Delhi International Ethnographic Film Festival : Schedule for 29 Nov
Rahul Roy
Venues: Alliance Francaise, Lodi Estate.
Time: 11:00 AM to 8:15 PM
Panel Discussion:
Entering The World of Jean Rouch: Francoise Foucault / David MacDougall / Shohini Ghosh / Marilda Batista
7:15 pm / 29 Nov / Alliance Francaise / Lodi Estate
Petit a Petit at 11:00 am / 29 Nov / Alliance Francaise / Lodi Estate
Dir: Jean Rouch / 90 min / France
Damouré, the manager, along with Lam and Illo, of an import/export firm in Ayorou called Petit à Petit, decides to build an apartment block and leaves for Paris to find out "how people can live in houses with more than one storey". In the city, he discovers the curious lifestyle and thinking of the Parisian tribe, who he describes in "Persian Letters" sent regularly to his companions, until one of them, believing him to have gone mad, sends Lam out after him. In Paris, Damouré and Lam buy a Bugatti convertible and meet Safi, Ariane and a "tramp", Philippe. The group decides to go back to Africa and build a new house. But the two women and Philippe are unable to get used to this new life and leave. The only thing left to do for the three friends is to withdraw to a cabin on the riverbanks and mediate upon "modern society".
Tempus de Baristas at 2:00 pm / 29 Nov / Alliance Francaise / Lodi Estate
Dir: David MacDougall / 100 min / dir. present
Tempus de Baristas follows the lives of three generations of goatherders in the mountains of Eastern Sardinia. Pietro, 17, loyally helps his father in the herding and milking of their goats. His father, Franchiscu, 62, would like his son to stay in the mountains but knows he will probably have to leave to pursue his education and future prospects. Their friend Miminu, in his 40s and still unmarried, knows all his goats by name but faces a future of increasing poverty and isolation. For Pietro, the lives of his father and Miminu provide reference points against which to measure himself and consider his future.
Delhi- Mumbai- Delhi at 4:00 pm / 29 Nov / Alliance Francaise / Lodi Estate
Dir: Saba Dewan / 63 min / India
Riya dances in the beer bars of Mumbai to make a living. The documentary follows her from her home in Delhi to Mumbai where hundreds of working class girls come in search of work and a future. Riya's future is unpredictable and the present is marked with its own difficulties. The police harass her family in Delhi, there is constant pressure from her agent in Mumbai to attract more tips and the work itself is demanding. However, there are other girls to have fun with, there is money to dress well and then there are men… admirers promising the moon. The documentary is an intimate portrait of the everyday in the life of the girls, their agents and their neighbourhoods.
Delhi-Mumbai-Delhi, shot in the backdrop of the Maharashtra Governments' controversial move to ban girls from dancing in beer bars, interweaves stories of gender, labour, sexuality and popular culture within an increasingly globalised economy.
Chronique D'un Ete at 5:30 pm / 29 Nov / Alliance Francaise / Lodi Estate
Dir: Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin / 90 min / France
In the summer of 1960, Edgar Morin, a sociologist, and Jean Rouch conducted an enquiry into the daily lives of young Parisians in an attempt to understand their concept of happiness. This experimental film follows, over a period of several months, both the investigation itself and the development of its main characters. The initial question "How do you live? Are you happy?" very quickly raises others on a number of key issues: politics, hopelessness, boredom, solitude… The interviewees eventually meet as a group at the showing of the film, to discuss and approve or disapprove of it.