DOCUMENTARY BEARS WITNESS: TRAVELLING FILM SOUTHASIA 2018- A FESTIVAL OF SOUTH ASIAN DOCUMENTARIES

[rohit...@aol.in]

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India International Centre

and

New Imaginations: Jindal School of Journalism and Communication

 

present

 

Documentary Bears Witness: Travelling Film Southasia 2018

A Festival of South Asian Documentaries

1 to 4 August 2018

 

A festival of 12 exceptional nonfiction films from South Asia produced in the last two years. The festival encapsulates the flavors of the Subcontinent with films about people from Afghanistan, Burma, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The festival includes the award winners of Film Southasia Festival 2017, Kathmandu as well as other films selected to showcase the variety, treatment and intensity that marks the world of Southasian documentary and non-fiction. In the words of Kanak Mani Dixit, Chair of Film Southasia 2017 “…this is the best way for distanced societies to build empathy towards each other. These documentaries are the best antidote to ultra-nationalist populism that is overtaking each country of South Asia…” Organised in collaboration with Film Southasia, Kathmandu

 

Screening schedule

 

1 August 2018 at 6:00 pm                         Introduction By Ms Mitu Varma, Director Film Southasia, Kathmandu   Followed by Amdavad Ma Famous (India) (30 min; 2015; dvd; English subtitles) Director: Hardik Mehta   Multiple award winner including the National Film Award for Best Non – Fiction Film 2015; Golden Conch for Best Documentary & Best Editor, 14th Mumbai International Film Festival 2016; Best Short Documentary Award, Budapest International Documentary Festival 2015; Best Foreign Documentary 2016, River Film Festival, Italy; among others   Set during the kaleidoscopic backdrop of the biggest kite-flying festival in India, Amdavad ma Famous, witnesses the transformation of 11-year-old Zaid from a boy next door to an aggressive and passionate kite-runner, till he comes across a challenge that threatens to keep him away from the one thing he loves   At 6:45 pm Demons in Paradise (Sri Lanka) (94 min; 2017; dvd; English & with subtitles) Director: Jude Ratnam   Recipient of the Ram Bahadur Award for Best Film, Film Southasia Festival, Kathmandu 2017   Sri Lanka 1983 – Jude Ratnam is five years old. On a red train, he flees the massacre of Tamils instigated by the Pro-Sinhalese majoritarian government. Now a filmmaker, he tales the same train from South to North. As he advances, the traces of the violence of the 26-year-old war, which turned the Tamil fight for freedom into self-destructive terrorism pass before his eyes. Film about a war that has spent itself and provided a need to come to terms with the brutality, to find closure and keep the memory alive

2 August 2018 at 6:00 pm   Is it Too Much to Ask (India) (30 min; 2017; dvd; English subtitles) Director: Leena Manimekalai   Special Mention, Film Southasia Festival 2017, Kathmandu   Is it too much to ask follows the journey of two friends, Smile and Glady, looking for a rental apartment in Chennai and the obstacles and social stigma they encounter in the process for being single and for being transgender women. A delicate documentary that treats a sensitive subject with lightness while exposing society’s prejudices   At 6:40 pm 32 Souls (Myanmar) (25 min; 2016; dvd; English subtitles) Director: Sai Naw Kham   Recipient of The Nabil Bank Award for Best Student Film, Film Southasia Festival, Kathmandu 2017   The film portrays the daily rhythms of the life of a single woman as she bridges the old and new worlds. An old woman from Mong Htet in northern Shan State in Myanmar looks back on a life marked by privation and loss. Her memories are interwoven with images that touch on this conflicted state’s past, present and future   At 7:15 pm Fireflies in the Abyss (India) (88 min; 2015; dvd; English & with subtitles) Director: Chandrasekhar Reddy   Multiple award winner including The UNICEF Award for Best Documentary in Children’s Issues, Film Southasia Festival, Kathmandu 2017; Golden Conch for Best Documentary & Best Cinematography, Mumbai International Film Festival 2016; Winner of the Award for the Best Long Documentary, International Documentary and Short Film Festival, Kerala 2016; among others   In the Jaintia Hills of Northeast India, boys and men descend into the abyss of the 'rat-holes' to scratch coal out of hard rock, with nothing more than a pickaxe and a head-torch. One of them is Suraj, an 11-year old boy. Born in the mines to Nepali immigrants, Suraj cherishes the hope of getting out of the coal-pit someday. But despite the hardships and pain of separation, we see pride, generosity and sacrifice

3 August 2018 at 6:00 pm   Rasan Piya (India) (80 min; 2016; dvd; English subtitles) Director: Niharika Popli   Recipient of The Tareque Masud Award for Best Debut Film, Film Southasia Festival, Kathmandu 2017; Special Jury Mention, Mumbai International Film Festival 2016   The story of an extraordinary musician, poet and teacher, Ustad Abdul Rashid Khan who represented the 16th generation of Miyan Tansen’s lineage. He continued to compose, teach, travel and perform across India until his death in February 2016 at the age of 107 years   At 7:30 pm Among the Believers (Pakistan) (84 min; 2015; dvd; English & with subtitles) Directors: Hemal Trivedi, Mohammed Ali Naqvi   Charismatic cleric Abdul Aziz Ghazi, an ISIS supporter and Taliban ally, is waging jihad against the Pakistani state. His dream is to impose a strict version of Shariah law throughout the country, as a model for the world. Among the Believers follows Aziz on his very personal quest to create an Islamic utopia, during the bloodiest period in Pakistan’s modern history

4 August 2018 at 11:00 am   Trembling Mountain (Nepal) (83 min; 2016; dvd; English & with subtitles) Director: Kesang Tseten   Special Mention, Film Southasia Festival, Kathmandu 2017   On April 25, 2015 Nepal was hit by a quake measuring 7.9 on the Richter Scale. Among the worst hit was the prime trekking destination of Langtang. A glacial collapse caused an avalanche of rock, ice and mud, resulting in an airblast, equal to half the force of the Hiroshima atom bomb. A story of destruction and loss, slowly replaced by rebuilding and hope   At 12:40 Overruled (Afghanistan) (52 min; 2016; dvd; English subtitles) Directors: Fernaz Jurabchian, Mohammadreza Jurabchian   Recipient of the award for Best Director, 16th Beirut International Film Festival 2017   Overruled recounts the lives and hopes of young Afghan refugees in Iran. Working as ball boys in tennis clubs in Teheran, they become proficient enough in the game to compete in competitions. But they continue to be viewed as outsiders in the eyes of the Iranians and are faced with the constant threat of detention and deportation   At 2:00 pm Lock and Key (India) (83 min; 2017; dvd; English & with subtitles) Director: Shilpi Gulati   Special Mention, Film Southasia Festival, Kathmandu 2017   A story told with compassion and kindness of the families of five men in Punjab recovering from the rampant drug problem in the state. While they struggle to establish new relationships with their pasts, their partners strive to redefine the meaning of love and the labour of everyday life   At 3:30 pm The Shepherdess of the Glaciers (India) (74 min; 2016; dvd; English subtitles) Directors: Stanzin Dorjai, Christiane Mordelet   Recipient of the Grand Prize, Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival 2016; and The Jury Award for Runner Up, Film Southasia Festival, Kathmandu 2017   Way up in Ladakh at 16,500 feet, lives a shepherdess with a flock of 250 sheep and pashmina goats on a huge deserted rock-strewn mountain. Documented by her brother over four seasons, the film depicts both her world of icy loneliness and the unbreakable bond between humans and animals           From 5:00 pm to 6:30 pm Conversations on Documentary As Protest A conversation with leading documentary filmmakers – Pankaj Butalia, Sanjay Kak, Vani Subramaniam, Nakul Singh Sawhney   At 6:40 pm Soz: A Ballad of Maladies (India) (85 min; 2016; dvd; English & with subtitles) Directors: Tushar Madhav, Sarvnik Kaur   Multiple award winner including Best Debut Film (Non-Fiction), 64th National Film Awards of India 2016; Best Film Feature Doc, 10th International Documentary & Short Film Festival, Kerala 2017; Best Script Feature Doc, 12th IDPA Awards for Excellence in Dococumentary 2017; The Ram Bahadur Award for Best Film, Film Southasia Festival, Kathmandu 2017; among others   Of folk, rock and hip-hop, this documentary captures the rhythm and blues of resistance in the Kashmir valley. It is a portrait of those musicians and artists who have turned their art into weapons of resistance during periods of heightened state repression and violence in the region. As the Kashmiri satirist and poet Zareef Ahmad Zareed ponders over the credibility of his pen, a sparrow’s song of lament takes over; embarking us on a journey to discover the threads of people’s history of Kashmir, which have been preserved in the region’s folk poetry and music for centuries

 

 

Entry open to all

 

Venue for the screenings: C.D. Deshmukh Auditorium

 India International Centre, 40, Max Mueller Marg, New Delhi 110003

Telephone: 2461 9431

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-  Rohit

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Rohit Rellan

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