20th Madurai Film Festival 2018 : Short films from TOTO FUNDS THE ARTS

20th Madurai International Documentary and Short Film Festival 2018

TOTO FUNDS THE ARTS
Short Films

This package of 8 short films comprises a selection of the best entries, both
documentary and fiction, submitted for the annual Toto Awards for Short Film since
2013. As the purpose of these awards (two are given every year) is to applaud
emerging talent, only Indian filmmakers between the ages of 18 and 29 are eligible
to apply for them. The films will be screened in chronological order, starting with the
first year of the awards and ending with the last.

A DREAM CALLED AMERICA (Documentary, 24 mins)
Director: Anoop Sathyan (Winner of the TOTO Short Film Award, 2013)

This is a documentary about Shahbaz, a 15-year-old boy from Gujarat. His father
Aftab makes a living repairing cycles on a footpath. Shahbaz has studied for a year
in the USA on a scholarship, where he was hosted by an American couple. He
returns to India with a changed attitude and perspective, having experienced a
much more comfortable and carefree life away from home. Now he yearns to go
back to the USA and settle there, putting his parents in a dilemma.

HAMARE GHAR (Fiction, 30 mins)
Director: Kislay (Winner of the TOTO Short Film Award, 2014)
Kamla works as a full-time maid in an upwardly mobile modern Indian family’s
home. The lady of the house is affectionate and regularly showers her with gifts and
old clothes. In this ‘modern’ home, there is no obvious violence or hierarchy but, as
Kamla slowly realises, it is concealed behind caring words and gestures of love.
The film explores class relationships in an atmosphere of love and affection.

A SUMMER FLU (Fiction, 17 mins)
Director: Priyanka Chhabra (Winner of the TOTO Short Film Award, 2014)

Wrapped in long afternoon siestas or stuck in an abandoned house, lie endless
pockets of time. Bright white walls carrying the shadows of pink bougainvillea
overlook desolate community parks. They say the hotter the summer, the sweeter
the mangoes. This film delicately balances the imagined and the real.

LITTLE HANDS (Fiction, 8 mins)
Director: Rohin Raveendran (Winner of the TOTO Short Film Award, 2015)

This film traces the stressful journey of a sixth-grade student, Jobin George, as he
sits through a difficult Maths examination. With hostile classmates all around, their
pencils in motion, and a strict teacher on the prowl, Jobin is forced to answer
several difficult questions, both about Maths and about life. Without uttering a single
word, the film makes you revisit the innocence of childhood and the unselfishness
of our younger selves.

MEMORIALS (Fiction, 24 mins)
Director: Korou Khundrakpam (Shortlisted for the TOTO Short Film Awards, 2016)

This film renders an evening in the life of K as he is nudged to deepen his
preoccupation with loss. Finding his pet fish dead on returning home, he responds
by enacting various rituals to trace an imprint of the life, the only testimony of which
will soon perish. Later, he is tempted to open an old almirah stuffed with the
belongings of his late father. The rituals continue to take new forms during the
course of the evening and attest to his nuanced relationship to death.

KURLI (Fiction, 17 mins)
Director: Natesh Hegde (Long-listed for the TOTO Short Film Awards, 2018)

Siddi Subba steals bananas from a landlord’s farm where he works as a servant.
On the same day, three children go to catch crabs in the same farm. Meanwhile, the
landlord and his son find a bunch of bananas hidden in a pit and realise that
someone has stolen it from their farm. Although one of his sons is accused of being
the culprit, Siddi Subba does not confess to his crime.

BISMAAR GHAR (Documentary, 26 mins)
Director: Shreyas Dasharathe (Winner of the TOTO Short Film Award, 2018)

A house gives us a sense of belonging. A symbol of its time and cultural milieu, it is
like a living, breathing being with a unique identity. This film explores how with
changing times and circumstances, we are moving towards a strange kind of
uniformity in the wake of ‘urbanism’ and ‘development’. And it is especially visible in
the most personal embodiment of our selves—our house.

DIVE (Documentary, 19 mins) Director: Archana Chandrashekar (Winner of the TOTO Short Film Award, 2017)

DIVE observes life under Ellis Bridge, Ahmedabad, and tells a story of displacement and survival through 10-year-old Manna’s daily romance with the river Sabarmati.

20th Madurai Film Festival 2018: Director's Cut

20th Madurai International Documentary and Short Film Festival 2018

6-10 Dec; multiple venues; Madurai

 Still from "The Slave Genesis" by Aneez Mappilla

Films Section # 9

Director's Cut - curated by Amudhan R.P. (festival director)

List of films (for detailed synopsis)

1) Battle of Bhima Koregaon
Dir: Somnath Waghmare; 49 min

2) Amma
Dir: Neelan; 36 min

3) Perungadal Vettathu
Dir: Arul Ezhilan; 60 min

4) Lock and Key
Dir: Shipi Gulati; 83 min

5) India's Forbidden Love
Dir: Sadhana Subramaniam; 25 min

6) The Slave Genenis
Dir: Aneez K Mappilla; 64 min

7) Palai / Landscapes of Longing
Dir: Jayakrishnan Subramanian; 28 min

8) Ladies and Gentlewomen
Dir: Malini Jeevaratnam; 46 min

9) Sapnas
Dir: Bhavani GS; 5 min

10) Some Stories Around Witches
Dir: Lipika Singh Darai; 44 min

For detailed synopsis 

20th Madurai Film Festival 2018 : International Films

20th Madurai International Documentary and Short Film Festival 2018

International films - Documentaries : Final list 

(for detailed synopsis)

1) Humans Display (Dir: Lam Can-Zhao; 59 min; China)

2) Arlette, Courage is a Muscle (Katharina Diessner & Matilda Mester; 83 min; Central African Republic / Germany)

3) Dispossession (Dir: Mathieu Roy; 83 min; Canada)

4) Hear Me (Dir: Olga Arlauskas, Svetlana Gorlo; 90 min; Russia)

5) Nimble Fingers (Dir: Parsifal Reparato; 52 min; Vietnam / Italy)

6) Second Income (Dir: Gal Kedem; 54 min; Israel)

7) Bakurov (Dir: Yuliya Kiseloyova; 55 min; Russia)

8) Madman's Conspiracy (Dir:Algis Arlauskas; 50 min; Spain)

9) Copy Brad Pitt (Dir: Ariela Alush; 60 min; Israel)

10) Near the Railroad (Dir: Nora Fingscheidt & Simone Catharina; 63 min; Germany)

11) The Day Before Chinese New Year (Dir: Lam Can - Zhao; 23 min; China)

International films : Short fiction - Final list

(for detailed synopsis)

1) Fear (Dir: Alyona Poliyakova; 2 min; Russia)

2) Fire (Dir: Maria Shulgina; 14 min; Russia)

3) Good Day (Dir: Dasha Charusha; 18 min; Russia)

4) Innocent (Dir: Denis Simachov; 15 min; Russia)

5) Kin (Dir: Elen Nelidova; 30 min; Russia)

6) Eulogy for Denis K (Dir: Julia Trofimova; 12 min; Russia)

7) Teacher (Dir: Maxim Elagin; 14 min; Russia)

8) The Tree (Dir: Hava Mukhiyeva; 22 min; Russia)

9) The Typical Case (Dir: Daniil Gellar; 16 min; Russia)

10) Hand (Dir: Igor Marchenko; 23 min; Russia)

11) Mousse (Dir: John Hellberg; 30 min; Sweden)

12) Say Before (Dir: Nadezhda Krylova; 28 min; Russia) 

20th Madurai Film Festival 2018 :Indian Films

20th Madurai International Documentary and Short Film Festival 2018

6-10 Dec; multiple venues, Madurai

Organised by MARUPAKKAM

Films from India : Final List

1) We the People
Dir: Samarth Mahajan; 28 min

"We, The People" is a film about protests on Jantar Mantar Road, the erstwhile protest street in Delhi. Through the narratives of three individuals who protested indefinitely at Jantar Mantar Road, the film questions the socio-political reality of India vis a vis the ideals the nation set out with.

2) Unreserved
Dir: Samarth Mahajan; 60 min

The Unreserved is an inquiry into the lives of passengers who use the Unreserved Compartment, the cheapest way to travel across India on the Indian Railways system. The film portrays the passengers’ aspirations, efforts and opinions through conversations and personal stories.

3) Two Flags
Dir: Pankaj Rishikumar; 86 min

'Two Flags' chronicles the life and politics of a quaint French town: Pondicherry (South India). As the 46000 Tamil French people belonging to the Tamil ethnic community, gear up for the French Presidential elections (2017) the film explores the idea of identity, citizenship and home in the post colonial era. Shot between 2012 to 2017, the film is a visual journey through the town, its homes and its people. ‘Two Flags’ is a chronicle of a legacy that is not easily evident, but manages to shine through ordinary events and occasional mishaps, and which brings together this tiny population in celebration, in grief, in anxiety and in serene acceptance.

4) Tin Satyi
Dir: Debalina; 51 min

Tin Satyi…(In Fact…) captures the essence of three different life-stories that are defying the hetero-patriarchal norms of society at every breath. Aimed at understanding philosophies of non-conforming desires, the film also depicts ripples created by these lives in the society.

5) The Tribal Scoop
Dir: Beeswaranjan Pradhan; 53 min

A small town of Sundergarh lying in the interiors of the state of Odisha has never been touched by modern civilization, but is paying for it with the blood of the tribal people living there. A people so backward that they still depend on forests for survival. And even those forests are fast being uprooted to make way for urban life.

In the midst of this cockpit of destruction there's one hope that they are desperately clinging on to- Hockey. The game that was once the only form of entertainment for a people cut off from the rest of the world has now become a weapon with which Sundergarh is trying to claim it's place in a world that never recognized it.

6) We Have Not Come Here to Die
Dir: Deepa Dhanraj; 110 min

On January 17th 2016 a Dalit, Phd research scholar, and activist Rohith Vemula unable to bear the persecution from a partisan University administration and dominant caste Hindu supremacists hung himself in one of the most prestigious universities in India. His suicide note, which argued against the “value of a man being reduced to his immediate identity” galvanized student politics in India. Over the last year thousands of students all over the country have broken the silence around their experiences of caste discrimination in Universities and have started a powerful anti-caste movement. The film attempts to track this historic movement that is changing the conversation on caste in India.

7) Nagapattinam : Waves from the Deep
Dir: Swarnavel Easwaran; 73 min

This documentary looks at the way Tsunami (2004) affected the lives of people in Nagapattinam from the perspectives of the State, NGOs, and the fisher folk. It looks at disaster management and the relief and rehabilitation measures at Nagapattinam, and focuses on the trauma of the people.

8) The Death of Us
Dir: Vani Subramanian; 76 min

The debates on the death penalty today are marked by a cacophony of strident assertions. Going against this tide is The Death of Us - a quiet contemplation on a range of cases in which the death penalty was pronounced, ending in execution, commutation to life sentence, acquittal or even pardon. Speaking only to those who have been on death row or those very closely involved with the cases, we engage in complex conversations on crime and punishment, revenge and justice, popular rhetoric and personal experiences. Only to find ourselves confronting larger ethical and moral questions across time and space.

9) Hora
Dir: Nachi; 24 min

Hora literally meaning a fortune teller in Marati language. It is part of a folk theatre form. Vilas Ghogre, a revolutionary poet metamorphosed the form to predict the political future of the world. Adapting that form in film’s narrative technique too we follow the life of Rupali Jadhav who is an activist singer in Kabir Kala Manch, a cultural political troupe using songs as a means of protest and revolt.

10) S D and His Times
Dir: Kasturi Basu & Mitali Biswas; 114 min

A communist poet, a secret State killing, an attempted revolution sparked in the village of Naxalbari at the Himalayan foothills. Setting out to tell the story of the slain revolutionary Saroj Dutta (S.D.), the film gets drawn into a vortex of his tumultuous times, tracing turns and twists of the communist movement in India over three decades. A search by present-generation filmmakers, the film uses personal and public historical archives and conversations with rebels of the Naxalbari rebellion.

11) Please Mind the Gap
Dir: Mitali Trivedi & Gagandeep Singh; 20 min)

Delhi meets at the metro. The snaking lines of the tube now connect the whole city. Passengers’ board from different places but for a brief moment in time they are all headed in the same direction. We share one such ride with our co-traveller Anshuman, a transman. As the stations pass by we begin to look at the metro space from his perspective. His is the story of reclaiming public space and one’s own self. The doors will open on the quest. Please mind the gap.

12) Koothu
Dir: Sandhya Kumar; 52 min

In many villages in Tamil Nadu, a theatre tradition still links people with a past. Closely connected with religion and caste rituals, koothu brings to life stories about gods, demigods, kings and demons from the Indian epics. A typical koothu performance is an all-night show in which performers wear elaborate make-up, costumes and wooden ornaments, and simultaneously sing, dance and act on stage.

13) The Season in the Mist
Dir: Merajur Rahman Baruah; 36 min

The civil rights movement and the immigration amendment act of the 1960s opened the doors of American society to not just the western European and Protestant populations but also to the people of color from Asia and Africa who are non-Christian. One such community is the Sikhs from India Indeed; there has been lack of knowledge about Sikhs as people, their religion and culture. But the historic 9/11 changed everything for the times to come. In the stroke of the incident, Sikh have become subject to suspicious scrutiny through the cultural lens. They are now mistaken to be Arabs or Muslims thus have become subject of relentless hate crimes pushing the community in the state of lurch and enduring predicament.

14) The Color of My Home
Dir: Sanjay Barnala & Farah Naqvi; 48 min

What happens to people when they are violently displaced? Forced out of their home and ancestral village, buffeted by winds of hate, running for their lives, scattered like human debris in relief camps. Never able to return. How do they rebuild new homes and new lives, with hearts unable to leave the old one behind?

15) Premji – a non unidimensional life
Dir: Neelan; 83 min

A cinematic plunge into the depths of a myriad minded personality, actor on stage and in films, poet, playwright, social reformer and revolutionary, who played a major role in the renaissance movement of Kerala that brought about sweeping changes in the society.


Rest of India : Short fiction

1) Santhana Gopala (Dir: Sandeep Ravindranath; 8 min)