How many times have we each gotten into a taxi and randomly started chatting with your taxi driver?! It’s a space where people still open up and are ok with talking to a stranger because you know you will probably never meet the person again.

Vandana had a similar experience when she first came to New York City from India. She found that she had the best chats with taxi drivers from South Asia and, as a documentary filmmaker, she started making short films based on them. In 2008 there was a terrorist attack in Mumbai where the iconic Taj Hotel came under siege for 3 days, western hostages were trapped, and the city went into terror mode. It was then that Vandana, still a graduate at Hunter College’s Integrated Media Arts program in NY, decided to start another experiment. She decided to capture the honest grassroots conversations that she knew were taking place in Mumbai as an alternative to the staid trite and analytical coverage she heard on mainstream media. This was how The Taxi Takes on Terror began. It became a web video project with several short films, each on specific topics connected to Modern terror, and all online and connected to social media. Vandana’s idea was to create a site where people from around the globe could enter the taxi space in Mumbai and participate in the conversation. Several of these short films were also screened in Bozeman in collaboration with MSU’s Diversity Awareness Office in 2011.

Vandana’s taxi journey and exploration did not end here. She got married, moved to Montana with her husband, and continued to work in media arts and film. She has now expanded her work to the next level — The Taxi Takes on the World. She is inviting people from all around the globe to start a dialogue with their taxi driver and record it on their smart phone camera. By sending in their taxi videos passengers can participate in this crowd sourced interactive documentary. Folks in Bozeman have already taken notice of this unique idea and Prime Incorporated, a graphic and web design studio spearheaded by Ben Fjare, generously offered to help with branding to help get the project off the ground. Shane Johnson, one of their principle designers, is to credit for the awesome new site www.thetaxitakesontheworld.com along with all the publicity material a project like this needs.

And with such support things started getting exciting. STEP —Standing Together to Enable Peace – A Non Profit in New Delhi India holds an annual festival called the Jashn — e- Aman (Celebration of Peace) Festival. The organization focuses on peace building initiatives in conflict regions throughout India and works closely with youth, teachers and the community. Their goals aligned well with The Taxi Takes’ aims in bridging cultures and hence, this September, a film festival will be held in 4 states in India featuring taxi videos from inside cabs around the planet. Vandana has high hopes for this first film festival she is organizing but needs support in covering her costs to make it happen. The organization in India is providing her the venue, audience and covering rental fees, but the rest is up to her. The bigger picture is she plans to bring the same films back with her to Montana and have screenings in Bozeman and Livingston. And to make this happen a fundraiser is in the works!

Early this year Vandana decided to have a fundraiser for her project and decided she wanted a unique act to be part of the film screenings. The event did not happen but she managed to create a band. With the overall idea of finding common ground inside a taxi she brought together 3 musicians she knew who played the Indian ‘sitar’, the Indian ‘tabla’ and the guitar. Indo- western fusion music was what would compliment The Taxi Takes on the World and with that came into being Hanumantana. The name Hanumantana is a combination of the mythical Hindu monkey God Hanuman who was part human — part monkey and our wonderful state of Montana. The band comprises Russ Leonard, Ken Glynn, Ankur Saxena and Jake Flemming. They will be serenading the guests at the upcoming fundraiser with their distinctive sound. The event will be held on Friday September 6th at The Food Studio www.the-foodstudio.com, a beautiful venue specializing in seasonal dinners, events, classes and more led and owned by Daniel and Eva Wendell. The evening will feature a three course dinner focusing on Indian cuisine. Wine will be served and of course there will be Indian masala chai. Vandana plans to do a sneak peak preview of the films for the attendees that night, which will hopefully be screened in Montana to larger audiences later in the year if she can get enough sponsors on board.

Bozeman houses many talented young artists like Vandana Sood-Giddings and it gives us pleasure to extend our support to her work. We all have moments in our everyday lives where we can break past the mundane and in some simple and special way take on the World. Even if it’s inside a taxi where boundaries can blur and stereotypes shatter.   This interactive documentary platform envisions an online hub of diverse citizen voices on topics like war and terror, religious and ethnic conflict, race, gender, class, culture and the big global issues of our times. We hope that many more people will join Vandana in Taking on the World!

For more information : www.thetaxitakesontheworld.com or contact Vandana at contactsood@gmail.com