[Reader-list] Screening of " Presence" and "Fun @ Sun" at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements

[Subasri Krishnan]

The Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) is screening  “Presence” by Ekta Mittal and Yashaswini Raghunandan and “Coding Culture”
 by Gautam Sonti in collaboration with Carol Upadhyay on 26th October, 
2012 at 6.00 pm. The screenings will be followed by a discussion with 
the filmmakers at the IIHS Bangalore City Campus (address: No. 197/36, 2nd Main Road, Sadashivanagar, Bangalore 560 080)


"Presence" 

Synopsis:

About Behind the Tin Sheets Project:

Behind the Tin Sheets is a project which uses video and other related
 media to engage the changing landscape of Bangalore, a “Garden City” 
increasingly associated with technology and private sector research. 
Drawing connections between a literal restructurion of the metropolis 
and a host of related social concerns – the invisibility of certain 
sections of society and palpable contrasts dividing class and caste – 
the project considers the erasure of memory in relation to a radically 
altered landscape. Working at the cusp of old and new Bangalore, the 
project strives to make visible its various unseen actors.

A collection of workers’ stories, in_transience and presence are two 
short films from the rushes of Behind the Tin Sheets (on-going since 
2009) based on conversations with migrant workers employed by the state 
to build a sprawling metro rail system, the project proposes an 
experience of rapidly changing Bangalore through the eyes of itinerant 
labourers. Here, from “behind the tin sheets” – a metaphor for the 
unremarkable spaces outside of work, fleeting moments of cell phone 
conversations and uneventful cigarette breaks – a storyteller emerges in
 the expanse between the mundane and the magical. Many of these workers 
have travelled great distances from far-flung villages. In following 
their actions for periods of up to three years, this project suggests 
the importance of auto-ethnography, and situates the worker in a variety
 of settings. Behind the Tin Sheets attempts to blur the line between 
arbitrary binaries of Bangalore (e.g. between idyllic garden space and 
landscapes of technology). Eschewing both traditional realism and 
romance, the films situates magical elements from the workers’ stories 
within the environments that they inhabit and create. A productive 
ambiguity thus emerges: between the supposedly singular narrative of a 
city, and the stories of those who labour, unseen, to construct it. 

We intend to produce various forms of work through the research and archiving that we have done so far.

About "Presence" | 17 mins, 51 secs

Presence is the second film produced under this project. . The film 
explores the haunting attributes of the transformation in the city 
against the ghost stories narrated by the workers.

“The ghost is not simply a dead or a missing person, but a social 
figure, and investigating [that social figure]…lead[s] to that dense 
site where history and subjectivity make social life…The way of the 
ghost is haunting, and haunting is a very particular way of knowing what
 has happened or is happening” – Avery Gordon.

Directors:

Yashaswini Raghunandan has been working on documentary films for the 
last five years. Worked with Deepa Bhatia and Surabhi Sharma, 
independent film makers from India. She assisted in making Nero’s 
guests, a film about agrarian crisis in India through the eyes of P. 
Sainath. She worked with Surabhi Sharma, in researching and assisting on
 her on-going film Bidesia in Bambai and Labels from a Global city.

Conceptualised Behind the Tin Sheets Project in 2009 and has co-directed in_transience and presence.

She is also involved in creating Dance Films and documenting Live 
Music Concerts and Festivals in Bangalore. Some of her video work can be
 seen on: https://vimeo.com/thefilms

Ekta Mittal has been working as a community media researcher and 
trainer for the last seven years. She co-founded and works at maraa, a 
media and arts collected in Bangalore. She works as a field researcher, a
 community media trainer and manages the arts programme at maraa. She is
 also a theatre practitioner and part of a theatre group called Masrah. 
Conceptualised the Behind the Tin Sheets project in 2009 and has 
co-directed in_transience and presence.



Coding Culture 

Synopsis:

Coding Culture, a series of three films (Fun @ Sun / The M Way / July
 Boys), takes a close look at the software industry in Bangalore, its 
work culture, and at the people who work in the industry. The Indian 
software industry has emerged as a key node of the global capitalist 
economy and Indian software engineers are now a significant category of 
global ‘knowledge workers’.


Fun @ Sun is set in the software development centre of a large 
American multinational company, Sun Microsystems, located in Bangalore. 
The film focuses on the multiple ways in which ‘culture’ operates as a 
management tool in the new global economy. To integrate teams and sites 
across cultural and geographical space, Sun attempts to create a common 
‘global’ corporate culture. The film highlights techniques such as 
induction and ‘soft skills’ training programmes, through which 
American-style work culture is transplanted into the Indian subsidiary. 
Indian software engineers are incorporated into this dominant model by 
learning appropriate communication styles and even adopting new 
personality traits.

Gautam Sonti is an independent filmmaker from Bangalore.