Seattle's 5th Independent South Asian Film Festival

For the fifth consecutive year, a group called Tasveer (which means "picture" in Urdu) has hosted the Independent South Asian Film Festival, featuring the latest and best South Asian-themed narrative films, documentaries, workshops and forums. Seattle-based Tasveer is a community-based organization that brings independent, progressive films from South Asia and the South Asian Diaspora to the Pacific Northwest.

I've had the opportunity to attend a number of ISAFF films over the years and have greatly enjoyed them all. Among my favorites were "10 Questions for the Dalai Lama" and "Monsoon"—both well made films with lots of heart.

This year's festival will take place between September 24th and 28th at Seattle's Broadway Performance Hall, so if you're in town then, I highly recommend checking it out.

For details about ISAFF, please visit their website.

In addition to ISAFF, Tasveer hosts a number of other events throughout the year. For example, I attended their live performance of Yoni Ki Baat, a South Asian version of the world famous Vagina Monologues in March. The show was very compelling and honest.

Our Shoot at DRY Soda

We recently decided to reshoot our video pitches for our website and searched for a location. We stumbled upon DRY Soda, a high-end beverage company. Not only does DRY Soda have a very cool space in the heart of Pioneer Square, but it also has a genuinely nice group of people. During the shoot, we got to feast on all of the delicious sodas, which are sweetened with a modest amount of pure cane sugar. They have unique flavors, such as kumquat (my favorite), lavender, lemongrass and rhubarb.

The actual filming went well. We’re currently in the editing phase, but hope to complete the videos by early July. We’re revamping the voting site to include more information about each script—which you should see by the middle of next month.
Until then, check out the cocktail recipes on DRY Soda’s website. They’re original and refreshing—perfect for the summer!