[Reader-list] [Announcements] Screening of "3 men and a bulb" at kala ghoda festival

pankaj rishi kumar digitaltalkies at rediffmail.com
Thu Feb 1 14:57:57 IST 2007 

  
  
  
  
  
3 men and a bulb  ( 62 mts with english subtitles)
by Pankaj Rishi Kumar

 
at Kala Ghoda Festival
Bombay Natural History Society Hall, (BNHS)
7.30 pm
3rd februray' 07
 
The film was awarded IDPA's Best Documentary prize for "its sensitive construction of a discourses on displacement and infrastructure imbalances, done with meditative aplomb at an extraordinarily restrained pace."         
The film was in the competition at Mumbai, Munich and Mar Del Plata Documentary Festival (Argentina)  
 


The beauty of 3 Men and a Bulb lies in its simple, yet powerful, portrayal of the lives of Rawat, Satya and Harish. The documentary clocks in at 62 minutes and the time is well spent – which can’t be said about very many documentaries. By giving his subjects plenty of room, Kumar confirms the age-old dictum that developmental projects are meaningless if they can’t work for the people for whom they’re meant. “In a goody-goody film, you can tell people about new technology and its advantages,” said Kumar. “Even if you tell them the disadvantages, it’s at a theoretical level. But you don’t get into the day-to-day lives.” ... Nandini Ramnath, Time Out, 
(www.timeoutmumbai.net/client_flim/film_details.asp)
kumartalkies.blogspot.com
www.kalaghodaassociation.com
 
 

SYNOPSIS
3 Men and a Bulb is a story of 3 men who earn a livelihood from their gharat (watermill) in foothills of Himalayas (Uttaranchal), India. The life led by these 3 men is meager, having access neither to electricity nor employment that brings regular income. Farming is very arduous, as supply of water is scarce. The gharat becomes a site, which each character wants to own and sometimes disown, in the quest for a better life.

         The story documents the 3 men’s personal hopes, anxieties and dreams set against the rustic life in the mountains. The narrative traverses their changing relationship with self and each other, offering exciting insights into human nature. It is a story of Rawat, Satya and young Harish.

         What happens when a rural economic system with a lot of promise is cracked up by administrative inconsistencies and individual enmity? What happens when 3 men who could have run the gharat and earned a comfortable livelihood, are moved by the inner voice telling them to leave and find a better source of income, a better life. 3 Men and a Bulb is a story about earning a good living, and a story about all the larger forces at work that don’t allow one to do so.
 
Directors Statement
                    This film began as an offshoot of my previous film, Gharat. It was a functional documentary film highlighting the potential of and the need for reviving the Gharats (watermills) as efficient indigenous technology. In strange and curious ways, the more time I spent with Rawat and his Gharat, I was convinced that my previous film could have been treated in a different manner both in form and content. The anger was both a frustration and a release. The frustration reflected in the fact that the issue based documentary form, which I was so used to, was insuffient to capture the essence in 28 minutes dictated by television. On the other hand, the release was accompanied by exploring a different form --a form that allowed me to test the boundaries of Truth, the real and unreal. 

                    3 Men and a Bulb shatters the optimistic note plucked by the previous film, and depicts the stark microcosmic reality of one particular gharat, one particular village, and 3 men who are or will be earning their income from the gharat. For a year (6 visits of 10 days each) I documented the life of these 3 men, unaware of what will happen ...what is the drama in store...

                  People do all sorts of unimaginable things to earn one square meal daily. Rawat, Satya and Harish should be thankful that they have a genuine and efficient way of earning a livelihood. But some things clearly might ruin it for them – total lack of government interest in gharats, and as Rawat says, the ignorance of HESCO in periodically supervising the schemes. Add to this the personal insecurities of the 3 men, and a perfectly valid source of income, bulb, could go bust. 
 
                        A fiction film with roots in documentary; 
                       a documentary which unravels as fiction.
 
                                    The film is an attempt to construct a fictional narrative capturing the drama of everyday mundane life. The cinema verite style of documentary has been purposefully merged with the dramatic expressive style of fiction. 
  
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Pankaj Rishi Kumar graduated from FTII in 1992 where he specialised in Film Editing. He began his film career in 1993 as an assistant editor on Sekhar kapur's "Bandirt Queen" . He edited documentaries, and TV serials before turning to making films himself. Pankaj Rishi Kumar has movies in his blood. His late father turned an old factory into the town of  Kalpi's only cinema, Kumar Talkies. His first documentary, “Kumar Talkies”, offered a cinéma vérité portrait of people of Kalpi’s relationship to their only picture show and an examination of the consciousness-shaping role of local cinema in a globalised and digitised world. Made with support of Hubert Bals fund and India Foundation of The Arts, the film won critical acclaim. (screened at 40 festivals and won Best Film-L'alternative Barcelona, Special Jury at Zanzibar and Indian National awrd for Best Sound. ) The film has been recently been blown up to 35mm and will be released theatrically in 2006.  His second film “Pathar Chujaeri” (The Play Is On) was about the survival of folk thetaer in war strife kashmir. (The film was screened at 25 film festivals and won Unesco Prize for Best Film at MITIL, Bronze Remi at Houston and a special Jury at Karachi, and Dallas South Asia festival.) His third film'The Vote" looked at the intricacies of the electoral politics. The film premierecat the Asia society in New York and picked up a special jury prize at Dallas South Asian film festival. Pankaj is currently working on his new project--a documentary on women boxers in India. The film is being made with support from Majlis foundation, Sarai and Jan Vrijman fund.
 
PANKAJ RISHI KUMAR
kumartalkies.blogspot.com
  


PANKAJ RISHI KUMAR;  B/103, Gokul Tower, Thakur Complex, Kandivli (E), 
MUMBAI 400 101  PH: 91-22-2854 7585 

59 gautam nagar, new delhi 49  Ph; 91-11- 2651 2019
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