NY Int'l Children's Film Festival Presents SITA SINGS THE BLUES, Q&A With Filmmaker Nina Paley Nightly

SITA SINGS THE BLUES
In English - Recommended ages 9 to adult

Fri Dec 25 to Thurs Dec 31
IFC Center, 323 Sixth Avenue (at West Third)
Filmmaker Q&A nightly at 8:25pm show

For showtimes and to purchase tickets click here: http://www.gkids.tv/intheaters.cfm

SITA SINGS THE BLUES
Animation, USA, Nina Paley, 2008, 82 min, in English
Tragedy, comedy and musical collide in this gloriously animated film from Nina Paley, New York's own "One Woman Pixar" (Wired Magazine). Sita is a goddess separated from her beloved Lord and husband Rama. Nina is an animator whose husband moves to India, then dumps her by email. Three bickering shadow puppets with Indian accents act as comic narrators as these old and new stories are interwoven in a post-modern retelling of the ancient Indian epic, Ramayana, animated in a dazzling mix of traditional and collage animation styles. Sita Sings the Blues follows in the line of Triplets of Belleville and Spirited Away to exemplify animation as a "serious" art form -- which does not stop it from being laugh-out-loud funny. A panoply of monsters, gods, goddesses, warriors, sages, pyromaniac monkeys and winged eyeballs fills the screen with vivid color from start to finish, while the narrators' improvisational debates over the Rama legend join the filmmaker's own tragicomic story to layer a modern feminist commentary on the ancient Indian legend. The result is a subtly subversive, visually stunning, highly original work that is as enjoyable for children as it is for adults.