[Reader-list] Scroll painters-singers

[hpp at vsnl.com]

Singing Pictures - a documentary film

by Lina Fruzetti, Ákos Östör, Aditi Nath Sarkar

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6719408592320287069&q=Singing+Pictures

For generations, Patua (Chitrakar) communities of West Bengal, India have 
been painters and singers of stories depicted in scrolls. The Patuas tell 
the stories of Muslim saints (pirs and fakirs) as well as Hindu Gods and 
Goddesses, and offer devotion to saints at Muslim shrines. In the past they 
used to wander from village to village, receiving rice, vegetables and coins 
for their recital. They would unroll a scroll, a frame at a time, and sing 
their own compositions. But competition from other media eroded this way of 
life and now the Patuas are trying to adapt to changing conditions.

In response to this cultural crisis and as a means to make extra money, 
recently a group of women from Naya village near Calcutta formed a scroll 
painters' collaborative. The film follows their daily lives as they paint, 
sing, cook, tend to their children and meet with the cooperative. They 
discuss the problems and rewards of practicing their art, and speak freely 
about the social, religious, and political changes in the village and the 
world beyond. Their wisdom, artistry, and good humor amidst many 
difficulties illuminate the lives around them.

Scrolls cover a variety of themes: mythological and religious, social and 
especially women's issues, contemporary local and world news. The more 
recent themes are communal (Hindu Muslim) harmony, Joy Bangla (the birth of 
Bangladesh as a country), the battle of Kargil (Kashmir conflict), and the 
September 11 events in New York. Women painters have also developed the 
figure of Satya Pir (revered by Muslim and Hindu alike) demonstrating how 
two communities can live in religious harmony despite mounting tensions in 
the rest of the country.

The women candidly discuss issues of Islam and birth control, victimization 
of women, female education, poverty and work, religious tolerance and 
intolerance, and depict some of these ideas in the scrolls themselves. Women 
painters want to tell their own stories in songs and pictures, illustrating 
their lives of hardship and endurance. These stories attest to what it means 
to be a woman in Bengal and India today, demonstrating how a small group of 
determined women can empower themselves by adapting an ancient art to new 
conditions.

Lina Fruzzetti is a professor of Anthropology at Brown University, 
co-director of three previous films with Ákos Östör  (among them Seed and 
Earth, 1994, and Fishers of Dar, 2002, and author of several books, 
including Women, Orphans, and Poverty.

Ákos Östör is a professor of Anthropology and Film Studies at Wesleyan 
University. Author of numerous films and monographs (including Play of the 
Gods and Vessels of Time) based on research in India and Africa. Ákos 
assisted filmmaker Robert Gardner in the making of his film, Forest of Bliss 
(1986), and is credited as producer.

Aditi Nath Sarkar is currently a Visiting Associate Professor at the 
Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology, 
Gandhinagar, Gujarat. He is the author of numerous articles and museum 
exhibitions about the Patua tradition of West Bengal and a co-producer of 
the documentary, Future of Our Cities: Calcutta.

Film Festivals, Screenings, Awards

Material Culture and Archaeology Prize, International Ethnographic Film 
Festival of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2005
Athens International Film & Video Festival, Ohio, 2006
Society for Visual Anthropology/American Anthropological Association 
Conference, San Jose, California, 2006
Jury Award, International Festival of Ethnological Film, Serbia, 2006
forumdoc.bh.2006, Documentary and Ethnographic Film Festival, Belo 
Horizonte, Brazil, 2006
Best Documentary Independent Short, New England Film & Video Festival, 
Boston, 2006
Sponsor Award, Eyes & Lenses IV - Competition of Ethnographic and 
Anthropologic Films, Poland, 2007