interaction, between people, between people and society.
