[Reader-list] FW: Culture Cafe: Screening of India Untouched

[Shilpa Phadke]

-----Original Message-----
From: vikalp at yahoogroups. <mailto:vikalp%40yahoogroups.com> com
[mailto:vikalp at yahoogroups. <mailto:vikalp%40yahoogroups.com> com] On
Behalf
Of Subject: [vikalp] Culture Cafe: Screening of India Untouched
 


Culture Cafe, hosted by the Centre for Media and Cultural Studies and
TISS Students' Union is a space for dialogue on issues concerning media,
culture and society.

It features film screenings, discussions, performances and other events
that move us think critically, discuss actively and above all, enjoy
ourselves!

The first event of Culture Café this year is a screening and discussion
of the film 'India Untouched', by noted documentary filmmaker Stalin K.

Discussant: Dr. A. Ramaiah, TISS

Date: Saturday, July 21, 2007
Time: 4pm to 6.30pm
Venue: Convention Centre, Naoroji Campus, TISS

INDIA UNTOUCHED- Stories of a People Apart
108 minutes. Hindi, Bhojpuri, Gujarati, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalm
with English sub-titles
Directed by Stalin K., Produced by Drishti, Presented by Navsarjan

"INDIA UNTOUCHED-Stories of a People Apart" is perhaps the most
comprehensive look at Untouchability ever undertaken on film. Director
Stalin K. spent four years traveling the length and breadth of the
country to expose the continued oppression of 'Dalits,' the 'broken
people' who suffer under a 4000 year-old religious system. The film
introduces leading Benares scholars who interpret Hindu scriptures to
mean that Dalits 'have no right' to education, and Rajput farmers who
proudly proclaim that no Dalit may sit in their presence, and that the
police must seek their permission before pursuing cases of atrocities.
The film captures many 'firsts-on-film,' such as Dalits being forced to
dismount from their cycles and remove their shoes when in the upper
caste part of the village. It exposes the continuation of caste
practices and Untouchability in Sikhism, Christianity and Islam, and
even amongst the communists in Kerala. Dalits themselves are not let off
the hook: within Dalits, sub-castes practice Untouchability on the
'lower' sub-castes, and a Harijan boy refuses to drink water from a
Valmiki boy. The viewer hears that Untouchability is an urban phenomenon
as well, inflicted upon a leading medical surgeon and in such hallowed
institutions as JNU, where a Brahmin boy builds a partition so as not to
look upon his Dalit roommate in the early morning. A section on how
newspaper matrimonial columns are divided according to caste presents
urban Indians with an uncomfortable truth: marriage is the leading
perpetuator of caste in India. But the film highlights signs of hope,
too: the powerful tradition of Dalit drumming is used to call people to
the struggle, and a young Dalit girl holds her head high after pulling
water from her village well for the first time in her life.

Spanning eight states and four religions, this film will make it
impossible for anyone to deny that Untouchability continues to be
practiced in India.

Directed by Stalin K: Stalin K. is a human rights activist and
award-winning documentary filmmaker. In recent years, he has become
known for his pioneering 'participatory media' work with urban and rural
communities, in which local people produce their own videos and radio
programs as an empowerment tool. He is the Co-Founder of DRISHTI-
Media, Arts and Human Rights, Convener of the Community Radio
Forum-India, and the India Director of Video Volunteers. He is a
renowned public speaker and has lectured or taught at over 20
institutions ranging from the National Institute of Design and the Tata
Institute of Social Sciences in India, to New York University and
Stanford and Berkeley in the US.

'INDIA UNTOUCHED' is Stalin's second film on the issue of caste—his
earlier film 'Lesser Humans,' on manual scavenging, won the Silver Conch
at the Mumbai International Film Festival and the Excellence Award at
Earth Vision Film Festival, Tokyo, and helped to bring international
attention to the issue of caste.

Stalin K. - Brief Intro

Stalin K. is the co-founder and Director of DRISHTI Media, Arts and
Human Rights and the India Director of Video Volunteers. DRISHTI
(www.drishtimedia.org) is a leading media and human rights organization
in India, with 15 years experience pioneering new models of
participatory
media, such as street theater, community radio, campaign design,
documentary
film making, and participatory video. Drishti has produced 30 films on
development issues, set up two community radio projects, designed over a
dozen rights-based campaigns, and conducted over 300 training workshops.
It has worked with over 100 NGOs and regularly distributes their films
to over 1000 groups, placing them at the heart of India's NGO networks.
Video Volunteers www.videovolunteers.org) is an international
organization that sets up community video units around the world. As
part of Video Volunteers, he has set up 6 community video units in
India.

Stalin is also an internationally acclaimed documentary filmmaker and
has made over a dozen documentaries and has received several national
and international awards. His film, Lesser Humans, on the issue of
Untouchability has been responsible
for much of the international attention to Dalit issues.

He is one of the leading voices to democratize India's airwaves and has
been in the forefront of the fight for communities' right to own and run
their own radio stations. He was part of a team that set up one of the
first community radio projects in India. He is the National Convener of
the Community Radio Forum-India, a membership network of more than 100
organizations.

Stalin is on the Advisory Group of UN's Solution Exchange program on ICT
Stalin teaches communications, film and grassroots activism at a number
of the most senior institutes in India. He is a visiting faculty member
at National Institute of Design and Centre for Development Communication
in Ahmedabad and Srishti in Bangalore. He has given guest lectures at
University of California, Berkley, Stanford University, New York
University, University of Philippines, Manila, Benares Hindu University,
Jawaharlal Nehru University, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Manipal
Institute of Communication, University of Hyderabad and many more.

._,___ 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070720/aec5f72e/attachment.html