Venus Peregrine
COURTNEY STEPHENS
Venus Peregrine is an essay film project in the style of an antique travelogue, to be made on a Fulbright scholarship to India during 2011-2012. It will explore female travel in West Bengal, India prior to Indian independence. The project was inspired by the unprecedented number of foreign women who kept diaries and wrote travel memoirs in pre-1950s India, going back to the early 1700s. The film will depict a number of episodes in the adventures of a single fictional woman, Anna, a thorny world traveler in the early 20th century. Following her arrival in India, however, she is told that she is fatally ill. Seeking various cures but determined to continue her explorations, she makes her way from the decaying grandeur of Calcutta to the plains and highlands of Bengal, meeting other Western castaways and exiles along the way. Eventually, her health cannot be ignored, and she is taken into a Bengal household, where the nature of her experience changes from endless landscape to her own mortality.
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Director Courtney Stephens is a Los Angeles–based filmmaker whose work is concerned with the private worlds of women. She recently directed a documentary entitled WHITE GLOVES about Oakland’s beloved White Elephant Sale and the extraordinary women who run it. The film looks at the lifespan of human beings seen alongside the lives of things. Stephens is a graduate of the American Film Institute, and has written several fictional shorts. EQUESTRIAN SEXUAL RESPONSE, about the sexual coming-of-age of a country girl, premiered at South by Southwest and was nominated for a Student Academy Award. Another, LIFE ON EARTH about the fantasies of a young ward of the court, has played numerous festivals worldwide. Stephens is the recipient of a Sloan Scholarship and a Hewlett-Packard grant, and assisted director Terrence Malick on THE TREE OF LIFE (2011), as well as his follow-up film, currently in post-production. Her interest in the study of the body stemmed from undergraduate work in medical anthropology at UC Berkeley. She was an assistant editor and contributor to the New York- based arts and culture magazine Cabinet. Courtney has taught silent filmmaking to teenage girls and will be lecturing at Rutgers University this fall, before heading to India on a Fulbright scholarship to work on VENUS PEREGRINE.
Cinematographer James Adolphus is a cinematographer who has worked internationally to pursue social, cultural and political issues of global relevance. Adolphus is a cinematography alumnus from the American Film Institute Conservatory and winner of the Fisher Fellow Award. His credits as director of photography include numerous documentary and fiction films. Adolphus was director of photography on Sundance Channel's provocative and eye-opening documentary series BRICK CITY, winner of a 2010 Peabody Award and nominated for a Primetime Emmy; BRICK CITY was executive produced by Forest Whitaker and directed by acclaimed filmmakers Mark Benjamin and Marc Levin. Another feature, AUGUST, an expansion of the award-winning short film POSTMORTEM by Eldar Rapaport, tells the story of two former lovers, Troy and Jonathan, who reunite after a long ago painful breakup. He also was cinematographer on OUTSIDE THE BOX, a documentary exploration of mixed-race identity in America, as well as the award-winning Netflix/Red Envelope Entertainment documentary, WITHOUT THE KING. Directed by Michael Skolnik, this film tells an astonishing story of Africa's last absolute monarchy, the Kingdom of Swaziland. Adolphus filmed as well as produced NEEDLE THROUGH BRICK, which explores the survival of traditional art and culture in the face of a rapidly changing and modernizing China, told through the eyes of traditional Kung Fu masters. Adolphus has also served as a visiting professor at Ah-Najah National University in the West Bank city of Nablus, teaching documentary filmmaking in the journalism department.
Shuchi Talati, Producer Shuchi Talati is a filmmaker currently working between Los Angeles and India. She is drawn to VENUS PEREGRINE because it explores a familiar struggle between a woman's mind and her body, her ideals and her femininity. Shuchi is a directing alumnus from the American Film Institute where she received the Bridges-Larson Production grant as well as the Tichi Wilkerson Kassel Endowment in recognition of her work. During her two years at the conservatory, Shuchi made six short films, culminating in PORCELAIN -- a dark fairy-tale about a young girl's first experience of death. Another, GUTTERSNIPES, about a hardened street girl who meets an autistic child, has grown into a feature, which is currently in pre-production and will film in India in late 2012. Prior to AFI, Shuchi worked in commercials and feature films in Mumbai. She was the core team member of a groundbreaking media content start-up in India -- Indusgeeks. Here she served as the Creative Head and Machinima director (machinimas are films made using game engines) producing over twenty commercials and corporate videos for clients like the Brand Union, RTA Dubai and Child Right and You. Indusgeeks has since been ranked amongst the 15 hottest start-ups in India by Proto.in. She holds a B.A. in English Literature as well as a Diploma in Social Communications Media. Shuchi will be in Calcutta in Spring 2012 for VENUS PEREGRINE.
