[Reader-list] Screening of Film on Peace Initiatives in Kashmir, April 27, Juhu

[Chandni Parekh]

From: "Vikalp at Prithvi - Mumbai" <vikalp.prithvi at gmail.com>



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*VIKALP @ PRITHVI*

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Is a collaboration between Vikalp: Films for Freedom and Prithvi Theatre. We
bring you a curated selection of short films, animation films and
documentary films on the last Monday of every month at Prithvi House.

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*ON MONDAY, 27th APRIL, 2009*

*Starting 7 PM *



Film screening followed by a session with filmmakers Kavita Pai and Hansa
Thapliyal





*Yi As Akh Padshah Bai
(There was a Queen…)*

105  minutes, Documentary film
 In Kashmiri, Urdu, Hindi and English with English subtitles

*Credits*

Directed by Kavita Pai and Hansa Thapliyal |Produced by Other Media
Communications
| Cameraperson Ranu Ghosh |Sound by Gissy Michael | Editing by Gouri
Patwardhan | Music by Manish J. Tipu

*Directors’ Note*

"Give us guns and we'll play our role!"
This is what Farhana had to say, less than a week after her sister was
buried.

Farhana's sister Shahnaza, and her friend, Ulfat, victims of 'crossfire',
were barely seventeen when they died - as old as the tehreek that exploded
into existence in 1989, shattering forever the peace of the Valley, turning
it into one of the most critical conflict zones in the world.

Over these eighteen years, flashes of intensified conflict and bouts of
negotiations have followed one another with monotonous regularity in
Kashmir. Newspapers and television channels manufacture predictable binary
images of conflict – angry men and weeping women, misguided innocents and
fundamentalist separatists, victims and aggressors. Over and above these is
the image that erases all differences – the Kashmiri as terrorist.

When we set out to make a film on peace initiatives by women in Kashmir, the
question uppermost in our minds was, do women really want peace, as opposed
to men? At what cost? Can 'peace' still the turmoil at the heart of every
Kashmiri? What are the conditions that beget violence, that drive young men
to take to the gun? What then, are the conditions for peace?

It felt strange to speak to women, only women, ignoring the other half. So
we spoke to a few men – one a former militant, another who had sent his son
for training across the border with his blessings, a third, a school master,
who lost his son in a gun battle only to realize he was a militant, a
fourth, a school boy, whose brother was killed in crossfire – we spoke to
men and realized that while every story in Kashmir has the power to shock
and move, while the stories of both men and women were compelling in their
honesty, in their rage, in their grief, in their helplessness,  in their
contempt, in their fierce refusal to forget; the women's stories are
markedly different in their determination to survive, to nurture.
It is through these women – proud, strong, with an undying zest for life –
that we try to explore what peace means and how it can come about in
Kashmir.

 <http://freedomfilmsindia.org/>
*No Entry Fee. Limited Seating. * *Prithvi House, Opposite Prithvi Theatre,
Janki Kutir, Juhu, Mumbai. *
*The registration desk will be open between 6 pm to 6:45 pm only. *
*For more information, write to us at vikalp.prithvi at gmail.com. *
*For screening queries contact Anand Patwardhan 9819882244 Lynne Henry
9820896425*