18th Madurai Film Festival 2016: Sudheer Gupta - Filmmaker in Focus

18th Madurai Film Festival 2016 : Sudheer Gupta – Filmmaker in Focus

Born 3^rd January 1960, Mother tongue: Hindi

Lives in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

Alumni : CHS, JNU (1981-83,94-97);  FTII, Pune (1984-87)

Making independent and commissioned documentary films since 1990. Films about social realities, developmental delimmas, environment issues, folk-traditions, folk-performers and artists. Films shot in India, Germany, UK and USA. Films exhibited all over the world through various TV networks and film festivals.

Email: cinemasudheer@gmail.com

 Films by Sudheer Gupta : 

1.    “Song of a Painter”

40 mins./DV/2006/Hindi with subtitles in English

A chance biography of an extraordinary painter Manohar Deolalikar who lived on the streets in Delhi for over 30 years till his demise in 2003. This painter also sang hauntingly.

2.    “Anant Kalakar” (Timeless Artist)

33 mins./HDV/2006/Hindi & Rajasthani with subtitles in English

In a short film introducing the myriads arts and artists of eastern and western Rajasthan revealing their mesmerizing effect and their music.

3.    “Three Generations of Jogi Umar Farukh”

52 mins./HD/2010/ Hindi & Rajasthani with subtitles in English

A film travelling to muslim jogis of Alvar, Mewat, Rajasthan while documenting three generations of Jogi Umar Farukh the chief protagonist.

4.    “Dream of a Painter”

40 mins./HD/2011/English with subtitles

A chance biography of an English coal-miner Robert Page who turned to his lifetime passion of painting at the age of 70. He painted his life spent in the mines. 

“Dancing Pandavas”

72 mins./HD/2013

It's a travel film that traces folk practices related to Pandavs of the Mahabharata in Western Himalayas. This film is the first ever record of folk-beliefs of people considering Pandavs as their ancestors in stories, theatre, possession, dance, agnostic games, a large heritage of broken or incomplete temples, spreading across Garhwal Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.

The film was produced for Indira Gandhi National Centre of Arts, New Delhi.

18th Madurai Film Festival 2016 : Screening Schedule and Film Sections

18th Madurai Film Festival 2016 

Film Sections:

1) Retrospective I : Amshan Kumar

2) Retrospective II : Stalin K

3) Filmmaker in Focus : Sudheer Gupta

4) Women Making Films : Films by women directors - curated by Vaishnavi Sundar

5) Films from Sri Lanka : Curated by Someetharan

6) International films

7) Indian films

Screening Schedule

Screen A

10 am to 4 pm

6 Dec : Arul Anandhar College, Karumathur

7 Dec: Fatima College, Madurai

8 Dec: Department of Folklore, Madurai Kamaraj University, Palkalai Nagari

8 Dec: Department of Communication, Tamilnadu Theological Seminary, Arasaradi

9 Dec: Madurai Media and Film Academy

10 Dec: IDEAS, Vaazhaithoppu

Screen B

5:30 to 8.30 pm; 6 Dec to 10 Dec (all five days)

Lens Media Centre, Loyola ITI campus, Arasaradi, Madurai

Organised by MARUPAKKAM

18th Madurai Film Festival : Stalin K Retrospective

18^th Madurai Film Festival 2016

Stalin K – Retrospective

Stalin K. is a media and human rights activist, with 24 years experience pioneering new models of community media. He is a teacher, trainer and an internationally acclaimed documentary filmmaker. He is one of India’s leading exponent of community radio, campaign design and community video. 

He currently leads Video Volunteers, an international organization dedicated to empowering community voices by setting up media projects around the world. 

Stalin has made over a dozen documentaries and has received several national and international awards. 

Films by Stalin K

INDIA UNTOUCHED-Stories of a People Apart 

108 minutes | Hindi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Punjabi with English subtitles| 2008

This film is perhaps the most comprehensive look at Untouchability ever undertaken on film. Spanning eight states and four religions, this film will make it impossible for anyone to deny that Untouchability continues to be practiced in India.  The film introduces leading Benares scholars who interpret Hindu scriptures to mean that Dalits ‘have no right’ to education, and Rajput farmers who proudly proclaim that no Dalit may sit in their presence, and that the police must seek their permission before pursuing cases of atrocities.  

Our Water, Our Future |58 minutes | English | 2005

This film was made with the Northern Arapaho and the Eastern Shoshone tribes of the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming, US. Since water is more expensive than gas, it has become one of the most pressing issues in the American West. These two Tribes have one of the most extensive and valuable water rights in the US, yet many of them lack running water in their homes. In this film, 100 Voices from the Reservation explore why the Tribes have been unable to exercise their rights. In the process, they educate their fellow Tribal members about government injustice, reflect on Tribal responsibility and make a compelling call to action. 

Gujarat - A work in progress 

35 minutes | Gujarati, Hindi with English Subtitles | 2002

This film reconstructs, through interviews with survivors, the systematic carnage unleashed on the minorities in Gujarat in 2002. The film was put together for submission to the National Human Rights Commission when it first visited Gujarat in the third week of March 2002. Shooting started on the very first days of the riots and includes footage nowhere else captured. The 100 hours of footage was submitted to the inquiry commissions and the activists have used it in their court case against the government officials in Gujarat who are believed to have been in connivance in the continuance of the violence.

Lesser Humans 59 minutes | Gujarati with English subtitles | 1996

This film helped to put the issue of Untouchability on the agenda for numerous international development agencies. It investigates the lives of ‘manual scavengers,’ the community at the lowest rung of the caste system whose inhuman caste-based occupation is to manually dispose of human excreta.