Certificate course in City Narratives
Majlis Bombay announces a Certificate Course on City Narratives in Cinema and Literature
Dates: 9th July to 12th October 2010
For details, please visit: www.cinemacitycourse.com
Hurry! Last date to apply 7th June 2010
Organised by Majlis, Maxmuller Bhavan Mumbai and SNDT Women’s University
Filmmaker P. Baburaj traces his cinematic journey with recently deceased activist and filmmaker C. Saratchandran
Source : Time Out Delhi ISSUE 3 Friday, April 30, 2010
P Baburaj remembers C Saratchandran, the filmmaker and activist who died in a freak accident in April.
The personal, professional and political were all so tightly woven together in the documentary filmmaker Chandrasekharan Saratchandran that it was impossible to separate one from the other. Saratchandran died in a freak accident on April 1 – he fell off a moving passenger train while returning to his Ernakulam home from a wedding. The 52-year-old director and environmental activist was a well-known name, especially in Kerala, where he participated in several popular movements against the government and corporations, made many documentaries, and tirelessly promoted world cinema and documentaries by organising screenings. Documentary filmmakers in several cities are planning tributes to Saratchandran. In Delhi, Kriti Club and the Delhi Film Archive will organise screenings of two of his films at the India Habitat Centre.
Before becoming a filmmaker in the 1980s, Saratchandran assisted leading Malayali offbeat filmmakers like John Abraham and G Aravindan. He made four films with P Baburaj, including the acclaimed Chaliyar…The Final Struggle, and The Bitter Drink. Baburaj tells Time Out about the influences on Saratchandran’s work, and his contribution to the state’s film and political cultures.
“Saratchandran, KP Sasi and I were all born in 1952. My father, C Unniraja was one of the first Communists in Kerala. Sasi’s grandfather MP Manmadhan, is one of the great Gandhians of the state and his father Chandrasekharan Nair is one of the leading Hindi scholars of Kerala. Sasi’s father is K Damodaran. So activism runs in our blood, but we all chose a different path – neither Marx nor Gandhi.
Sarat had always sought an alternative to the mainstream, whether it was in films or art or developmental issues. I met him around 1983 while he was working on a feature film. It was a culturally and politically active period in Kerala. There were alternative poets and magazines, John Abraham [a Malayali filmmaker] was active. Sarat and I later assisted Sasi on Living in Fear, about the hazards of radiation caused by the company Indian Rare Earths in Kerala. We became close friends and associates.
Both of us were a part of emerging non-party political movements linked to human rights and the environment in the ’80s. Sarat had a video camera which he was using to document meetings and campaigns. The VHS camera had mostly been used to shoot weddings, but Sarat made three documentaries with it. One was Save Western Ghats March – The Kerala Experience. Then a film about a campaign against a hydroelectric dam, called No Two Big Dams. Then Before Everything Heads, about several developmental issues in Kerala.
In between, Sarat went to work as an educational consultant at the British Council office in Riyadh. His idea was to save money for equipment. He returned in 1998 with a digital camera. I was working with Sasi in Delhi at the time. Sarat and I decided to document alternative initiatives in Kerala. An agitation against industrial pollution in Mavoor was going on, so we went there and shot a film, which later became Chaliyar… The Final Struggle.
Before we actually started working together, we decided that we wouldn’t make weepy documentaries, but instead focus on showing collective action. As concerned citizens, we were also involved with these struggles. So the films followed our social involvement. The Chaliyar film won us the certificate of merit at the Mumbai International Festival of Films in 2000, which established us as a filmmaking duo of reasonable repute.
No two people could be any more different. Our concept of cinema is as different as our physique – I’m much taller than he was. Our films developed through intense arguments. We would shoot and argue, edit and argue. The strength of the four films we made together, apart from the issues we took up, was the constant arguments.
Sarat was working on several projects when he died. He was shooting for Sasi’s documentary on Kandhamal. We had finished about 70 per cent of a sequel to the Chaliyar film. We were also working on two more documentaries, and he was making a documentary on his own. I plan to complete all the films.
Sarat was also the founder of Nottam, a touring festival of documentaries. Earlier, he used to show world cinema classics from his collection all over the place, to film societies, schools and reading rooms. Then Sasi suggested that he start showing documentaries too. Sarat dubbed Anand Patwardhan’s Ram Ke Naam into Malayalam and showed it in Kerala. He showed the films of people like Amar Kanwar and Sanjay Kak. A friend of ours called C Venkateshwaran wrote an article in The Hindu calling Sarat a ‘conduit of images of resistance from all over the world’.
He had gone from Ernakulam to Thrissur to attend the wedding of a close friend. The train he took to return was very crowded, and he seems to have fallen off onto the tracks. I got a call from his wife at 2.15 in the morning. For days, I was haunted by the image of him falling from the train.”
As told to Nandini Ramnath
Retrospective of Saratchandran’s films
We invite you for
A man with a 1000 dreams: Remembering C Saratchandran
(A retrospective of Sartchandran’s films.)
Venue: Centre for Film and Drama,Millers road , Bangalore
Date: 8th May, Saturday
Time: 4.30pm – 8.30 pm
C. Saratchandran (1958 – 2010)
A civil rights activist and a documentary film maker, C Saratchandran has been an inspiration and a great support for all individuals and organizations that screened issue-based documentaries across the country. He has reached out to many, both through the medium of films and with his most democratic personal politics.
Throughout his life, Sarat has shown us the significant role a film maker plays in social change and how powerful a camera can be as an agent of such change. Untiringly he had screened documentaries throughout the length and breadth of Kerala about several socio- political issues.
Educated at M.G College Thiruvananthapuram and Dharmadam, Saratchandran was part of a movement against emergency. He learnt film making from John Abraham and G Aravindan. He started documenting social struggles in ’80s and was often involved in the struggles he set out to document.
We invite you to be a part of this programme in solidarity and remembrance of an environmentalist, activist and film maker who has a body of work that will live on forever. The screening of the following films made by Saratchandran as a part of an evening of remembrance and dedication to the life of Sarat.
Programme
Time: 4.30 pm – 5 pm
Chaliyar… The final struggle (1999)
Dir: P. Baburaj & C. Saratchandran
35 mins/ English
A river, her people and a factory that gobbles all precious natural resources and pollutes the land lives, form the principal characters of this video film.
Special Mention, MIFF 2000
The Bronze Tree Award, Vatavaran 2002
Time: 5 pm – 6 pm
Thousand Days and a Dream (2006)
Dir: P. Baburaj & C. Saratchandran
77 mins/ English
On the four and a half years old anti-Coca Cola struggle in Plachimada, Kerala. Perhaps, no other agitation in recent times in Kerala has attracted national and global attention like this one. The film captures the spirit of the struggle, traces the history and discusses the several issues raised by the struggle. It also documents the poignant moments of the struggle and shares the dreams and sorrows of some of the active participants of the struggle.
10th Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF) Indian Jury Award Winner.
Time: 6pm- 6.15 pm
Tea break
Time: 6.15 – 6.45 pm
Remembering Saratchandran – friends of Sarat sharing their memories
Time: 6.45 – 8.30 pm
Your’s Truly John (2008)
Dir: C. Saratchandran
100 mins / English subtitles
A video essay on the many faceted life of John Abraham, the film maker. Over 50 of his friends and close associates speak about him and discuss his films and creative life. This documentary brings us closer to the person who lived the life on the edge, through reminiscence of those who were close to him
Organised By
Vikalp Bengaluru, Pedestrian Pictures, Maraa, Bangalore film society, Grass root media, PUCL(K),PDF, Alternative Law Forum , SICHREM, Vimochana, Samvada, Environment support group, Samanatha Mahila Vedike, Karnataka Janapara Vedike, Sthree Jagruthi,
For further details Contact Deepu- 9448367627, Sushama Veerappa- 9845766808 ,Johnson Rajkumar -9886126064
In memory of C. Saratchandran!
Remembering documentary film maker & civil rights activist C. Saratchandran by screening his following films : organised by the Delhi Film Archive & Kriti Film Club
Venue: Habitat World, India Habitat Centre ( IHC ), Lodhi Road, New Delhi-110003
Date: 7th May 2010Time: 7:00 pm
Entry: Free
English (subtitled), 26 min, 2003, India
The people of Plachimada, Kerala take on the Coca-Cola corporation in a David an Goliath battle.
To Die For Land – The Ultimate Sacrifice
English (subtitled), 29 min, 2003, India
The film captures the adivasi land struggle in Chengara, Kerala. Located in Patnamthitta district, Chengara is witness to the occupation by 20000 adivasis of over 2000 acres of land belonging to Harrison Malayalam Company Ltd. For the adivasis who took over this commercial tea plantation land, the occupation is a defiant way to highlight their situation. Over the years, plantation companies with the active support of the government have ensured that the adivasis are now alienated from land that they once called their homes.
To order copies of the film, The Bitter Drink, write to us at: underconstruction@magiclanternfoundation.org
For other films by C. Saratchandran, log on to: Films by C. Saratchandran
The Keynote Address at Persistence Resistance 2010
We bring to you the keynote address delivered by the well known columnist and author, Ms. Sevanti Ninan, at the inaugural ceremony of Persistence Resistance 2010: A festival of contemporary films.
Creating spaces;
It may seem odd to you as it does to me that a media watch website should be asked to deliver the keynote for a festival of documentary films. But I guess what is common between the emergence of The Hoot some nine years ago, and the emergence of the Persistence Resistance festival in 2008 is the notion of creating a space. Space for something that may not have a commercial logic, and which neither the media industry nor the film industry may make room for in the normal course of things. But something that civil society nevertheless needs to institutionalize for its own sake.
In the media in India in the last two decades we have seen both the opening and closing of spaces. We have discovered that you can have enormous growth, unhindered by the state, and yet lose the diversity you had earlier. There is possibly more sameness now in television entertainment than there was when Doordarshan was the only channel. And also that many more TV channels do not necessarily mean more room for programme experimentation. The channels may be there, but their definition of entertainment may rule out documentary films altogether, even as film channels on television multiply.
I discovered only very recently that the media industry uses the term real estate to denote the space available on channels for programmes. If you have two 24 hr Hindi entertainment channels you have twice the real estate of a TV company that has only one. Why is it real estate? Because it is an electronic space whose commercial potential can be maximized by the kind of programming you do on it. And that is where your highly paid TV channel creative heads come in.
Yet civil society media initiatives if you can call them that, have also blossomed over the same two decades that real estate on TV has grown by many multiples in many languages.
The public service broadcasting trust was created here in Delhi and even if it has had to contend with the vagaries of Doordarshan’s telecast schedules it was a body that could commission film makers to make the kind of films they wanted to. Its next step was to have a festival to show those films. And in recent years many small film festivals have come into existence all creating space for showing films that may not get censor certificates or be able to get commercial releases. Persistence Resistance is one of them. Even more than the film festival the civil society initiative that the Magic Lantern Foundation has taken in becoming a distributor for documentary film makers is part of the process of creating space for what commercial media might not find saleable. It is a space made possible largely by donor funding.
The Internet has created valuable space for film makers too on YouTube and on the site called Witness which hosts videos on human rights violations.
A whole new level of media space is also emerging with the very fledgling community radio movement. It is highly regulated today—the process fraught with needing clearances from many ministries, but for the men and women who live within the radius of these stations a whole new space for expression is opening up and the day will doubtless come when they will push to expand the limits the government has given them. Which is that you cannot have news bulletins on your very local radio station.
The Hoot was set up nine years ago primarily to create the space for media critiques, something that there was no room for in the daily, independent media. The more freewheeling newspapers and TV channels became, the more you needed a watchdog. The Press Council had no teeth, journalists were having a jolly good time in many ways and had no interest in policing themselves, so we had to turn to the web to create the space for writing about the media.
But today there are emerging concerns which go beyond monitoring journalistic performance or ethics. There are tracts of the country where journalists cannot go in to report because the security forces and the naxals keep them out. So you don’t know what is happening to the populations which live there. In some states like West Bengal there is an emerging political culture which drives out journalists from press conferences held by political parties. Why? Because individual journalists are increasingly seen as partisan, and political party workers have become more intolerant.
There are more and more instances every month of censorship by the mob, which is what drove M F Hussain to become the citizen of another country. So in about two weeks from now the Hoot will be unveiling a free speech hub in cyberspace where it hopes free speech violations of every kind in all parts of the country will be flagged. There will be a calendar, and so far we have recorded 9 incidents in the month of January alone.
These range from police detaining journalists and a film maker in Dantewada, snatching their cameras and erasing their footage, the Bombay High court upholding a ban on a book which was imposed by the Maharashtra government, an ULFA diktat to journalists in Guwahati, an attack on a writer in Kerala by political activists, forced deletion of scenes from a Marathi film, the My Name is Khan incident and so on.
To be viligant about freedoms that are constantly under assault, once again, one needs to create an activist space.
Cinema Urbanism: A session on understanding cities in cinema
Date: Friday, April 30, 2010
Time: 7.00 p.m
Venue: Siddhartha Hall, Goethe-Institut/ Max Mueller Bhavan, 3, Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi
CITIES, real or imaginary, have always been integral to cinema, as the stage where its stories play out. The urban spaces in cinema are not just a backdrop to the narrative, but a part of it. Films understand and capture these spaces in a manner more intense and perceptible than architects and urban planners.
Through three evenings, the Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan and arch i platform invite you to a journey through a range of urban spaces and a progression of time periods. In this process the audience will be guided by film experts, who will engage with them, by raising critical questions and presenting new perspectives. CU is not just a screening but an attempt to put architecture and cinema in dialogue.
THE FORMAT of the session will be a discussion or an open dialogue between the expert and the audience. Through various film clips, the experts will discuss a particular aspect of cities and architecture in cinema.
All three experts for the three evenings have varying fields of study and interest. They include a film maker, theorist on film studies and an architect. Consequently, the audience will also be eclectic, ranging from architects to photographers, film makers, or simply film enthusiasts.
Session ONE
Date: 30 April, 7pm
Speaker : Ms. Ranjani Mazumdar
Title : Cinematic City – An introduction to understanding cities in cinema
About the speaker: She is not only an Associate Professor of Cinema Studies at the School of Arts & Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University but also an independent film maker and author of the book “Bombay Cinema, An Archive of the City.
Session TWO
Date: 7 May, 7pm
Speaker : Mr. Aftab Jalia
Title : Nothing comes out of Nothing – Fantasy, Utopia and Dystopia
About the speaker:
He is an alumnus of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Beyond his interests in contemporary architecture, he is an ardent observer of parallel graphic expression – including comics, movies and architecture.
Session THREE
Date: 14 May, 7pm
Speaker : Ms. Ein Lall
Title : Rural Virgin, Urban Whore – The Great Indian Divide
About the speaker:
She has used the video documentary to celebrate the unique strength and creativity of women and has directed several films which have participated in various international film festivals.
For details please contact 011 – 23471112/10.
Satyajit Ray Film Festival: Taj Enlighten Film Society
The information and content has not been written by the author, but has been pasted here, with permission from the official sources, to spread the news to as many people possible for the upcoming event.
Taj Enlighten Film Society presents the “Satyajit Ray Festival”
‘Satyajit Ray Festival’ will be held at Cinemax, Metro Big Cinemas and NCPA 2nd May –16 th May, 2010. Presented by Brooke Bond Taj Mahal
26th April 2010, Mumbai: The Taj Enlighten Film Society presents “The Satyajit Ray Festival”, a festival showcasing films, of the great master, of an icon that changed the face of World cinema. Beginning 2nd May 2010, which is the 89th birth anniversary of the filmmaker the society will screen Ray’s films namely Agantuk (The Stranger), Jalsaghar (The Music Room) and Charulata (The Lonely Wife) every Sunday at 10am at Cinemax, Metro Big Cinemas and NCPA. Presented by Brooke Bond Taj Mahal, the festival will recreate Ray’s magic on the silver screen for all the filmmaker’s fans and film enthusiasts. Directors of various backgrounds from across the country will discuss his outstanding contribution to the world of cinema after every film.
Pranav Ashar, President of the Taj Enlighten Film Society said, “Since we began our film society, we have had many requests to do a Satyajit Ray film festival. We have never received such a response immediately after announcing a festival. After this overwhelming response, we are already planning to extend and enhance the experience of the festival by adding the famous Apu Trilogy – Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road), Aparajito (The Unvanquished) and Apur Sansar (The World of Apu).”
Speaking on the occasion, Arun Srinivas, Category Head – Beverages, HUL said, “Our association with Enlighten Film Society resonates our spirit of excellence. We at Taj Enlighten Society offer a platform to the best in the world of cinema.”
The Satyajit Ray Film Festival, which is set to take place in Mumabi From May 2nd to 16th May, 2010, will be a landmark celebration of the history movies, presented in a way that only Enlighten can, with major events, celebrity appearances, panel discussions and more. The festival will also provide movie fans a rare opportunity to experience some of cinema’s greatest works as they were meant to be seen – on the big screen. Enlighten will announce additional special events, guests and programming in the weeks and months ahead.
The festival will kick start with the film “Agantuk” Satyajit Ray’s last film after which he won the Honorary Oscar. “A graceful comedy made in a serene, classical style… we can still hear in its message the voice of a great artist!” stated The New Yorker.
This will be followed by the screening of “Jalsaghar”, which is considered one the best works of Ray by many. Charulata the winner of the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival next which will mark the end of the first part of the the satyajit ray film festival. The Apu Triology will be screened in the second part of the festival on June 28th, 29th and 30th with panel discussions and social events.
The Film Festival Pass: Rs.500:
Includes all films at the festival and attendance to the extended film festival in June.
Full Half Yearly Access :Rs. 1200:
Attendance at all Taj Enlighten Film Society screenings for six months including the Satyajit Ray Film Festival.
Full Yearly Access :Rs. 1500:
Attendance at all Taj Enlighten Film Society screenings for one full year including the Satyajit Ray Film Festival and also including panel discussions, social events.
For memberships visit www.enlighten.co.in or call 02242141414
SCHEDULE FOR Satyajit Ray Festival
Cinemax Versova (10am)
2nd May-Agantuk
9th May-Jalsagar
16th May-Charulata
Metro Big Cinemas (10am)
2nd May- Jalsagar
9th May- Charulata
16th May- Agantuk
The Extended Satyajit Ray Festival – Back to back for 3 days in the month of June – The Apu Triology at the National Centre of Performing Arts (NCPA).
28th June- Pather Panchali
29th- June-Aparajito
30th-June-Apur Sansar
For more information, contact:
Tanvi Shah
Enlighten Film Society
Office-02242141414
Mobile: +91 9870090105
Email: tanvishah@enlighten.co.in
Out of the Box: An article in Mid-Day, Mumbai!
Out of the box
Source: Mid-Day, Mumbai
By: Paromita Vohra
Date: 2010-04-25
Place: Mumbai
At a film screening earlier this week, an auditorium full of people settled down to watch a short and a documentary about courtship and marriage. The short film, featured two kisses that had stuck in the maw of the censor board (who finally gave it an A certificate) and some discussion ensued about whether this made sense to the audience or not — were the kisses prurient? Should U certified films not contain such intimacies for fear of corrupting families (why ask how families are produced in the first place, baba, what indecency!)?
Suddenly a perky young man plaintively asked “But how come there was there no homosexual kissing?” A minute of perplexed silence — it was a film about a man proposing to a woman two weeks before her wedding to another man. Even two years ago people would have been uncomfortable at best, censorious at worst — not saying the question was “bad” but that it was “silly” — which is so often liberal people’s pompous way of avoiding talk of sex. However, very quickly the audience understood that the unfortunate chap had perhaps thought he was attending a queer film festival that was to kickstart at the same venue two days later and he was helpfully and kindly enlightened. He lapsed into his seat resigned and watched the next film with dark glasses on, maybe to ensure that none of his cooler friends recognised him in this primarily heterosexual audience — which is perfectly understandable.
Within one month the city has hosted two queer film festivals — Queer Nazariya in early April and the ongoing Kashish Queer Film Fest. Kashish is a tempting array of the political, the romantic, the issue-based and the whimsical from around the world — putting on an equal footing, unlike most film festivals in the country, documentaries, shorts, features, campaigns and music videos. The programming messes with both, the strict political categories of how sexuality is understood, and the way the market and the government divide art forms into creative hierarchies.
If only this form-free continuum could enter our public and personal understanding of sexuality too. In a superb interview, Bengali filmmaker Rituparno Ghosh while discussing his acting turn in a film as a transgender performer said: Section 377 has created a polarity between homosexuals and heterosexuals. It doesn’t deal with the entire matrix of sexualities in between these two polars — that’s where androgyny lies.”
This is a vital thought that touches everyone’s intimate selves. While years of activism have finally made it possible to talk about gay-ness and bisexuality, there is a fear it may remain in a separated, though vocal discussion space. But right now, heterosexuality is perhaps the most unthinkingly boxed up of all. Between the moral police and a fake sense of freedom that comes from belonging to a “normal” or mainstream identity, we hardly raise questions about the sexual and erotic nature of heterosexual experience; Couple-dom and monogamy, single only till married, seem to be the only sexual choices we discuss — we hardly talk about the many ways of being straight sexual beings that are actually practised by people. We allow a censor board to tell us we cannot watch a kiss, that wonderful open quotation mark of desire, for fear of obscenity corrupting us. As if the market dictated ideas of plastic love, conformist gym-made bodies and the salacious eye of reality television had not corrupted and distorted our relationship with a most human part of ourselves.
Hopefully the Cinematograph Act will take off its dark glasses soon. Meanwhile, we must keep searching for a more fluid art, more porous definitions through which to celebrate our many ways of living and desiring in this world.
Paromita Vohra is an award-winning Mumbai-based filmmaker, writer, teacher and curator working with fiction and non-fiction. She runs Devi Pictures production company. Reach her at www.parodevi.com
Queer celebration at film festival in Mumbai: DNA-Mumbai
Source: DNA- India, Mumbai edition
An article by: Namita Handa / DNA
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Mumbai: Tinsel town has witnessed and hosted many film festivals, but the one starting today is a class apart. Kashish – Mumbai International Queer Film Festival, starts from April 22 to April 25, promises four days of queer celebration across many platforms of artistic expression.
For the very first time Kashish will make its entry into the world of multiplexes. The films will be screened at two venues – Alliance Française, Marine Lines and PVR in Juhu.
There are 110 films that will be screened across 25 countries. Festival director Kashish, Sridhar Rangayan said, “From India alone there are 25 films. You might consider it a small number, but India is the second largest representative; there are 33 films from the United States, the highest representative. I thought not many queer films were made in India.”
All the films screened highlight gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender characters and stories, exploring the diverse realities, complexities, joys and sorrows that make up their experiences in India and across the world.
Rangayan admits that it was a challenge to convince authorities to let the films be screened at the multiplex. “These films talk and deal with serious issues. We are not here to provide titillation, and neither are we trying to sensationalise the movies,” Rangayan said.
Kashish comprises feature films, documentary and even short films. The films they received were short-listed by a self-appointed selection committee.
The committee was very particular about the kind of films they selected. “We don’t want to hurt the Indian sensibility. We had to discard 30 films for various reasons,” Rangayan said. The selected films were submitted to the Indian Broadcast Ministry for their approval.
EnGAYging Lives and Speak Up! It’s Not Your Fault, the former being on homosexuality and the latter on child sexual abuse are documentaries made by students from the social communication media department of Sophia polytechnic.
The festival has received an overwhelming response. Around 700 people registered to watch the film, but the seating capacity is only for 200.
