[Reader-list] Fwd: Invitation for my film...

[Magic Lantern Foundation]

Apologies for cross posting

Dear friends,
I write to invite you to the screening of a new documentary by Nakul
Sawhney on the resistance against "honour" crimes and Khap Panchayats .

Name: Izzatnagari ki Asabhya Betiyaan (The Immoral Daughters in the Land of
Honour)
Direction: Nakul Singh Sawhney
Duration: 93 minutes (English Subtitled)
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oP4aw_lAlc

Date: 15 January, 2012
Venue: Auditorium, Alliance Francaise, Lodhi Road, New Delhi
Time: 6 pm

Do please attend and spread the word.
best,
Gargi Sen

Newsclick and Magic Lantern Foundation

invite you to the screening of

Izzatnagari ki Asabhya Betiyaan
(The Immoral Daughters in the Land of Honour)

Directed by- Nakul Singh Sawhney


A documentary film on the resistance against "honour" crimes and Khap
Panchayats.

*Trailer of the film*- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oP4aw_lAlc

*Date: 15 January, 2012*
* Venue: Auditorium, Alliance Francaise, Lodhi Road, New Delhi
Time: 6 pm*
Duration: 93 minutes (English Subtitled)



“Those who threaten our traditional code” , says Jai Singh Ahlawat, the
Head of
the Ahlawat Khap. “… Are the educated youngsters, the Dalit officers, who
want everything
to be equal… And, of course, our “asabhya betiyan”, (immoral daughters) who
imagine equality like animals and want our age-old customs to die out…”

Voices like Jai Singh Ahlwats’s belong to the patriarchal and casteist
pillars of a feudal society -- the
Khaps; those who oppose “self-choice” marriages and deny young people the
right to love.

In Izzatnagari ki Asabhya Betiyaan, we have the stories of five young Jat
women who dared to
resist. These women take on take on the powerful Khaps and in the process
confront “honour”
crimes, injustice and social boycotts.

There’s Seema of Haryana, whose brother Manoj and his wife Babli were
killed for marrying
in the same gotra. Seema and her mother are fighting for justice in the
courts against the killers,
though they are pitted against khap panchayats across the region and the
political establishment.
There’s Mukesh of Rohtak, who almost became a victim of an “honour” killing
herself; how she
fought back and and created a new life for herself. Geetika, a student of
Delhi University, directs
a street play on “honour” crimes. She approaches the play keeping in mind
her own need to
question the belief systems she was heir to. Monica, a Jat girl, who
married Gaurav Saini,
from Delhi.  Gaurav tells us about Monica's struggle to lead an independent
life and the subsequent

 problems their marriage faced since they belonged to different castes.
Anjali sees education
as a way to break out of the arranged marriage and domestic life her family
wants for her. Her
M.Phil thesis, on honour crimes, is her answer to the voice of tradition.

These multi-narratives of women are intercut with that of the Khaps.
Through these stories,
Asabhaya Betiyaan exposes the fissures, hypocrisy and violence in a
supposedly modern and
democratic India.