6th Chennai Int Doc & Short Film Fest 2018: Screening Schedule
Day 2, 16 April
10 am to 1 pm
Guest speakers:
Nityanand Jayaraman, activist/researcher
R R Srinivasan, filmmaker
10 am Survey Number ZeroR R Srinivasan, filmmaker
Dir: Priya Thuvassery; 31 min; Gujarati with Eng subtitles; Documentary
Story of three women from Little Rann of Kutch, Gujarat. The Salt they make and a Land which has never been surveyed
10:40 Caravan
Dir: Shazia Khan; 60 min; India; Filmmaker in Focus
‘Caravan’ is a documentary that explores the confluence of Islam and India, and the resultant composite cultural integral to India.
Beginning 6th century AD, there have been several carriers of Islam to the sub-continent: Arab traders, territorial invaders, the Mughal emperors and the religious mystic Sufis. In distinct ways, these carries affected and were affected by, the manners and morals of a changing, evolving India, so giving rise to an Indo-Islamic identity, inseparable from present – day India.
11:50 Filmmaker in Focus : Bernd Lützeler (Germany)
1. the Voice of God
India & Germany, 2011, 35mm, 1:1.85, 10 min
Voiceover - Harish Bhimani
If God would come down to earth and try to earn a living in Bombay, most probably he
would very soon become successful as a voice over artiste, lending his voice to thousands
of hindi movies and even more documentaries and public service films in India.
A melo-dramatic docu-drama with voice-over in stop-motion and long-time exposure.
2. Traveling with Maxim Gorkiy
Dir: Bernd Lützeler & Kolja Kunt
Germany, 2014, Super-8, 1:1.37, 11 min
As so often, also here it's rather about allusion than description. This also applies to the
persons represented. Flat silhouettes of people. Their heads depicted in profile. Faces
with no expression, formal gestures. In the background, a little bit of everyday life:
The hard, square, stone architecture arises from ocher-colored, brownish, blackish mush of
color or mud. A demonstration of the function of the central perspective. An idealized
representation of a tropical paradise. Strangely, there's no absurdity in this.
3. Batagur Baska [by Guido Möbius]
music video, directed by Bernd Lützeler
Germany, 2016, Super-8, 1:1.37, 8 min
They gather here every day. They come from far and without purpose. They don't know
each other and they won't come to know each other. They carry their gadgets to optimize
the experience. They engage with the world through a small frame. They believe that this
moment will remain unforgotten.
4. Fictitious Force
Dir: Philip Widmann; India & Germany, 2015, Super 16, b&w, 1:1.78, 15 min
with Tarun Katari
Cinematography - Basab Mullik
Additional Cinematography - Bernd Lützeler
Conception & Montage - Philip Widmann
A theorem from physics that describes apparent forces in circular motion when observed
from an external frame of reference lends its name to this film: Fictitious Force is a
cinematic exchange on the impossibility of sharing experiences, in black and white and
grey.
5. Camera Threat
India & Germany, 2017, 35mm & DCP, 1:1.85, 30 min
with Mansi Multani, Pushpendra Singh & Girish Pardeshi
Voiceover - Harish Bhimani & Shai Heredia
Somewhere in the rather dreary spheres of Mumbai's film industry, stuck between
star-cult, superstition and the daily gridlock, Camera Threat explores the ambivalent, and
sometimes paranoid relationship that this film city has with the moving image as such.
Seated on a casting couch, two actors are getting trapped in their impromptu
conversations on the unwanted side effects of a world that no longer bothers to tell facts
from fiction. An expanded multi-genre film within the constraints of the so-called Masala
Formula popularly known from Indian cinema,
2 pm PARADIGM NON-SHIFT
Robert Bresson ↔ Mani Kaul ↔ Amit Dutta
Curated and presented by Amrit Gangar, curator/critic
5:30 pm to 9 pm
Guest Speakers :
Neelan Premji, filmmaker
Sadhana Subramaniam, filmmaker
Sanjay Maharishi, filmmaker
Arul Ezhilan, journalist
Amshan Kumar, filmmaker
Arul Ezhilan, journalist
Amshan Kumar, filmmaker
5:30 pm Amma
Dir:Neelan Premji; 36 min; Malayalam with Eng subtitles; 2016
Starting from an orthodox Namboothiri Bhrahmin background of utter poverty and high moral dictums, she gets no schooling, for schooling was a taboo for girls then. She gets married at the age of fourteen to a rich man of forty with a girl child in his first marriage. But within an year both the husband and the child die .Thus she becomes a widow at 15 with in just an year after the marriage which happened before she even didn’t come of age as a woman physically.
She remained a widow for the next 12 years. A revolutionary second marriage followed, at a time widow marriage was socially not acceptable at all and after 12 years of widowhood. This lead to social isolation and threw her back to a life of poverty too. The man who decided to be bold enough to marry this widow was Premji a social reformer as well as a leading actor, play wright and poet
(Premji won national award for the best actor in the film PIRAVI by SHAJI .N.KARUN in 1988.)
The second marriage and the struggles that followed gave her the real lessons of life , that being her university in a sense. She finally ended up as a communist, becoming the councillor of her native Municipality in 1964.
At eighty the second husband too leaves, starting a second term of widowhood. This second term has elapsed seventeen long years till date. At 97 she still stays agile and active to be a model for generations to come. The old age here of course has a stick, but no tattered cloths hang from it. For the soul of this 97 years old fighter woman still claps it’s hands and sings.
6:15 India’s Forbidden Love
Dir: Sadhana Subramaniam; 25 min; Tamil with Eng subtitles; 2018; Documentary
In March 2016, Kausalya and her husband Shankar were brutally attacked on a crowded street in southern India. Shankar, who came from a Dalit caste, died of his injuries. Kausalya survived and accused her parents of orchestrating an honour killing. In the film, she fights for justice through the courts, testifying against her parents in a trial where they face the death penalty. Kausalya’s now estranged grandparents and brother, Gautham, also await the verdict, desperately hoping Kausalya’s mother and father will be released. The unique access to both sides shows a family torn apart by a caste hierarchy that remains deeply-rooted in India's social fabric.
7:00 Highway Rest Stop
Dir: Isabelle Ingold; 80 min; Chinese, English, French, Italian, Lithuanian, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Turkish; Documentary; France; International
This film traces out the portrait of a motorway rest area located in the countryside in the North of France. It looks like a dream, filled with the whispers thoughts and the lives of those who work here, as well as those who are just passing through. It is also a very concrete place, a perfect spot to observe today’s Europe, the violence carried by the free competition of a single market, the nostalgia carried byuprooted lives, and all the solitude engendered by our modern world.
Dir: Bernd Lützeler & Kolja Kunt
Germany, 2014, Super-8, 1:1.37, 11 min
As so often, also here it's rather about allusion than description. This also applies to the
persons represented. Flat silhouettes of people. Their heads depicted in profile. Faces
with no expression, formal gestures. In the background, a little bit of everyday life:
The hard, square, stone architecture arises from ocher-colored, brownish, blackish mush of
color or mud. A demonstration of the function of the central perspective. An idealized
representation of a tropical paradise. Strangely, there's no absurdity in this.
3. Batagur Baska [by Guido Möbius]
music video, directed by Bernd Lützeler
Germany, 2016, Super-8, 1:1.37, 8 min
They gather here every day. They come from far and without purpose. They don't know
each other and they won't come to know each other. They carry their gadgets to optimize
the experience. They engage with the world through a small frame. They believe that this
moment will remain unforgotten.
4. Fictitious Force
Dir: Philip Widmann; India & Germany, 2015, Super 16, b&w, 1:1.78, 15 min
with Tarun Katari
Cinematography - Basab Mullik
Additional Cinematography - Bernd Lützeler
Conception & Montage - Philip Widmann
A theorem from physics that describes apparent forces in circular motion when observed
from an external frame of reference lends its name to this film: Fictitious Force is a
cinematic exchange on the impossibility of sharing experiences, in black and white and
grey.
5. Camera Threat
India & Germany, 2017, 35mm & DCP, 1:1.85, 30 min
with Mansi Multani, Pushpendra Singh & Girish Pardeshi
Voiceover - Harish Bhimani & Shai Heredia
Somewhere in the rather dreary spheres of Mumbai's film industry, stuck between
star-cult, superstition and the daily gridlock, Camera Threat explores the ambivalent, and
sometimes paranoid relationship that this film city has with the moving image as such.
Seated on a casting couch, two actors are getting trapped in their impromptu
conversations on the unwanted side effects of a world that no longer bothers to tell facts
from fiction. An expanded multi-genre film within the constraints of the so-called Masala
Formula popularly known from Indian cinema,
2 pm PARADIGM NON-SHIFT
Robert Bresson ↔ Mani Kaul ↔ Amit Dutta
Curated and presented by Amrit Gangar, curator/critic
5:30 pm to 9 pm
Guest Speakers :
Neelan Premji, filmmaker
Sadhana Subramaniam, filmmaker
Sanjay Maharishi, filmmaker
Arul Ezhilan, journalist
Amshan Kumar, filmmaker
Arul Ezhilan, journalist
Amshan Kumar, filmmaker
5:30 pm Amma
Dir:Neelan Premji; 36 min; Malayalam with Eng subtitles; 2016
Starting from an orthodox Namboothiri Bhrahmin background of utter poverty and high moral dictums, she gets no schooling, for schooling was a taboo for girls then. She gets married at the age of fourteen to a rich man of forty with a girl child in his first marriage. But within an year both the husband and the child die .Thus she becomes a widow at 15 with in just an year after the marriage which happened before she even didn’t come of age as a woman physically.
She remained a widow for the next 12 years. A revolutionary second marriage followed, at a time widow marriage was socially not acceptable at all and after 12 years of widowhood. This lead to social isolation and threw her back to a life of poverty too. The man who decided to be bold enough to marry this widow was Premji a social reformer as well as a leading actor, play wright and poet
(Premji won national award for the best actor in the film PIRAVI by SHAJI .N.KARUN in 1988.)
The second marriage and the struggles that followed gave her the real lessons of life , that being her university in a sense. She finally ended up as a communist, becoming the councillor of her native Municipality in 1964.
At eighty the second husband too leaves, starting a second term of widowhood. This second term has elapsed seventeen long years till date. At 97 she still stays agile and active to be a model for generations to come. The old age here of course has a stick, but no tattered cloths hang from it. For the soul of this 97 years old fighter woman still claps it’s hands and sings.
6:15 India’s Forbidden Love
Dir: Sadhana Subramaniam; 25 min; Tamil with Eng subtitles; 2018; Documentary
In March 2016, Kausalya and her husband Shankar were brutally attacked on a crowded street in southern India. Shankar, who came from a Dalit caste, died of his injuries. Kausalya survived and accused her parents of orchestrating an honour killing. In the film, she fights for justice through the courts, testifying against her parents in a trial where they face the death penalty. Kausalya’s now estranged grandparents and brother, Gautham, also await the verdict, desperately hoping Kausalya’s mother and father will be released. The unique access to both sides shows a family torn apart by a caste hierarchy that remains deeply-rooted in India's social fabric.
7:00 Highway Rest Stop
Dir: Isabelle Ingold; 80 min; Chinese, English, French, Italian, Lithuanian, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Turkish; Documentary; France; International
This film traces out the portrait of a motorway rest area located in the countryside in the North of France. It looks like a dream, filled with the whispers thoughts and the lives of those who work here, as well as those who are just passing through. It is also a very concrete place, a perfect spot to observe today’s Europe, the violence carried by the free competition of a single market, the nostalgia carried byuprooted lives, and all the solitude engendered by our modern world.
No comments:
Post a Comment