We got news today via the interweb that MC Mary Kom has teamed up with Herbalife – makers of products like Cell-U-Loss and protein shakes – as a spokersperson for the Indian branch.

The association may seem unlikely, but Herbalife has a roster of athletes that they sponsor, including Chinese cycling teams, professional Ironman triathletes, and flatwater canoeing golden boy Attila Vajda, who says: “When I’m feeling tired and can’t concentrate, I take Liftoff®. I recommend it to everyone.”*

*Individual results will vary.

Both Mary and the company are thrilled. The 46 kg boxer was quoted as saying, “As a professional athlete, I am proud to be associated with a brand that promotes the health and well being of its customers and together we can show people the value that lies in the Herbalife philosophy!”

(Other than the Olympic Gold Quest, this is the only official form of sponsorship Mary has received. What took so long?)

Thanks to Niamh Griffin for mentioning our film on her blog Inspiring Sports Women. She read about the project via the Art Threat blog a few weeks back. (Yes, I’m blogging about another blog blogging about us. The irony is not lost.)

p.s. Say “blog blogs” 10 times fast

As much as we may gripe and moan about the problems we’ve had making this film – hopefully not too often – at the end of the day, we realize how lucky we are to have this incredibly rewarding experience. And while Ameesha and I may be complete opposites in some respects, we can still happily co-exist for months at a time without leaving each others’ side (we are both Scorpios at heart).

This afternoon, I was listening to some of the audio from our trip to China way back in 2008 and came across a fuzzy recording made at a restaurant in either Shanghai or Ningbo. (A transcript is pasted below). It may be banal and absurd but our conversation really reminded me how much I enjoy working with Ameesha. When it comes down to it, when you’ve got a good team negativity falls by the wayside. Here’s to hoping that she’ll keep me around a little while longer.

Filename: crowd_of_men_ameesha_no_bokchoy.wav
Duration: 02:29
Description: Not very interesting. Sounds like we’re in a restaurant. Sound is muffled. Plates. Men talking in background.
Dialogue:

Anna: I don’t know if I want to eat more bok choy.

Ameesha: I’m bok choy-ed out. I was just thinking that the other day. I don’t want bok choy anymore. I feel like rice.

Anna: You feel like it? How? When did you start feeling like that? It must be a weird feeling.

Ameesha: It’s better than feeling like noodles. I usually feel like noodles.

Anna: I can have rice. It’s going to be an eggy rice and it’s going to be really oily but… [trails off, inaudible].

(Long pause)

Ameesha: There’s something here call crab belly burn ointment.

Anna: Should we take a photo of that on the menu?

(Pause)

Ameesha: I’m just going to say we’re vegetarian.

(Pause)

Ameesha: Actually, you know, I could go with noodles if you’d prefer.

Sometimes during the shoot, I’ll have a little George Bush moment where I forget that I’m filming and walk around with the lens cap on the camera. It doesn’t happen often but over the course of nearly a year of shooting, it’s bound to occur once or twice.

You would think that Ameesha might get upset about such occurrences. But with 142+ hours of footage, it goes a little something like this:

Ameesha: I was capturing footage today, and there was a point where you recorded with the lens cap on for 15 minutes.

Anna: Oh no!

Ameesha: It was great.

Believe it or not, we’re actually pretty thrilled to find out that we have less material to work with. We’re still chipping away at it. Translation is just wrapping up (thank you Meenakshi!) and the real magic (or agony) begins shortly.

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There was a major language barrier for us in India when we shot our film. The boxers and coaches on the Indian team speak mainly in Hindi and I grew up in Canada my whole life and unfortunately only speak English, so we actually did not understand what was being said most of the time we were filming them.

When we conducted interviews with the boxers we needed a translator, and that was anyone we could find wherever we were in India at the time, who was willing to help us out. We also had so little time to interview the boxers due to their jammed packed training schedule six days a week. The time was actually so precious in fact we often had no time for the translator to explain their answers to us in English, we just had to move on to the next question, the interview process was definitely a matter of faith. Sounds crazy to make a film in this way, but we had no choice. We’re getting to know the boxers even more now since we can finally understand everything they’re saying.

We are almost done translating the interviews, and feel as though we have struck gold in finding Meenakshi Malhotra to translate our footage from Hindi to English. Meenakshi moved to Canada from Gurgaon, India in December 2006 and is currently pursuing her PhD in Biomedical Engineering at McGill. She was recommended through a friend and is perfect for the job because she’s from Haryana, the same state as most of the boxers and understands their dialect perfectly. The majority of people from Haryana speak a dialect called Haryanvi.

Anna and I have been lucky in encountering so many kind people in making this film and Meenakshi is no exception. Although she is super busy with her PhD, she is very generous with her time and works super fast, but best of all she’s fun to work to with!.

Ezra Winton recently interviewed us about the experience of making our film. Check out the full article on Art Threat.

The Indian women’s national boxing team is back from the sixth Asian Championships in Astana, Kazakhstan, where, surprise surprise, MC Mary Kom won gold. Her semi-final opponent failed to show up to the bout (smart cookie). In the finals, she beat Jong Ok of Korea 8-1.

Sarita Devi, also from the northeastern state of Manipur, picked up her own gold – her fourth.

All in all, our boxers won two gold, a silver and five bronze. Conspicuously absent from the 11-member team was one of our main characters, Chhoto Loura, two-time world bronze medalist. Chhoto normally fights in 50 kg, and we see that Sarita dropped from her usual 52 kg to fight in 51 kg. There is often lots of mixing and matching of weight categories to maximize the potential for success, so we wonder if Chhoto got lost in the shuffle.

While the team was away, one of Mary’s twins fell sick and had to taken to the hospital. Rest assured all is well now. Mary talked to Sify Sports about balancing boxing with her family responsibilities: “It’s difficult to manage motherhood and a career which involves so much travelling. I find it hard to leave my kids behind when I go for international tournaments or for national camps,” she said.

“My husband takes care of the family and gives me the strength to keep going. He just tells me to forget about everything, whether it’s the problems in Manipur which directly affect my family or the kids when I am competing,” she added.

It’s amazing to see the evolution of media coverage in India since we started this film. Googling Mary back in 2006 would result in just a few articles (and our blog was often the top result). Do it today and you’ll find a very different situation. Winning high profile awards in India has surely helped. India is just aching for another Olympic medal, so in the lead up to the Olympics, all eyes are on Mary.

Click here to view the embedded video.

As promised, here is the latest demo of our film that we presented at Hexagram. You might recognize some of the footage and interview from our previous sampler from 2007. We’re working on getting our last few interviews translated so we can start incorporating our new stuff.

All Mary, all the time! Now you can get the latest from the greatest on her new website, marykom.com.

She is also one of 25 athletes chosen from around the world to be featured in a new BBC multi-platform project for radio, TV and web called World Olympic Dreams.

“Viewers will be given a real insight into each of the athlete’s unique stories and very different personal circumstances while they all work towards the same goal of Olympic success: personal training regimes; coaches; diet; family; friends; their likes and dislikes and the sacrifices they all have to make.”

There’s more info on their press site.

Yesterday afternoon, we presented an overview of our project to a standing-room only crowd at Hexagram, the Institute for Research/Creation In Media Arts and Technologies based at Concordia University in Montreal. (Ameesha and I have both studied/worked at Concordia).

It was fun – they served munchies, wine and beer on the 11th floor of the EV Building.

Two other groups also showed their work: XS Labs and the Technoculture, Art and Games group, also known as TAG.

These research-creation get-togethers are pretty informal and a good chance to meet potential future collaborators or learn about what else is going on at Hexagram.

We presented a slideshow of images plus a brand new four-minute demo of our film, which we will unveil in this very space. Soon! (Update, see it here.)

Special thanks to organizer Momoko Allard for inviting us to participate (we’re seen chatting with her in the above image). And thank you to Adam Budd for the photo.