Saturday, April 25th, 2009, 5:00 PM

SITA SINGS THE BLUES

USA/2008/82min/35mm

ArcLight Hollywood

[buy tickets here]

Director:Nina Paley

Producer:Nina Paley

Screenwriter:Nina Paley

Editor:Nina Paley

Music Composer:Todd Michaelson, Rohan, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Masala Dosa, Nik Phelps

Sound Editor:Greg Sextro

Cast:Annette Hanshaw, Aseem Chhabra, Manish Acharya, Bhavana Nagulapally, Reena Shah

The mythological story of Rama and Sita is retold from a modern and refreshingly female perspective in Nina Paley’s animated film SITA SINGS THE BLUES. Three shadow puppets form a hilarious chorus as they relate the story of goddess Sita’s separation from Lord Rama focusing on the lesser known parts of the story, after her rescue, which challenge the whole notion of devotion and purity. Nina’s own romantic misadventures parallel Sita’s journey as she follows her husband across the world to India only to get dumped via email for her troubles. The whole thing is jazzed up, literally, by musical interludes set to the 1920’s vocals of Annette Hanshaw.

In her first feature length film, Nina Paley audaciously weaves multiple narrative and visual styles giving each story thread its own distinctively unique look. But the film’s technical daring would go to waste without her wonderfully witty script which lives up to its tagline as “The Greatest Breakup Story Ever Told.”

English

Presented by Film Independent

Print Source

Jean Paley

Festival Relations Manager

Nina Paley Productions, LLC

706 W. California

Urbana, IL 61801

USA

Phone: (217) 384 8165

Email: paley.jean@gmail.com

Website: www.sitasingstheblues.com