[Reader-list] Films For Freedom

Fri Aug 27 11:22:42 IST 2004

AN URGENT REQUEST FROM FILMS FOR FREEDOM

Films For Freedom (FFF) is an action platform of over 300 Indian documentary filmmakers who came together in August 2003 to discuss, debate and work on issues of censorship and freedom of expression. The Delhi chapter of FFF is planning to observe September as a month of Free Speech. 
We plan to organise screenings, discussions and seminars at Delhi University, Jawahar Lal Nehru University and Jamia Millia Islamia. The programme will start with a seminar at the Indian Social Institute where speakers from all over the country will participate in a discussion on censorship as it affects people in various creative fields as well as people's movements.
You will find some details of the planned programme as well as a background note below.

THE ENTIRE EVENT IS BEING PLANNED WITH DONATIONS.
We would be grateful if you could contribute towards making this event possible. Donations are needed very urgently, as September is right around the corner!
Donations can also be in the form of supporting a part of the expense like printing, transport, equipment rental, stay of guests, etc. 
The estimated budget for the September events is Rs.300,000/-, and Rs.122,500/- is all we have collected so far! If you would like to know the breakup of the budget, or any further information, do email us at
delhifilmarchive at yahoo.com

To make a donation, please contact:

Mana Shah: mana at ccsindia.org Tel: 26537456 Mobile 31031393
Rahul Roy: khel at vsnl.com Tel: 26515161 Mobile 9810395589
Uma : uma_ftii at yahoo.com Tel: 2606-6015 Mobile 9868005550
Sabina Kidwai : sabina at bol.net.in Tel: Mobile 9810243868

If the contribution is through a cheque, please draw it in favour of Mediastorm, and send it to the following address:

Sabina Kidwai
C/o Mediastorm
F-2 Tara Apartments,
Alaknanda
New Delhi 110 019

Yours Sincerely,
On Behalf of Films For Freedom,

Asheesh Pandya, Mana Shah, Rahul Roy, Sabina Kidwai, Uma Tanuku

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A GLIMPSE INTO THE PROGRAMME

Beginning with a seminar at the Indian Social Institute, the screenings will run through the month in collaboration with Academic Departments and Student Bodies in the three Universities (Delhi University, Jamia Millia Islamia and Jawahar Lal Nehru University), ANHAD, Nigah Media Collective, School of Arts and Aesthetics(JNU), Pravah, AISA, with activist and voluntary groups, as well as at schools in collaboration with Spic-Macay.

2-4 September, 2004/10 AM to 7:30 PM/ Indian Social Institute (Behind Sai Mandir, near Lodi Road): 

Celebrating Resistance-- Seminar/screenings/Performances on censorship. Speakers include – Nandinee Bandhopadhyaya on struggles for the rights of the sex workers and the women’s movement, Lawrence Liang on Censorship and the Law, Sudhir Patnaik on peoples movements and the media, Digant Oza on Censorship and the Gujarati Press, Lakshmi Murthy from Saheli on the women’s movements and censorship, Dr. Tanika Sarkar and Shuddhabrata Sengupta on censorship and hate speech, Prashant Bhushan on privatisation, censorship and the judiciary, Shohini Ghosh on censorship and the complexities of looking, Dunu Roy on demolitions, urban poverty and censorship, Vrinda Grover on Lying for the sake of the Nation, Hiren Gandhi on censorship and theatre, Sudhanwa Deshpande on marathi theatre and censorship, Soe Myint on resisting censorship in Burma, Anjali Monterio and Jaysankar on organising of Vikalp in Mumbai, Siddharth Vardarajan on censorship and the Press, Rajendra Yadav (TBC) on Emergency and Censorship, Akshay Khanna and Ponni on Censorship from the queer perspective.

Readings from proscribed poetry and prose. Sufi singing from Bikaner. Film screenings

9-10 September: Screenings/Discussion/Speakers at Ramjas College, Delhi University

11 September: Screening/Discussion at ANHAD

13-14 September: Screening/Discussion/Speakers at Kirori Mal College, Delhi University

15 September: Screenings/Discussion/speakers at Miranda House, Delhi University

16-17 September: Screenings/Discussion/speakers at I.P. College, Delhi University

18 September: Screening/Discussion at ANHAD

18-19 September: Seminar/screenings on Documentary form and aesthetics at School of Arts and Aesthetics, JNU.

20-23 September: Night Screenings at JNU

22-24 September: Screenings/Discussion/Speakers at Jamia Millia Islamia

25 September: Screening/Discussion at ANHAD

25-27 September: Gender and sexuality Exhibition/Performance by the Nigah Media Collective at the Academy of Fine Arts and Literature

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: delhi_fest at yahoo.com

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THE BACKGROUND:

Films For Freedom is an action platform of over 300 Indian documentary filmmakers who came together in August 2003 to protest against the attempt by the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting to make censor certificates a mandatory precondition for Indian documentaries entered into the Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF 2004). The documentary film-making community saw through this apparently innocuous step, recognising it as a part of a wider structure of control and repression, where the rights to free speech, dissent, and even creative expression are increasingly coming under threat in India. In an unprecedented display of collective resistance, filmmakers from across the country organised around the Campaign Against Censorship, and were successful in forcing the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting to drop its attempts to introduce censor certification for the festival.

Foiled in its attempt to officially censor films entered at MIFF2004, the organisers subsequently tried unofficial methods to achieve the same: manipulating the selection procedure so as to reject practically every Indian documentary film that explored the times we are living in today. These films told stark but bitter truths about issues relating to communalism, destructive development, globalisation, environment, women’s rights, as well as oppression of marginalised communities.

So in February 2004, Mumbai became the location of an unusual mode of cultural resistance, VIKALP : Films for Freedom, a six-day long festival of documentary films. Running parallel to MIFF2004, Vikalp was run by the filmmakers themselves, and the festival showed all the films rejected by MIFF 2004, as well as more than a dozen films withdrawn from MIFF by their filmmakers as a protest against the covert censorship-by-selection. Organised through the personal contributions and voluntary effort of documentary filmmakers, Vikalp was an unprecedented success. From February 4th to February 9th 2004, it screened films to jam-packed audiences, even as the screenings of the official MIFF stood discredited and its venue deserted. 

But Vikalp was not simply about fighting censorship at one festival. We are all acutely aware of a process of intensifying control in our society. This authoritarian climate has many manifestations, and it appears through different mechanisms that target specific sections of society. This includes the media, the judiciary, as well as organisations and mass movements working on a range of issues related to civil rights, to communalism, to the environment, gender, and labour. This authoritarian regime always needed to use 'official' or 'unofficial' means to bolster its agenda, through agencies of the state like the police, the intelligence apparatus, and the censor board; or through extra constitutional means like the vandalism and violence of organised mobs. Increasingly the arts too have come under the scrutiny of this machine - painters, theatre people, writers, researchers and filmmakers.

All over the world, as channels of the mass media become a part of the corporate structure, television and image-making have increasingly withdrawn into an artificial world of make-believe and propaganda, and it has increasingly been left to documentary films to tell the other stories.

Documentary films have the ability to enter the real lives of people, and the inner spaces of people’s struggles, their triumphs and setbacks. They have ripped apart the facades created by the propaganda machines of industrial and political empires, they document important social events and present reflective journeys that question, disturb and inspire. And since they challenge, and seek to free, it is obvious that attempts will be made to control them, bind them and prevent their dissemination.

We are aware that the best way to resist censorship is to speak more, speak louder and speak from all corners of the country. Throughout the Campaign, an important premise has been that the fight against censorship is not just between filmmakers, artists, writers, journalists and academics and those in power (and those who would wield extra-constitutional authority). The Campaign believes that to fight censorship it is essential to energise a strong screening culture, because public opinion (in the form of audiences) is an important part of our struggle.

In keeping with our commitment to do so, the Campaign Against Censorship is offering films from Vikalp for circulation to the widest possible community of viewers. We believe that the battle against censorship will continue to be fought in courtrooms and with censor boards, but ultimately it is the swelling numbers of our viewers who will release us from restrictions. We hope that the screenings will trigger questions, spark off debate and forge alliances with many others.

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