1) Mannu (SOIL) : Sprouts of Endurance
Dir: Ramdas Kadavallur; 113 min; Tamil, Malayalam with English subtitles; India; 2020; Documentary
The film chronicles the encroachment of vast stretches of a hilly land, the eviction of its rightful owners,the blatant exploitation of the laborers and their struggle for existence. It does not confine itself in narrating the evolution and impact of a labor struggle, but also focuses on another important social aspect in India, the significance of caste, the strangle hold it exerts on the psyche of the nation.
The documentary holds its mirror to the dichotomy of underlying neglect and discrimination meted out to the hapless people belonging to the lower echelons of society. It explores the ruthless impact of policies on the ‘land’ and ‘soil’, its uneven distribution and the resultant irreparable and long standing damage it causes to the environment and fragile terrain, which is abound with precious flora and fauna.
2) Moti Bagh
Dir: Nirmal Chander; 59.23 min; Hindi with Eng subtitles; 2019; India; Documentary
2) Moti Bagh
Dir: Nirmal Chander; 59.23 min; Hindi with Eng subtitles; 2019; India; Documentary
83 year old Vidyadutt Sharma holds the record for growing the heaviest radish in India weighing 23 kgs. He now aims to beat the world record of 31 kgs. Over the last five decades, he has built up Moti Bagh, his 5 acre farm in a small Himalayan village in northern India. Around him lie 7000 ghost villages, left to die, with no one to till the land – a chilling testimony to large scale migration by locals in search of employment in the cities.
With no manpower at their disposal, the few locals are employing Nepali labour. But there is unease because of this dependence and the growing influence of the Nepalis.
As market forces exert pressure, family dynamics are also changing. Vidyadutt’s journalist son, Tribhuvan, lives and works in Pauri, a large town 35 kms from Moti Bagh. His two children wish to chase their own dreams in the metros.
Vidyadutt Sharma, farmer, activist and poet, chronicles the changing landscape in verses of resistance. As he and Ram Singh, his Nepali farmhand, plough the fields to keep a dream called Moti Bagh alive, we wonder if it will ever return to its old glory.
3) Mod Bhaang (Ebb Tide)
Dir : Renu Savant; 60 min; Marathi with Eng subtitles; India; 2019; Documentary
Mod Bhaang is a participatory documentation of the small scale creek fishermen in Mirya village. While creating a picture of the world of fishermen it probes into and stylizes the idea of the documenting filmmaker in various ways. It has been shot in the monsoon of 2018 in the Mirya creek and records the unfolding of people’s presence and work of fishing there.
The film has a formal relation to ‘time’ – both within the narrative and while shooting it. It is the interview as an event in time, which forms the structure of the film.
Forming a continuum of my documentation in the Indian village of Mirya, Mod Bhaang (The Ebb Tide), is the second in a trilogy of films about this place. Mirya is my ancestral village on the western coast of India and lies beside the sea. Fishing is one of the main activities of livelihood here.
Shooting within Mirya as an insider-outsider and negotiating with caste, gender and cultural politics in the village as a woman filmmaker, has been the major part of my work in the past three years.
The film has a formal relation to ‘time’ – both within the narrative and while shooting it. It is the interview as an event in time, which forms the structure of the film.
Forming a continuum of my documentation in the Indian village of Mirya, Mod Bhaang (The Ebb Tide), is the second in a trilogy of films about this place. Mirya is my ancestral village on the western coast of India and lies beside the sea. Fishing is one of the main activities of livelihood here.
Shooting within Mirya as an insider-outsider and negotiating with caste, gender and cultural politics in the village as a woman filmmaker, has been the major part of my work in the past three years.
4) 21 Hours - of Toil, Travel and Trade
Dir: Sunitha C. V.; 28 min; Malayalam, English with Eng subtitles; India; 2020; Documentary
This documentary film records the life of Rajamma, a woman fish vendor in Trivandrum, Kerala, who travels daily to Thoothukudy harbour 200 km away to procure fish and sell it back in her hometown. It highlights the struggle and strength of unorganised working women, who survive because of sheer grit, in spite of overwhelming odds.
5) A Dream in their Songs
Dir : Debaranjan; 29 min; Odia with Eng subtitles; India; 2020; Documentary
5) A Dream in their Songs
Dir : Debaranjan; 29 min; Odia with Eng subtitles; India; 2020; Documentary
Songs are an important part of the community life as well as their resistance to dispossession. The dream of these singers of Odisha has always been the strength of people’s struggle of saving their own lives and resources. These singers are very much the same people who compose the songs, sing the same, participate in the rally, and encourage own people to dream. For the last few years, they have been in front of all resistance struggles in the eastern part of India. This film is based on the life and dream of a few composers-cum-singers of such resistance struggles of Odisha/India.
6) L for…
Dir : Bharati Kapadia; 13.13 min; English; India; 2017; Short film
Spoken Word is an oral performance art form that focuses on the aesthetics of word play, rhythm, intonation and voice inflection.
The text for ‘L FOR....’ written by Bharati Kapadia, is an oral performance piece founded on the spoken word poetry form. It engages the A FOR APPLE phonics strategy with which children are taught alphabet shapes and sounds and the recognition of objects associated with a particular alphabet.
L FOR... explores the nuances of the word LOVE by taking us on an expedition across the letters L, O, V, E. Through two performative formats, that of the text body: text animation and that of the human body: sign language performance, the different words represented by each of the four letters resonate with variegated meaning-attributes that have come to be associated with the word love within the contemporary social milieu.
L FOR... is my way of countering the present day despondency pervading our social environment and create space for joy and playfulness to reclaim their existence in our daily lives.
7) Returning to the First Beat
Dir: Surabhi Sharma; 85 min; Hindi with Eng subtitles; India; 2017; Documentary
The text for ‘L FOR....’ written by Bharati Kapadia, is an oral performance piece founded on the spoken word poetry form. It engages the A FOR APPLE phonics strategy with which children are taught alphabet shapes and sounds and the recognition of objects associated with a particular alphabet.
L FOR... explores the nuances of the word LOVE by taking us on an expedition across the letters L, O, V, E. Through two performative formats, that of the text body: text animation and that of the human body: sign language performance, the different words represented by each of the four letters resonate with variegated meaning-attributes that have come to be associated with the word love within the contemporary social milieu.
L FOR... is my way of countering the present day despondency pervading our social environment and create space for joy and playfulness to reclaim their existence in our daily lives.
7) Returning to the First Beat
Dir: Surabhi Sharma; 85 min; Hindi with Eng subtitles; India; 2017; Documentary
The metropolitan transformation of Bombay in the nineteenth and twentieth century kept time with changes in the practice and pedagogy of Hindustani classical music in the city. With the decline of the princely states traditional systems of patronage began to unravel. Musicians, among others, began to gravitate to the rapidly growing colonial city of Bombay, in search of new sponsors. This led, in turn, to the formation of a distinctive audience for Hindustani sangeet in the city – one not limited to the princely courts and exclusive homes of the aristocracy. Girgaon was a part of the native town of the colonial city and was one of the key neighbourhoods where the singers, the patrons and the audiences lived.
Phir se samm pe aana strives to experience the space for Hindustani classical music in the city. The film revisits the sites clustered in and around Girgaon where music was taught and performed. It seeks to understand the musical legacy of this neighbourhood, even as it reimagines the documentary mode. This film ‘listens’ to architectural structures in an attempt to reflect on the deep history of this practice. In narrativising the love of music that took shape in this neighbourhood we also seek to experience ‘film time’ rather than evoke a time past or record the present. The film seeks repetition and cyclical time to imagine a narrative on music. Phir se…is an opportunity to experience an interior, almost intimate practice of the musical form.
8) Aayi Gayi
Dir: Anandana Kapur; 72 min; Hindi and English; 2019
Phir se samm pe aana strives to experience the space for Hindustani classical music in the city. The film revisits the sites clustered in and around Girgaon where music was taught and performed. It seeks to understand the musical legacy of this neighbourhood, even as it reimagines the documentary mode. This film ‘listens’ to architectural structures in an attempt to reflect on the deep history of this practice. In narrativising the love of music that took shape in this neighbourhood we also seek to experience ‘film time’ rather than evoke a time past or record the present. The film seeks repetition and cyclical time to imagine a narrative on music. Phir se…is an opportunity to experience an interior, almost intimate practice of the musical form.
8) Aayi Gayi
Dir: Anandana Kapur; 72 min; Hindi and English; 2019
In Bihar, where “Sarkar mera bada bhai hai…” (The government is my older brother) is the righteous response to why one may illegally acquire electricity connections or not pay bills, a team of academics work on the ground to activate RLSS- the Revenue Linked Supply Scheme- and are met with various degrees of opposition and success.
The film explores the complex relationships people have with the State through the lens of electricity. Is it a right? Or is it a commodity? In a country with limited resources, can it be a social right if the government needs funds to keep the grid functional? And if so, can the normalization of non-payment of bills be reversed? Is it possible to create an ideal citizenry?
9) Neeli Raag (True Blue)
Dir: Swati Dandekar; 85 min; Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Hindi, Gujarati, English; Subtitled in English; 2018
Indigo is not just a colour, it never was... it was wealth, it was mystique, it was colonialism, tyranny and protest. It made history, but itself fell prey to the events and processes of time, until one day it seemed to disappear.
As the world begins to demand natural dyes once again, it is back in the spot light. The stubborn dreamers who refused to forget their craft feel vindicated, but the world that once nurtured this difficult and capricious colour is no more.
Traversing the verdant monsoon of Tamil Nadu, the earthy expanses of springtime Telangana, and the wintry desert of Kachchh, Neeli Raag is an attempt to tell the story of indigo as it is practised in India today.
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