[Reader-list] [DFA NewsLetter] Travelling Film South Asia 2008: A Festival of South Asian Documentaries

Tue Aug 26 14:27:05 IST 2008

the organisers had not mentioned the venue in the earlier notice.
Regards,
Rahul Roy

 --------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Reshma Pritam <reshmapritam at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 1:01 PM
Subject: Travelling Film South Asia 2008: A Festival of South Asian
Documentaries
To: "Delhi Film Archive [DFA]" <delhifilmarchive at gmail.com>

 *Travelling Film South Asia 2008: A Festival of South Asian Documentaries*

*27**th** to 30**th** August 2008*

*Venue: India International Centre, Auditorium, New Delhi*

*A festival of films show casing a selection of thirteen outstanding
documentaries from the region screened at Film South Asia '07 Festival,
Kathmandu. Films from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal,
Pakistan and Sri Lanka will be screened.*

Schedule

*Date*

*Time*

*Films*

* *

27th Aug08

*6pm*

*Introduction Followed by*

* Every Good Marriage Begins with Tears (UK/Bangladesh)*

(62 min; dvd; 2006; English & with subtitles)

Director: Simon Chambers

 A moving account of two rebellious Bangladeshi sisters, born and raised in
London, who are forced to go back to their parents' motherland for arranged
marriages. Through footage of some of their most personal moments, the film
explores the conflicts between migrants to the West and their children. It
also dispels some myths about Islam's treatment of women, and puts a human
face on one of the communities that is being targeted as a result of the US
– led 'war on terror'

*7:15 – 8:15 pm*

*A Life with Slate *(Nepal; 59 min; dvd; 2006; English subtitles)

Director: Dipesh Kharel

*Joint winner of the Best Debut Film Award, Film South Asia '07*

In the mountain village east of Kathmandu, the harsh lives of Thami
slate-miners take on almost poetic dimensions. We learn how to separate
slate slabs from the precipitous rock faces. Women work alongside men,
carrying heavy loads down to the village and distant markets. *A Life with
Slate* emphasises how cooperation between the labouring families ultimately
makes a tough life bearable, and depicts intimate scenes of village life

28th August 2008

*6:00 - 7:14 pm*

*Motherland Afghanistan *(Afghanistan; 74 min; 2006; dvd; English)

Director: Sedika Mojadidi

The filmmaker follows her father, who specialises in women's medicine, back
to Afghanistan, where one in seven women dies during childbirth. *Motherland
Afghanistan* takes in two different trips, one to a maternity ward in Kabul,
and the other to a rural hospital in Ghazni. In the juxtaposition of these
two situations, the film finds and highlights the inspiring grace and
courage of Afghanistan's women

* *

*7:30 – 8:35 pm*

*Rabba Hun Kee Kariye *(Thus Departed our Neighbours; India)

(65 min; dvd; 2007; English subtitles)

Director: Ajay Bhardwaj

 *Rabba Hun Kee Kariye (Thus Departed our Neighbours) *trails* *a shared
history of Punjab - a   subcontinental culture, language and a way of life-
that was torn asunder in the fateful year of 1947. It captures the
documentary maker's almost unexpected encounter with feelings of guilt and
remorse about the genocidal violence of the partition. These informal tales,
almost like folklore, are strewn across the memoryscape of Punjabi
countryside. This documentary invokes it in the public domain for the first
time*.*

29th August 2008

*6:00 – 7:00 pm*

*Chaama Deu! Tara Nabirsa! *(Forgive! Forget not!; Nepal)

(59 min; dvd; 2007; English subtitles)

Director: Pranay Limbu

 This experimental documentary is the narrated story of a journalist who was
detained inside Kathmandu's infamous Bhairabnath Barracks for 15 months. It
provides a mirror to the terrible times just past in Nepal, during the
'people's war' and the state's reaction to the Maoist insurgency.

*7:15 – 8:36 pm*

*Remembrance of Things Present *(India; 81 min; dvd; 2007; English & with
subtitles)

Director: Chandra Siddan

 Winner of the Second Best Film Award, Film South Asia '07

 How is a teenager supposed to deal with an arranged marriage? How does one
resolve the conflict of a displaced life after years of nomadic existence
abroad? In *Remembrance of Things Present*, the filmmaker, now living in
Canada, returns to Bangalore to confront her parents with the former
question, while she herself tries to resolve the latter. Long divorced and
newly remarried, she records some profoundly touching conversations with her
parents – while also finding her past being repeated in the life of her
parents' household help.

30th August 2008

*10:00 – 11:15 am*

*The Sky Below *(India/Pakistan; 75 min; dvd; 2007; English)

Director: Sara Singh

 Joint winner of the Best Debut Film Award, Film South Asia '07

 *The Sky Below *paints a contemporary portrait of the India-Pakistan
'mind-frontier', six decades after the two were parted. Singh explores the
lingering commonalities, as well as the remaining possibilities for
reconciliation based on the countries' interwoven histories, cultures and
faiths. From both Pakistan and India, we hear first-person recollections
from the time of Partition, as well as the views of former militants,
politicians, royalty, ordinary citizens, historians and others.

*11:30 – 12:25 pm*

*6 Yards to Democracy *(India; 55 min; dvd; 2006; English subtitles)

Directors: Nishtha Jain & Smriti Nevatia

 At a political event in Lucknow that was promising free saris, a gruesome
stampede kills 22 women and injures many others. This seemingly stray
incident hints at the sordid side of Indian democracy, but also goes deeper,
to explore the daily humiliations forced upon these women and their
families. As Lucknow's boomtown dynamics pushes them further to the margins,
we observe the women's struggles to keep their homes, hopes and dignity
intact, all the while petitioning an apathetic state to pay heed to their
needs.

*12:40 – 1:10 pm*

*The Miseducation of Pakistan *(Pakistan; 30 min; dvd; 2005; English)

Director: Syed Ali Nasir

 Schools with no teachers, no buildings, no drinking water, no electricity,
and overflowing with garbage – this is what so many students of public
schools in Pakistan can look forward   to. Little wonder that a vast
majority of the country's primary-school graduates are not even considered
literate by international standards. All the while, a corrupt hierarchy of
officials and school staff line their pockets with funds meant for the
children's education – and no one is held accountable. This is the story of
a generation lost, and of a country where basic education remains a distant
dream for millions.

*1:10 – 2:00 pm*

*Lunch break*

* *

*2:00 – 3:00 pm*

*Ayodhya Gatha *(India; 62 min; dvd; 2007; English & with subtitles)

Director: Vani Subramanian

 Winner of the Special Jury Mention Award, Film South Asia '07

 For two decades now, the destruction of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya has
influenced national events in India. But beyond the symbolism that the Uttar
Pradesh town holds for the rest of the country, how has that event affected
life in Ayodhya itself? As this film relates, today the streets of Ayodhya
seem to have lost touch with the feet of its residents. Blocked and
barricaded, our only access to the citizens is through memory: the telling
of stories, the hearing of tales, the very *gatha* of Ayodhya's people

*3:15 – 4:15 pm*

*From Dust *(Sri Lanka; 60 min; dvd; 2005; English & with subtitles)

Director: Dhruv Dhawan

Filmed following the devastating 2004 Tsunami, this is a damning expose of
the Colombo government's ulterior motives during the course of disaster
relief. The local survivors have ultimately been prevented from rebuilding
their homes along the coastline, while developers eye the lucrative beaches.
Told through the stories of two survivors and an aid worker, *From Dust* is
a sensitive depiction of lives that waited in tents while the tourism
industry repositioned itself on their properties.

*4:30 – 6:05 pm*

*Living Goddess *(Nepal; 96 min; dvd; 2007; English subtitles)

Director: Ishbel Whitaker

 Three *kumaris*, living goddesses, of Kathmandu Valley go about their
ritualised lives against the backdrop of the agitations that marked the
April 2006 People's Movement. Long   sought for annual blessings by Nepal's
monarchy, the Kumaris suddenly find themselves caught amidst a fight to
define the country's future. The film spends extra time with Sajani Sakya,
the precocious, camera-friendly Kumari of Bhaktapur, who went on a
trans-Atlantic visit that made news over the summer.

*6:05 – 6:30 pm*

*Break*

* *

*6:30 – 7:55 pm*

*Eisenfresser *(Ironeaters; Bangladesh)

(85 min; dvd; 2007; English & with subtitles)

Director: Shaheen Dill-Riaz

 Winner of the Ram Bahadur Trophy for Best Film, Film South Asia '07

The annual famine in northern Bangladesh forces two farmers, Kholil and
Gadu, along with several of their relatives, to leave their homes and go to
work as seasonal labourers in the ship-breaking yards far to the south.
Here, on the beaches of Chittagong, they dismantle the   discards of the
Western world: decrepit oil tankers and enormous container ships, many of
which harbour a vast range of perils, toxic and otherwise. These yards also
capture their woes.

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