Fwd: Apr 20 screening of Paromita Vohra film, and discussion with filmmaker. (Please circulate)

[M. Hilaire]

Partners in Crime. Screening and discussion with filmmaker Paromita Vohra, Apr 20, 4-6 pm. 

Location: Kriser Screening Room, 25 Waverly Place, NYU Anthropology Department. 

[Please note location change.)

Co-sponsored by Department of Media, Culture and Communication, South Asia@NYU, Cinema Studies@Tisch, and Asia-Pacific-American Studies Program, NYU. 

(94 min. HDV. Documentary. Hindi and English, 2011, India)

A film by Paromita Vohra

TRAILER: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxGJ-BtgnB4

ONE LINE

Partners in Crime takes you on a rollicking trip through the grey worlds of copyright, art and the market in a story about love, money and crime.

SYNOPSIS

Who owns a song – the person who made it or the person who paid for it? Is piracy organized crime or class struggle? Are alternative artists who want to hold rights over their art and go it alone in the market, visionaries or nutcases? Is the fine line between plagiarism and inspiration a cop-out or a whole other way of looking at the fluid nature of authorship? When more than three fourths of those with an internet connection download all sorts of material for free, are they living out a brand new cultural freedom – or are they criminals?

Full of wicked irony, great music and thorny questions Partners inCrime explores the grey horizons of copyright and culture in times when technology is changing the contours of the market.

Metal heads who market their own music, folklorists who turn tribal aphorisms into short stories, music archivists who hoard and share everything they can get their hands on, anti-piracy fanatics who think piracy funds terrorism, a smooth talking DVD street salesman who outlines the efficiency of the illegal market, media moguls, lobbyists, “monetizers”, downloaders, uploaders, the biggest hit song of 2010 and the small time nautanki singer whose song it was inspired by – these places and people throng the world’s bazaar in which the film is set. Partners in Crime takes you through a story about art, crime, love and money to check if the times, they may be a-changing after all.

 

FEATURING: Vijaydan Detha, Thermal and a Quarter, Lawrence Liang, Demonic Resurrection, Pete Lockett, itwofs.com, Scribe, Rampat Harami & Rani Bala, Ram Sampath, Juma Khan, Irfan of Dil Ne Phir Yaad Kiya, FM Gold, CDrack.in and many others.

CREDITS:

PRODUCER: Magic Lantern Foundation EXECUTIVE PRODUCER Devi Pictures  DIRECTOR Paromita Vohra CAMERA Shanti Bhushan, Bakul Sharma EDITOR Rikhav Desai SOUND Asheesh Pandya, Chris Burchell, Gissy Michael MUSIC Akshay Rajpurohit & Kuber Sharma

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

Paromita Vohra is a documentary filmmaker and writer whose films explore issues of politics, feminism, culture and desire. Some of her celebrated films are ‘Morality TV and the Loving Jehad: A Thrilling Tale’, 'Q2P', 'Un-limited Girls', 'Where’s Sandra?', ‘Cosmopolis: Two Tales of a City’ and 'A Woman’s Place'. She is also scriptwriter of 'Khamosh Pani' (directed by Sabiha Sumar); 'A Few Things I Know About Her' (directed by Anjali Panjabi); and 'Skin Deep' (directed by Reena Mohan). Her fiction and non-fiction has been published in various anthologies including Electric Feather: The Tranquebar Book of Indian Erotica, Recess: The Penguin Book of Schooldays, Mumbai Noir and Bombay Meri Jaan, among others. For more, visit www.parodevi.com

--
Arvind Rajagopal

Media Studies

New York University

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Gayatri Gopinath
Associate Professor
Program Director, Asian/Pacific/American Studies
Department of Social and Cultural Analysis
20 Cooper Square, 4th Floor
New York University
New York NY 10003-7112
Phone: 212/998-9045
Fax: 212/995-4146