‘Ratana’ now online in HD

About 3 years after shooting my first short film Ratana, I’ve decided the time has come to post the film online. I’d been holding out on the very remote chance that I could sell the film for online distribution, but at this point, that’s unlikely to happen.

The film had a nice run in the festival world. The original cut played a number of great festivals, including the Sarasota Film Festival and Nantucket Film Festival. About a year after we finished the original cut, I decided to do a re-edit, in part to make it shorter but also to solve some story problems that always bugged me. After completing that cut, I submitted the new version to show in the 2008 Cannes Short Film Corner, a segment of the Marche du Film dedicated to short films. I went to France with the film and got to enjoy the Cannes Film Festival for the first time. Ratana obviously didn’t sell, but going to Cannes was something I’d always wanted to experience so that made it all worthwhile.

Now, almost a year after that, I’ve decided the time has finally come to get the film posted online. It’s located here, nicely presented in HD.

Part of the inspiration for putting it online now, beyond just getting the film more widely seen, is a retrospective series on Bengali filmmaker Satyajit Ray opening this week at the Walter Reade Theater in NYC. Ratana was inspired by a short film called The Postmaster made by Ray, and that film will have a rare theatrical screening at the Walter Reade on Sunday, April 19th. It’s part of a rather long three-part omnibus film called Teen Kanya (Three Daughters), and while I don’t think the other two parts are particularly memorable, The Postmaster is a wonderful, heart-breaking film and (obviously) made a big impression on me. More info on the Ray series can be found here, and if you’re interested in international cinema, I recommend checking it out.