[Reader-list] Dawn to Dusk – About Cinematic Innovation - The FD Zone, Saturday 24th November

[rohitrellan at aol.in]

Dear friends,





We are delighted to bring you three films, which either innovate with film language or reflect on such innovations. This collection of films includes the informal as well as the industrially produced moving image, that caught the imagination of people in the first half of the last century and continue to hold us in thrall. People continue to incessantly make non-fiction movies with their cellphones and other such devices. What remains fascinating is the element of performativity in the non-fiction film, whi
 ch leads us to reflect on documentary truth or objectivity. 

STRAIGHT 8
English, 17 min, colour, digital video, 2005

Ayisha Abraham’s video Straight 8, shows us unedited 8mm footage and short films made by a film enthusiast called Tom D’aguiar, who lived in Bangalore in the early part of the 20th century. What remains now in his films is beautiful, scratched and blistered images of people’s family picnics, performances by the graceful dancer Ram Gopal and Tom's own fictional comic thrillers filmed in his garden with his friends.

Original footage – Tom D’aguiar
Direction – Ayisha Abraham
Camera – T Aravindan, T Jayashree and Ayisha Abraham
Editing – Jyotsna Murthy, Rikhav Desai
Sound design and music – Rajivan SA
Additional music – Konarak Reddy

SYMPHONY OF LIFE
Music, 10 min, B/W, 35mm, 1955

This short film is an ode to the Indian peasant. It follows ‘a day in the life of’ structure without any identifiable characters or narration. It features music by the eminent Vishnudas Shirali, who is well known for his composition for Uday Shankar’s 1948 classic Kalpana. Symphony of Life was screened in the competition section at Cannes.

Direction and camera – TA Abraham
Editing – ND Keluskar
Sound mixing – PK Vishwanath
Production – V Shantaram

MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA
Silent, 68 min, B/W, 35mm, 1929

Direction and editing – Dziga Vertov
Camera – Mikhail Kauffman, Gleb Troyanski

Dziga Vertov’s 1929 experimental classic discards established filmic devices of the time like inter-titles, or identifiable protagonists, in an unabashed celebration of cinematic form, to present urban life in Odessa and other Soviet cities in a dawn to dusk structure. Soviet citizens are shown at work and at play, and interacting with the machinery of modern life.

This film is famous for the range of cinematic techniques Vertov invents, deploys or develops, such as double exposure, fast motion, slow motion, freeze frames, jump cuts, split screens, Dutch angles, extreme close-ups, tracking shots, footage played backwards, stop motion animations and a self-reflexive style.

Date and time
Saturday, 24th November, 4 pm

Venue:
RR Theatre
10th floor
Films Division
24, Pedder Road
Mumbai – 400026

Directions
Nearest station - Grant Road. From Grant Road(West), take a taxi, or bus no 155 to Pedder Road. The Films Division is located at the signal diagonally opposite Jaslok Hospital.

Regards,
The FD Zone team

    
             
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