(1992) To Serve One's Country is a short animatic film. It is a powerful, poetic testament to the loss that war creates for all those involved, no matter which side one is fighting on. It is a story of a family's loss, as a young father innocently and patriotically journey's into a war he does not understand.

The film was created in Los Angeles while experimenting with the visual potential of a new broadcast quality Hi-8 video camera. The basis for the film is a visual book which was created in 1986 during my studies at RISD. One Sunday afternoon in 1992, I was bored, so I took the camera and created my first animatic film. It took about 7 hours to shoot. I created all the fades and cuts with the camera's internal editing options to save on money. Months later, I added music at a production studio, the only real cost.

This film is currently unavailable for screenings. For questions please contact me directly at: kavita@urbanpeacock.com. Thank you for your support.

In the end, there is only human loss of innocent young people and a post mortem realization that neither side wins from such voilence. -- Kavita

LOCUS 1640 Post, (San Francisco, California)

" Beyond Bollywood: Words and Visions " A Salon of Poetry, Film and Contemporary Thought. Kavita is one of the featured artists of the evening. Event Details.

SOMARTS Gallery, (San Francisco, California)

APICC presents an evening of films by Asian American Artists. Details coming soon. Kavita will be at the Friday, May 16th screening. Details

PUSOD Space, (Berkeley, California)

" Showcasing Women Creators of the Asian Diaspora" In honor of International Women's Day, presented by Mango Mic.

University of Nebraska (Lincoln, Nebraska)

" An Urban Peacock's Cultural Discovery through Art & Film " Public Screening & Lecture, part of Univ. of Nebraska's Artistic Diversity Residency Program. Kavita also conducted 10 days of workshops dealing with art, design, film and creativity during her residency. Press (outside link)

911 Media Arts Center (Seattle, Washington)

'South Asian Response' presented by Tasveer / Third I Seattle. Films by or about South Asian Americans responding to hate, discrimination and war. 2 Screenings. Details

Mission Cultural Center in SF (San Francisco, California)

Political Film Series: presented by Third I of SF. This film was the opener for 'My American Soul', a fund raiser for Chrisite Films' feature ' Expecting Shanti '.

WORKS/San Jose Art Gallery (San Jose, California)

Shakti: Roots of Vision - Performance Night with Kavita Bali

Kavita Bali

3 minutes

In 1986, after weeks of visual research, I had a collection of images which I montaged together and physically manipulated to create a visualization of the concept : 'To Serve' for a Semiotics class at RISD.

Each panel represents the synthesis of at least 2 -3 images. Cutting and pasting the xeroxes with stat camera images, I then painted over the montages with correction ink and sharpie markers, doing this over several rounds of image duplication. This was before the existence of Adobe Photoshop, and the only way I could figure out how to create this story from my imagination.

A few years later, in 1992, I used this visual book as a storyboard to create my first animatic short film.

See Full Storyboards (Visual Book 1)