Nina Paley, a self-taught animator, released in 2008 an 82-minute animated film, Sita Sings the Blues, that mingles the classic Indian myth, The Ramayana, with contemporary autobiographical events, and it’s all set to the 1920’s jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw. The film, which launched the San Francisco International Animation Festival (and was also recently featured in the MoMA’s series “Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You”) has won awards and gathered a lot of fans. In late February, Paley handed the film over to the public, releasing it under a Creative Commons license (download it here). You can now take it and pretty much do whatever you want with it (broadcast it, share it, remix it, etc.). The only thing you can’t do is copyright the film or attach digital rights management to it. If you don’t want to download the film, then you can watch it online here.
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You can read more about Sita Sings the Blues in the NYTimes.
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- Sita Sings the Blues Now on YouTube
- Loudon Wainwright III Sings “The Krugman Blues”
- Making Money By Giving Your Movie Away (But How Much?)
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