• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

The Glen Park Association

Up-to-the-minute news from Glen Park

  • Home
  • Glen Park Association
    • About the Glen Park Association
    • Join the GPA
    • GPA Board Contacts
    • GPA Meeting Minutes
    • Bylaws
    • Neighborhood boundaries
  • News Stories
    • Glen Park News
    • Editor’s Picks
  • Greenway
    • About
    • Greenway Plan
  • GPA Grants Program
  • Crime & Safety
  • Contact
    • Contact
    • Volunteer Sign Ups
    • Event Submission
    • Author Submissions

Movie filmed at Bird & Beckett screened at Balboa

March 21, 2012 by Elizabeth Weise

Bird and Beckett bookseller, Eric Whittington, talking to friends before the viewing of "Aparajita Tumi" at his bookstore's sponsored Indian cinema film festival.
Photo by Murray Schneider

By Murray Schneider

In mid-March, Bird and Beckett bookseller Eric Whittington stage-managed a four-day Indian film festival of Bengali movies at the Richmond District’s Balboa Theater. Whittington bookended “Indian Cinema – Beyond Bollywood,” with Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury “Aparajita Tumi,” a two-hour movie filmed last summer entirely on location in the Bay Area and “Nagmoti,” directed by Gautam Chattopadhyay and filmed in Bengal.

Glen Park is depicted in several scenes in Chowdhury’s film.

If how a neighborhood is portrayed on the silver screen has something to do with its reputation, then the village will someday compare favorably with other cinematic and legendary San Francisco locales.

Last July, movie director Chowdhury filmed actress Padmapriya Janakiraman strolling along Chenery Street. The morning was crisp and sunny. As the script called for, she stepped first into Bird and Beckett to avoid unsolicited attentions from a former boyfriend and then joined him later for a latte at Higher Grounds.

Indian actress Padmapriya Janakiraman strolling along Chenery Street for the movie, "Aparajita Tumi," filmed in July 2011 throughout Glen Park.
Photo by Murray Schneider

The only cinematic incongruity in the couple’s brief caffeine encounter was the legion of 36-Teresita buses turning past Manhal Jweinat’s window’s onto Diamond Street during the “reel” time it took the couple to rub away frothy foam from their lips.

This aside, Bird and Beckett’s proprietor had his own take.

“The neighborhood had a wonderful time when the scenes were filmed,” said Whittington, who first viewed the finished product at its premiere this January when he visited India. “Now we all have a chance to see it.”

When Jweinat was told after the festival that had the audience blinked it might have missed his acting debut, he joked:

“I had my five seconds of fame!”

“Actually, I’ve seen the film more than once now, and I haven’t seen Manhal yet,” smiled Whittington, “It was more like two seconds!”

This wasn’t the first time Whittington and the 1926 Balboa Theater have partnered. Most recently Jimmy Ryan and his Bi Bop Band played the art deco venue and, while Bengali moviegoers lined up to purchase festival tickets, across the lobby Bird and Beckett Friday night jazz man Chuck Peterson and his trio played a muted rendition of the standard, “I Can’t Get Started.”

Bishu Chatterjee, a bass player, is another Bird and Beckett regular, and his brother’s film “Nagmoti” was screened before a festival audience of nearly 100.

Chatterjee, who completed his doctorate in economics from the University of California at Davis and presently consults on California energy policy, moonlights fronting “Bengal & Beyond,” a quartet that fuses Bengali and American jazz.

The Chuck Peterson Trio, a Bird and Beckett fixture each month, entertaining film goers before viewing of "Aparajita Tumi," which was filmed at the Glen Park bookstore in July 2011.
Photo by Murray Schneider

“Bishu stored the print in his garage for ten years,” said Whittington, who introduced the film, which depicts riverine gypsies living in the Ganges delta southeast of Kolkata. The film won the 1983 prestigious Silver Lotus award for the best Bengali film at the National Film Awards, India’s equivalent of the Oscars.

The two-hour film, which Chattopadhyay wrote and scored, portrays itinerants residing on the outskirts of a traditional Bengali agrarian community. They are held in suspicion, and the film ends tragically when a gypsy young woman is prevented from making the transition to a more settled life.

“Gautam was a talented man,” said Chatterjee, whose brother died suddenly of a heart attack in 1999. “He was sincere, honest and uncompromising.”

“Chattopadhyay was a legendary musician, ethnomusicologist and filmmaker,” said Whittington. “Before he became famous for his films, his folk-rock band “Moheener Ghoraguli blazed new trails.”

Earlier, Omar Rodriguez, the Balboa’s manager said: “This is exactly the kind of programming the neighborhood needs.”

In lobby of Balboa Theater. Audience awaiting showing of "Aparajita Tumi," on the first night of Bird and Beckett sponsored film festival "Indian Cinema - Beyond Bollywood."
Photo by Murray Schneider

There’s clearly a growing audience for such work. A young woman who hailed from Cole Valley, but whose origins go back to Bangladesh, pocketed a ticket stub she’d just received from Rodriguez. “I love Bengali movies,” she said, “and I’m excited about this film festival.”

The Bay Area has become a magnet for a wave of Indian immigration, one of the plot threads woven through “Aparajita Tumi,” which turns on familiar themes that each immigrant group has wrestled with since the beginning of the American experience.

Whether in Silicon Valley, San Francisco or the East Bay, Bengalis aren’t going unnoticed. Anyone who has browsed Whittington’s independent bookstore shelves knows he stocks a wide collection of international titles from every corner of the world. “I’m pleased to see Bengali interests and others in the Indian community reflected at our bookstore,” said Whittington.

Other places as well. “This was born out also by the groups of people attending the festival,” said Whittington, anticipating Satyajit Ray’s classic Bengali film, “Aranyer Din Ratri,” which closed the festival. “There’s nothing to rival the thrill and good feeling of a grand movie-going experience in a real theater with a crowd of excited moviegoers.”

Jazz musician Bishu Chatterjee, brother of Gautam Chattopadhyay, whose film "Nagmoti" played at the Balboa Theater film festival, "Indian Cinema - Beyond Bollywood."
Photo by Murray Schneider

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Primary Sidebar

IMPORTANT UPCOMING DATES

February 4th, 2023
9:00 AM
Details Here
 

Renew Your Glen Park Association Membership for 2023

Join the Glen Park Association and help promote our community’s interests. Together, we can secure improvement funds, publicize neighborhood concerns and strive to speak as one voice on neighborhood and city issues.

Membership in the Glen Park Association is only $10 annually and can be purchased online.

Glen Park Rec. Center

Glen Park Association Advertising Sponsors

JE_Digital Small Space Ad
GPA Ad- Perez Construction ad 6.27.22 v Glen Park
martin
moroco
JE_Digital Small Space Ad
GPA Ad- Perez Construction ad 6.27.22 v Glen Park
martin
moroco
previous arrow
next arrow
Shadow

Current Weather & Air Quality

Subscribe to the blog

Sign Up for Glen Park Association News Updates

* indicates required

Glen Park featured on…

FacebookSF ChronInstagramTwitter

Join the Glen Park Association on Facebook

Comments Box SVG iconsUsed for the like, share, comment, and reaction icons
Glen Park Association
2 weeks ago
Glen Park Association

Meet one of the Greenway’s most diligent volunteers -- A Townsend Warbler as far as Google knows. Progress in removing invasive oxalis is going well, but work remains! As the sun comes out, please join us at the Glen Park Greenway Native Meadow (between Lippard and Brompton Streets) to carefully remove invasive oxalis plants. Email our oxalis remediation lead, Kathy Keller at greenway@glenparkassociation.org if you can help! ... See MoreSee Less

Meet one of the Greenway’s most diligent volunteers -- A Townsend Warbler as far as Google knows. Progress in removing invasive oxalis is going well, but work remains! As the sun comes out, please join us at the Glen Park Greenway Native Meadow (between Lippard and Brompton Streets) to carefully remove invasive oxalis plants. Email our oxalis remediation lead, Kathy Keller at greenway@glenparkassociation.org if you can help!
View on Facebook
· Share
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Linked In Share by Email
View Comments
  • Likes: 3
  • Shares: 0
  • Comments: 0

Comment on Facebook

Glen Park Association
2 weeks ago
Glen Park Association

Join us THURSDAY JANUARY 19 at the Glen Park Association Quarterly meeting. We'll be in-person at the Glen Park Rec. Center at 6:30 PM. Our agenda includes:

-- A special presentation from QuitCarbon,
-- Meeting the new owners of @canyonmarket ,
-- Learning more about projects at @sfrecpark & @sfpublichealth, and
-- Electing 2023 GPA officers.

Have you renewed your membership for 2023 yet? Help keep our neighborhood vital by joining today at www.glenparkassociation.org/glen-park-association-membership/
... See MoreSee Less

Join us THURSDAY JANUARY 19 at the Glen Park Association Quarterly meeting. Well be in-person at the Glen Park Rec. Center at 6:30 PM. Our agenda includes:

-- A special presentation from QuitCarbon, 
-- Meeting the new owners of @canyonmarket , 
-- Learning more about projects at @sfrecpark  & @sfpublichealth, and
-- Electing 2023 GPA officers.

Have you renewed your membership for 2023 yet? Help keep our neighborhood vital by joining today at https://www.glenparkassociation.org/glen-park-association-membership/
View on Facebook
· Share
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Linked In Share by Email
View Comments
  • Likes: 4
  • Shares: 0
  • Comments: 0

Comment on Facebook

Blog Roll

Coyote Yipps
Friends of Noe Valley Rec Center
Glen Park Neighborhoods History Project
Open SF History
Sunnyside Conservatory
Sunnyside History
Sunnyside Neighborhood Association
Tramps of San Francisco
Upper Noe Neighbors

Copyright © 2023 · Metro Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in