Monday, December 3, 2012

14th Madurai Film Festival : Final list of films; Rest of India Documentaries


14th Madurai International Documentary

 and Short Film Festival 2012

6,7,8 December 2012

Section: FILMS FROM REST OF INDIA

DOCUMENTARIES

1) Bharat Mata Ki Jai
Dir: Avadhoot Khanolkar, Shweta Radhakrishnan, Amol Ranjan, Arpita
Chakroborty, Anurag Mazumdar
At the heart of Mumbai’s mill country, Lalbaug-Parel, stands
Bharatmata Cinema, one of the remaining single screen theatres
showing Marathi fi lms exclusively. The theatre is an iconic reminder
of a fast disappearing working class culture in Mumbai.
Through the lives of Kapil Bhopatkar, the owner, and Baban, one
of the oldest employees of the theatre, the fi lm explores the history
and development of Bharatmata as a space for articulating the
cultural identity of Mumbai’s working class and raises important
questions about its existence and survival. The characters, widely
disparate through their socio-economic class, come together
through their passionate love for cinema and their celebration of
the main character in the fi lm – Bharatmata Cinema itself.
anuragmazu@gmail.com

2) Indelible
Dir: Pavitra Chalam; 16 min; 2012; English
It is an introduction to a feature length documentary created
specifi cally for the world Down syndrome congress (2012), south
Africa and is the offi cial fi lm for the down syndrome federation of
India (Dsfi ).
pavithra.chalam@curleystreet.com

3) Dere tun Dilli
Dir: Divya Cowasji & Shilpi Gulati; 26 min; 2012; Siraiki, English, Hindi


‘Dere tun Dilli’ is a fi lm about storytellers who weave history in the
everyday. Storytellers, who tell tales of a divided country, of struggles
across borders and of lost and found homes. Storytellers, who
try to remember, keep a collective memory alive and who often
forget. ‘Dere tun Dilli’ is a journey through time, through Dera
Ismail Khan and Delhi, through memory, living and forgetting.
shilpi.gulati1@gmail.com

4) Nirnay
Dir: Pushpa Rawat; 56 min; 2012; Hindi, Garhwali
By following the lives of the women over three years, the fi lm documents
the changes in their lives and tries to capture the essence of
their existence, sometimes through conversations, and sometimes
by simply observing their seemingly innocuous every day routine.
srinivasan@hotmail.com

5) Night Hawks
Dir: Umadevi Tanuku; 52 min; 2012; Hindi
This documentary tries to look at Delhi from the perspective of
people who work at night, and reveals multiple stories that often
go unnoticed.
umafti@hmail.com

6) Diamond Band
Dir: Samridhi Dasot; 17 min; 2012; Gujarati, Hindi
The fi lm revolves around an Ahmedabad Wedding Brass Band
called Dimond Band. It explores their profession, the personal lives
and background of members and their equation as a team.
Dasotsamridhi@gmail.com

7) In Rags
Dir: Abhishek Chandra; 13 min; 2012; Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati
The fi lm is about the biggest dump yard in Ahemedabad.
abishek.c@nid.edu

8) Pennadi / My Mirror is the Door
Dir: Leena Manimekalai; 52 min; 2012; Tamil


Tamil, a World Classic Language, has a long history of culture and its
literature dates back to even before Common Era. The ten anthologies
and eight long poems of Sangam age from 100 B.C to 250 A.D are the
oldest and most distinguished body of secular poetry extant in India.

Women poets were a strong presence in Sangam literature of yesteryears
and their scholarship is proved that total of 154 of the 2831
poems carry women’s signatures, The legacy include the much
quoted Aavaiyar, Kaakai Padiniyar, Aadhi manthiyaar, Kuramagal
Ilaveyini, Veri paadiya kaamakkanniyar, Kavarpendu, Nakkannaiyaar,
Nappasalaiyar, Paari Magalir, to include the important.
Leena Manimekalai, the contemporary Tamil woman poet enters
the cavern of her own mind and fi nds there the scattered leaves not
only of her own power but of the tradition of her foremothers that
might have generated that power.

9) Ballad of Resistance
Dir: Leena Manimekalai; 35 min; 2012; Hindi


Balladof Resistance is a video portrait of indigenous tribal journalist
and activist Dayamani Barla, her perseverance and tireless fi ght
against corporations and the state machinery. The fi lm follows
how she, from a humble background became one of the pioneering
adivasi journalists of India and later a writer-activist. Her current
leadership in the Anti Displacement Movement with Nagari villagers
against land acquisition of 35 villages by State in the name of
“development” is the very impetus of Ballad of Resistance.

10) Please Don’t Beat Me, Sir!
Dir: Shashwati Talukdar & P.Kerim Friedman; 75 min; 2011; Hindi,
Bhantu, Gujarati
Over 60 million Indians belong to communities imprisoned by the
British as “criminals by birth”. The chaara of Ahmedabad, in
western India, are one of 198 such “criminal tribes”. Declaring
that they are “born actors”, not born criminals a group of chhara
youth turned to street theatre in their fi ght against police brutality,
corruption and the stigma of criminality—a stigma internalized
by their own grandparents “please don’t beat me sir!” follows the
lives of these young actors and their families as they take their
struggle to streets , hoping their plays will spark a revolution.
info@fourindiandhalf.com

11) 3D Stereo Caste
Dir: A.S. Ajith kumar; 23mins; 2012; Malayalam
3D Stereo Caste is the fi rst part of the documentary series on caste
in music. It tries to explore how caste plays a keyrole in determining
the practices in music, listening habits, performance, classifi
cations and how musicians experience caste in their fi eld. This
introductory chapter focuses on the fi eld of chenda( a percussion
instrument),Cinematic dance and the folk music performances in
kerala.
asajithkumar@gmail.com

12) Jai Bhim Comrade
Directed by Anand Patwardhan, 180 min; 2012; Marathi with Tamil
Subtitles


For thousands of years India’s Dalits were abhorred as “untouchables”
denied education and treated as bonded labour. By 1923
BhimraoAmbedkar broke the taboo, won doctorates abroad and
fought for the emancipation of his people. He drafted India’s Constitution,
led his followers to discard Hinduism for Buddhism. His
legend still spreads through poetry and song.
In 1997 a statue of Dr. Ambedkar in a Dalit colony in Mumbai was
desecrated with footwear. As angry residents gathered, police
opened fi re killing 10. Vilas Ghogre, a leftist poet, hung himself in
protest.
‘Jai Bhim Comrade’ shot over 14 years, follows the poetry and music
of people like Vilas marks a subaltern tradition of reason that
from the days of the Buddha, has fought superstition and religious
bigotry.

13) Get up Stand up
Directed by Sreemith, 34 min; 2012; Tamil, Malayalam with English
subtitles
The documentary, Get up Stand up is in some ways, an answer to
many of the myths surrounding the nuclear power projects, the
world over. Though this fi lm is set particularly in the back drop of
the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project and the people’s struggle
against it, the fi lm raises almost all the questions regarding the
nuclear plants.

14) Song of the Coastal Lilies
Directed by Sreemith, 7 min; 2012; Tamil, English with English subtitles;
music video
A music video on the people’s resistance against the Koodankulam
nuclear project


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