[Reader-list] Open Frame 09-17 September 2011, IIC, New Delhi/ VOLUNTEER FOR OPEN FRAME 2011/ Bhoomi 2011:LEARNING FROM NATURE REMEMBERING TAGORE

[rohitrellan at aol.in]

The Public Service Broadcasting Trust is organising its eleventh annual Film Festival & Forum of documentary films, workshops and discussions, the Open Frame, from 09 to 17 September 2011, in collaboration with, and at the India International Centre, New Delhi. Apart from the fraternity of filmmakers, critics, scholars and film enthusiasts, we will host more than 200 media students who register with us.

2011 marks a decade of PSBT’s work towards democratising the media and mainstreaming the independent documentary and hence Open Frame 2011 will focus on PSBT Films, celebrating their diversity and richness – those produced over the last year and a retrospective of those produced over the last decade. 
 
The Films embody new forms of looking at and understanding realities and articulate them in powerful and significant ways. From chronicling oral histories of communities, understanding the politics of religion in India, exploring the relationship that various bodies share with the city, celebrating the sexualities of those with disabilities, engaging with newer forms of existence in a globalised world, negotiating citizenship and identity, to debating India’s neo-liberal development paradigm, the Films provide an invigorating context for debate and dialogue. Through extraordinary personal stories and narratives and engagements with larger questions about the world we create around us and inhabit, the Films traverse a wide canvas of issues that concern us as individuals, groups and citizens. 
 
PSBT uses the documentary film form to seriously engage with social, political and human concerns. To create a discourse around these, we organise panel discussionsand presentations on specific themes with filmmakers, specialists, activists and academicians who provide a valuable and stimulating framework for conversations and dialogue. Panel Discussions this year include:
 
Articulating Subaltern Narratives - Mahmood Farooqui, Ranjani Mazumdar, S. Gautham, Shriprakash;
 
Politics of Religion: Media and Identity Formation - Ambarien Alqadar, Lalit Vachani, Nirmal Chander, Shohini Ghosh;
 
Kashmir: Edge of the Map… Edge of the Imagination - Shivam Vij;
 
Politics of Justice in India - Justice A. P. Shah, Sumit Khanna, Usha Ramanathan, Vrinda Grover;
 
Women, ‘Madness’ and Cinema - Shohini Ghosh;
 
Exclusive Cities, Disadvantaged Bodies - Avijit Mukul Kishore, Kalyani Menon-Sen, Pankaj H. Gupta, Ravi Vasudevan, Sameera Jain;
 
Politics and Economics of Development - Aditya Nigam, Aseem Shrivastava, Akanksha Joshi, Jayati Ghosh, Pankaj Rishi Kumar, Surjit S. Bhalla.

Training in filmmaking remains a vital component of the Open Frame and this year too, there are special sessions being organised on specialised aspects of documentary filmmaking. There will be Documentary Film Appreciation and Fiction Film Appreciation Workshops by Professor Suresh Chabria, Film and Television Institute of India, on 9 and 12-13 September respectively and Intensive Workshops on Filmmaking by Paromita Vohra (Script Writing), Avijit Mukul Kishore (Camera), Suresh Rajamani (Sound) and Sankalp Meshram (Editing) from 14-17 September.
 
For Programme Log on to http://psbt.org/general/programme


For Workshops Log on to http://psbt.org/general/workshops2011


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VOLUNTEER FOR OPEN FRAME 2011





If you wish to help us out with our annual festival, the Open Frame, scheduled between 09 and 17 September 2011, please email your resume to us at jobs at psbt.org
  

 
Those interested in opportunities at PSBT can email their CVs to jobs at psbt.org. We will get in touch with you if and when we have an opening/ assignment. Please also send us 


1. A 500-word note on why you want to work with PSBT and in what ways you can contribute to PSBT's agendas. Please also give us a sense of your personal and professional aspirations;
2. Minimum remuneration you seek.
 
Key Responsibilities
To work with the Programme Team in all aspects of PSBT’s work, including commissioning and production of films, organising film festivals and general administrative support. 

Skills
1. Excellent command over English, both written and spoken.
2. A University Degree, preferably in Mass Communication or Journalism.
3. A passion for the media.
4. Ability to work in a Team.
5. Good working knowledge of Computers.
 

NOTE: PSBT is not a production house but supports the production of independent documentary films. We are an equal opportunity employer.
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Bhoomi 2011:LEARNING FROM NATURE REMEMBERING TAGORE  


A day long conference cum festival,organised in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture (GOI),featuring Panels,Theatre and Film,Songs,Dinner


India International Center, New Delhi
1st October, 2011
Let us all return to the soil
That lays the corners of its garments
And waits for us.
Life rears itself from her breast,
Flowers bloom from her smiles
Her call is the sweetest music;
Her lap stretches from one corner to the other,
She controls the strings of life.
Her warbling waters bring
The murmur of life from all eternity.
- Rabindranath Tagore (Palliprakiti, i)
 
10:00 -10:10 – Invocation to Mother Earth Rabindra sangeet school choir)
10:10 – 10:20 – Opening statement by  Dr Vandana Shiva
10:20 – 11:20 – Panel One: Tagore’s Vision of Nature and Reverence for the Earth
11:20- 11:30 -   Declaration of Rights of Mother Earth, Signing of the declaration and Diya
Lighting Ceremony


Session Two: Robbery of the Soil


“The temptation of an inordinately high level of living, which was once confined only to a small section of the community, becomes widespread. The blindness is sure to prove fatal to the civilization which puts no restraint upon the emulation of self indulgence………
When they had reduced the limited store of material in their immediate surroundings, they proceeded to wage various wars among their different sections, each wanting his own special allotment of the lion’s share. In their scramble for the right to self-indulgence, they laughed at moral law and took it to be a sign of superiority to be ruthless in the satisfaction each of his own desire. They exhausted the water, cut down the trees, reduced the surface of the planet to a desert, riddled it with enormous pits and made its interior a rifled pocket, emptied of its valuables.”
- Rabindranath Tagore
The Robbery of The Soil in EWRT, Vol. III, 866 (870)

11:30 – 11:45-  The Robbery of The Soil: Puppet Montage
11:45 – 12:30 -  Panel One : Robbing the Earth- The Fight for Bhu Swaraj
12:30 – 1:15  –  Panel Two : Rejuvenating the Soil

1:15 – 2:00   LUNCH



Session Three: Education as Poetry in Motion Empowering the Future Generation for Building an Earth Democracy


2:00 – 2:15      Reading of Tagore’s “The Parrot’s Story” and book release
2:15 – 3:15      Panel Three : Education as Poetry in Motion: Tagore’s Legacy for Empowering the Future Generations for Building an Earth Democracy
3:15 – 4:15  Screening of the moving “Harmony”


Session Four: The Champa and the Cherry Blossom: A Cross Culture Dialogue on Beauty as Harmony between Nature and Living Beings


“The language of Nature is the eternal language of creation. It penetrates reality to reach the deepest layers of our consciousness, it draws upon a language that has survived thousands of years with the human … it is the musical instrument of nature; it replicates the rhythm inherent in life itself. If we listen carefully we will be able to trace within them the murmurs of eternity where the spirit of liberation, peace and beauty lurk, it reminds us of the sea that is santam, shivam, advaitam … it reminds us of our bond with the world … if we can accept this music of the wild within us, we can perceive the great music of oneness …”
- Rabindranath Tagore
"Introduction", to Bonobani, Rabindra Rachanavali, Vol. 8, 87


4:15 – 5:00      The Champa and the Cherry Blossom: A Cross Culture Dialogue on Beauty as Harmony between Nature and Living Beings
5:00 – 5:20     TEA Break


Session Five: Learning from Tagore: Strengthening the Green Movement


“Your mission is proving that a love for the earth, and for the things of the earth, is possible without materialism, a love without greed... I entreat you not to be turned by the call of vulgar strength, of stupendous size, by the spirit of storage, by the multiplication of millions, without meaning and without end. Cherish the ideal of perfection, and to that, relate all your work and all your movements. Though you love the material things of earth, they will not hurt you and you will bring heaven to earth and soul into things.”
- Rabindranath Tagore


5:20 - 6:20  Tagore Play by Neil Chaudhary and the Tadpoles
6:30 – 7:30     Panel Four : Learning from Tagore: Strengthening the Green Movement
7:30 – 8:15       Concert by Vidya Rao : A Tribute to Bhoomi
8:15 – 10:30     The Champa and the Cherry Blossom Dinner : A Celebration ofFriendship