MAKING MIGRANT: DIALOGUES THROUGH FILM: Screenings at IIC

[manu khurana]

MAKING MIGRANT: DIALOGUES THROUGH FILM
A Series of Screenings and Discussions
Auditorium, India International Centre
Thursday, 15th January to Sunday 18th January, 2009

The Public Service Broadcasting Trust; Dr Radhika Chopra, Department of Sociology, University of Delhi and the India International Centre are organising a series of film screenings and discussions, between 15 and 18 January 2009, entitled Making Migrant: Dialogues through Film.   The series will focus on the experiences, processes and realities that go into creating the `migrant'.
The event will showcase powerful films dealing with the politics of migration, labour, identity, citizenship, human rights, exile, dehumanisation, refugees, borders, home and many other complexities of what constitutes migration, not in terms of statistics, but the social, political, economic and emotional realities that lie behind them.
 
Making Migrant: Dialogues through Film
15-18 January 09
India International Centre
Programme

Thursday, 15 January
Auditorium
06:30 pm                                           
A FORGOTTEN PEOPLE: THE SAKHALIN KOREANS (Dai Sil Kim-Gibson | 1995 | 59")
The documentary presents a neglected aspect of World War II and a tragic legacy of the Cold War: the saga of the Koreans who spent 50 years on Sakhalin Island. Koreans were brought by the Japanese to the island as forced labourers during the war, only to be abandoned to the Soviet Union in 1945. Forgotten by everyone including their own country, less than 1,000 remain of the original 43,000 labourers. It is a universal story of displaced peoples whose lives were assigned to oblivion as the power struggle unfolded in the latter part of the 20th century.
Film Courtesy: Dai Sil Kim-Gibson
Discussion:  Prof. Radha Kumar
Friday, 16 January
Auditorium
06:30 pm                                          
OUJDA FRONTIERLAND (From Sahara Chronicle: A Collection of Videos on Mobility and the Politics of Containment in the Sahara. Ursula Biemann | 2006-07 | 7".10')
A video collection containing a number of short videos that visually chronicle the current sub-Saharan exodus towards Europe. The piece examines the politics of mobility and containment which lies at the heart of the current global geopolitics and takes a close look at the modalities and logistics of the migration system in the Sahara. This piece looks at the impossibility of marking borders in desert landscapes. 
Film Courtesy: Ursula Biemann
06:40 pm                                           
DUR KINARA (SHORES FAR AWAY) Savyasaachi Jain | 2007 | 53"
A film about the thousands of Indians who are smuggled across borders to Europe every year.  Their journey is a saga of risk, deprivation and imprisonment.  Many die en route. Some freeze to death, others are killed by the smugglers' mafia or disappear without a trace, leaving their families wondering what happened to them. The film moves across the borders of Austria, the UK and India to highlight the multiple crossings of transnational migration. A film about the thousands of Indians.
Film Courtesy: Savyasaachi Jain
Discussion: Dr Prabhu Mohapatra, Prof. Meenakshi Thapan, Savyasaachi Jain
 
Saturday, 17 January
Auditorium
11:00 am                                           
SAHAR: BEFORE THE SUN (Sahar Adish, Joe Babarsky, Sanja Jovanovic, Luke Tilghman 2005 | 5".30')
From "Beyond Borders: Personal Stories from a Small Planet"
After the Taliban took control of Kabul in 1996, Sahar Adish fled Afghanistan with her family to find safety in the United States. Sahar, at age 18, speaks powerfully of the courage and aspirations of her parents, her family's struggle for intellectual freedom and educational rights. Her fierce will to continue her schooling in her new homeland is in part a reflection and remembrance of the denial of education imposed by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Film Courtesy: Listen Up! Youth Media Network
11:10 am                                           
FOREIGNERS (Ayala Sharot | 2006 | 9". 40')
The film is based on interviews with ten young people from different countries who live in London. These interviews suggest a fresh look on contemporary English culture, and raise more fundamental questions about cultural differences and human nature. The animation combines various techniques including rotoscoping, sketches and hand rendered animation.
Film Courtesy: Ayala Sharot
11:20 am                                           
I FOR INDIA (Sandhya Suri |2005 | 70")
A bitter-sweet time capsule of alienation, discovery, racism and belonging, "I for India" is a chronicle of immigration in sixties Britain and beyond, seen through the eyes of one Asian family and their movie camera. Images of events travel across space and time to capture the links between multiple homes.
Film Courtesy: Sandhya Suri
Discussion:  Sir Mark Tully
04:00 pm                                           
CONTINUOUS JOURNEY (Ali Kazimi | 2004 | 87")
In 1914, the Komagata Maru, a ship carrying 376 immigrants from British India, was turned away by Canada. The consequences were felt throughout the British Empire. Continuous Journey is a compelling and eye-opening investigation into the past and present ramifications of this incident. More than history film, Continuous Journey is a provocative, moving, and multilayered essay that interweaves photographs, newsreels, home movies and official documents to unravel a complex and little-known story.
Film Courtesy: Ali Kazimi
05:30 pm                                           
REX VS SINGH (Ali Kazimi, John Greyson, Richard Fung | 2008 | 30")
The film documents the trial of two Sikh men charged with sodomy in Vancouver in 1915 and explores the intersections of race, homophobia and the law, where sexual orientation was deployed for deportation.
Film Courtesy: Ali Kazimi
06:00 pm                                           
BACKSTAGE BOYS (Meera Dewan | 2002 | 30")
An exploration of illegal immigration of young men, from Punjab to Europe and North America, in search of a better life and `for the sake of the family'.
Film Courtesy: PSBT
Discussion: Prof. Harleen Singh, Prof. Shohini Ghosh Richard Fung , Meera Dewan
 
Sunday, 18 January
Auditorium
04:00 pm                                           
DREAMING OF TIBET (Will Parrinello | 2006 | 60")
In isolated communities around the world, particularly in India, Nepal and the United States, Tibetan exiles have created a 'virtual Tibet,' where they have endured and even flourished in the face of overwhelming adversity. The film follows their arduous journeys from Tibet into exile over a 19,000 foot Himalayan pass. The film looks at the lives of three extraordinary Tibetan exiles who have survived in exile and are deeply involved in working for the survival of their culture.: Ms. Tseten Phanucharas, a political activist, who is one of the Dalai Lama's press coordinators in Los Angeles; Ms. Tsering Lhamo, a nurse working with recent refugees in Kathmandu, Nepal; and Mr. Ngawang Ugyen, a monk in the Mt. Everest foothills.
Film Courtesy: Foundation for Universal Responsibility
Discussion: Dr Bharati Puri, Youdon Aukatsang
06:00 pm                                           
DESERT RADIO DRONE | 5"40'
INTERVIEW ADAWA | 10"20'
DEPORTATION PRISON LAAYOUNE | 5"46'
From Sahara Chronicle: A Collection of Videos on Mobility and the Politics of Containment in the Sahara. Ursula Biemann | 2006-07
A video collection containing an undefined number of short videos documenting the present sub-Saharan exodus towards Europe. The piece examines the politics of mobility and containment which lies at the heart of the current global geopolitics and takes a close look at the modalities and logistics of the migration system in the Sahara. Unlike the networks facilitated by lasting material infrastructures such as rails or fibreglass, the trans-Saharan migration network is a vibrant process of spatialisation performed by the psychic dynamics of anxiety, fantasy and desire, a web made of obstinacy and vulnerability.
Film Courtesy: Ursula Biemann
06:30 pm                                           
X-MISSION (Ursula Biemann | 2008 | 35")
"X-Mission" explores the logic of the refugee camp as one of the oldest extraterritorial zones. Taking Palestinian refugee camps as a case in point, the video engages with the different discourses – legal, symbolic, urban, mythological, historical – that give meaning to this exceptional space. According to International Law, the Palestinian refugee represents the "exception within the exception" outside the domain of rights. In the course of 60 years they had to build a civil life in the camps, fostering an intense microcosm with complex relations to homeland and diaspora. Given the vital connections among the separated Palestinian populations, the video attempts to place the Palestinian refugee in the context of a global diaspora and considers post-national models of belonging which have emerged through the networked matrix of this widely dispersed community
Film Courtesy: Ursula Biemann
Discussion: Prof.  Achin Vanaik, Dr Nivedita Menon