[Reader-list] City Limits: Photo Exhibition, Panel Discussion and Film Series

[abshi at vsnl.com]

Gender & Space Project, PUKAR
&
Point of View
Present
A Photographic Exhibit, A Panel Discussion & A Film Series


Photography Exhibit
City Limits: Engendering the Body in Public Space

Dates: 		05 March to 12 March 2005 (Sunday Closed)

Time: 		12 pm to 7 pm

Venue: 		The Fourth Floor
Kitab Mahal (In front of New Excelsior Cinema)
Dr. D.N. Road,
Mumbai 400001

Curators: Shilpa Phadke and Bishakha Datta
Photographers: Abhinandita Mathur, Roshani Jhadav, Neelam Ayare and Karan Arora.

City Limits: Engendering the Body in Public Space intends to view everyday public spaces in Mumbai through a gendered lens, to focus on the demarcations between public and private spaces, and understand the hierarchies of access that have become part of our taken for granted grammar of viewing the city. The effort has been to privilege the everyday, to engage with women’s strategies in negotiating public space and to draw attention to the ways in which the private refuses to be compartmentalized



An Interactive Panel Discussion
Imagining Gendered Utopias

As part of International Women’s Day celebrations, we are organizing a discussion titled where women speak as citizens, professionals, mothers, commuters, consumers, and flaneurs. 

Date:	 08 March 2005
Time: 	6.30 pm
Venue: 	The Fourth Floor
Kitab Mahal (In front of New Excelsior Cinema)
Dr. D.N. Road,
Mumbai 400001


Neera Adarkar imagines a gender-friendly city from the position of architecture and design.
Celine D’Cruz provides a view from the perspective of dispossessed women. 
Kalpana Sharma envisions a utopian world for women journalists and for reporting on women. 
Shireen Gandhy explores the implications of combining a career in art with motherhood.
Sameera Khan imagines a welcoming public space for breast-feeding women.

The discussion is intended to be an interactive one involving the audience in imagining a space for women in the truly public spaces in Mumbai. Our hope is that the discussion would go beyond what is feasible in the short term to explore our wildest dreams of living as liberated citizens in the Mumbai of tomorrow. 


Film Series
Imagining Women

Film Schedule: All films will be screened at The Fourth Floor, Kitab Mahal

Sat 5 March 4 pm: 
Bhaji On The Beach (Gurinder Chadha)(100 mins)
A group of women of Indian descent take a trip together from their home in Birmingham, England to the beach resort of Blackpool. The women vary in ages from mid-teens to old, and initially have little in common. But the events of the day lead them to better mutual understanding and solidarity.

Mon 7 March 6.30 pm: 
Ma Vie En Rose (Alain Berliner ) (88 mins)
Ludovic is a young boy who can't wait to grow up to be a woman. When his family discovers the little girl blossoming in him they are forced to contend with their own discomfort and the lack of understanding from their new neighbors. Their anger and impatience cave and Ludovic is sent to see a psychiatrist in the hopes of fixing whatever is wrong with him. A movie that addresses trans-gender and gender issues in general through the eyes of a child.


Wed 9 March 6.30 pm: 
Three Women and A Camera (Sabeena Gadihoke) (56 mins)
This film is about Homai Vyarawalla, India's first professional woman photographer, whose career spanned nearly three decades from the 1930s and two contemporary photographers, Sheba Chhachhi and Dayanita Singh, who started work in the 1980s. Vyarawalla's work underscores the optimism and euphoria of the birth of a nation, while Chhachhi and Singh attempt to grapple with the various complexities and undelivered promises of the post independence era. This film debates the major shifts in their concerns regarding representation, subject-camera relationships and the limits and possibilities of still photography in India today. 

Frida (JulieTaymor) (123 mins)
Frida chronicles the life Frida Kahlo (Salma Hayek) shared unflinchingly and openly with Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina), as the young couple took the art world by storm. From her complex and enduring relationship with her mentor and husband to her illicit and controversial affair with Leon Trotsky, to her provocative and romantic entanglements with women, Frida Kahlo lived a bold and uncompromising life as a political, artistic, and sexual revolutionary.


Thu 10 March 6.30 pm: 
Fat Sister (Catherine Breillat) (86 mins)
A Ma Soeur! is a provocative and shocking drama about sibling rivalry, family discord and relationships. Elena is 15, beautiful and flirtatious. Her less confident sister, Anais, is 12, and constantly eats. On holiday, Elena meets a young Italian student who is determined to seduce her. Anais is forced to watch in silence, conspiring with the lovers, but harbouring jealousy and similar desires. Their actions, however, have unforeseen tragic consequences for the whole family.

Some of the films will be followed by discussions. 

For more information –  
email: genderspace at pukar.org or pointofview at vsnl.com
or 
call: 55748152 or 55727252