THE GLOBAL AND THE LOCAL

The Half-Moon Files By Sushma Joshi I happened, by accident, to hear about 'The Half-Moon Files.' The Berlinale, Berlin's international film festival, is the biggest in Europe after Cannes, and there were 250 films competing for attention. But the woman who told me about it was certain I would be interested. It was about the POW (Prisoner of War) camp in Berlin after WW 1 and had interesting anthropological elements, she said. 'It is about Indians in the POW camp,' she said. As soon as she said 'Indians', I knew I had to watch it. It was the last day of the festival, but I had no hesitation chucking my ticket to the Hongkong action movie and heading to the Arsenal, a theatre located in the basement of the Filmhause of Berlin. The documentary was in German, which I do not speak or understand. But it was probably the most interesting film I, as a Nepali, watched in the entire festival. The reason was this-- the film, an ostentious 'ghost story' in whi...

Sushma Joshi Kantipuronline.com, February 7, 2007 Vogue, one of the world’s premier fashion magazines, features actress Angelina Jolie on the cover of its January 2007 issue. Jolie wears a raspberry rayon matt jersey evening dress that drapes across her body in perfect, sensual symmetry—there’s a sari-like hint to the drape of fabric against her legs. The classic, elegant look comes from the design table of Bliss Blass, a New York couture house with clients as diverse as Oprah, Laura Bush, and Sigourney Weaver. What most Nepalese don’t know is that one of the designers of the label is Prabal Gurung, whose rise to meteoric New York success rivals those of the best stars. A St Xavier’s graduate, Prabal was the only one of his class to study this field in 1990. Like all boys, he struggled to belong, but was made to feel different. However, this very sense of being “different” helped to push him to define his sense of identity later on in life. Prabal went to Delhi, where he attended the N...