Thursday, January 31, 2019

7th Chennai International Documentary and Short Film Festival 2019 : We welcome you!

7th Chennai International Documentary and Short Film Festival 2019

Jointly organised by MARUPAKKAM and Goethe-Institut, Chennai

Dates: 6-10 Feb 2019


A still from "In the Forest Hangs a Bridge"
Dir : Sanjay Kak; edited by Reena Mohan
Section : Reena Mohan Retrospective

Highlights :

a) Around 50 documentaries and short films will be screened under the following 10 sections :

1) Indian films
2) International films
3) Films from Tamilnadu
4) Contemporary German films
5) Retrospective of Werner Herzog, internationally acclaimed filmmaker from Germany
6) Retrospective of Reena Mohan, veteran and award winning editor / filmmaker / curator from Delhi 7) Filmmaker in Focus - Supriyo Sen, award winning filmmaker from Kolkata
8) 9 Pen Cinemackal - films by women filmmakers : curated and presented by Archana Padmini, actor / filmmaker / curator from Kochi
9) Artists' Cinema - curated and presented by C S Venkiteswaran, critic / curator / filmmaker
10) Gandhi, Gandhiness and Cinema Vimarshaa - curated and presented by Amrit Gangar, critic / curator / teacher from Mumbai

b) Screenings will be held in 3 streams. (Schedule)

1) Curtain Raiser Screenings at multiple venues on 3-5 Feb across Chennai (entry free)
2) Screenings at Goethe- Institut, Chennai (Rs.100 per person per day) on 6-10 Feb; 10 am to 8 pm.
3) Parallel Screenings on 6-10 Feb across Chennai at multiple venues (entry free)

c) Anand Patwardhan, award winning renowned filmmaker from Mumbai will formally inaugurate the film festival on 6 Feb at 10 am at Goethe-Institut, Chennai.

d) Master Class on documentary editing will be conducted by Reena Mohan at Department of Communication, University of Madras on 8th February at 10 am to 4 pm. Entry free.


A still from "Death of Us"
Dir: Vani Subramanian
Section : Indian films


e) Following filmmakers will present their films during the film festival :

1) Anand Patwardhan (Mumbai) 2) Reena Mohan (New Delhi) 3) Supriyo Sen (Kolkata) 4) Priya Thuvassery (New Delhi) 5) Vani Subramanian (New Delhi) 6) Ajay TG (Raipur) 7) Sandeep Ravindranath (Chicago) 8) Dhamayanthi (Chennai) 9) SP Mani (Chennai) 10) Arumozhi

f) Following curators will present their packages :

1) Archana Padmini (Kochi) 2) C S Venkiteswaran (Trivandrum) 3) Amrit Gangar (Mumbai)


We welcome you all!

Amudhan R.P.
Festival Director
7th Chennai International Documentary and Short Film Festival 2019

Wednesday, January 30, 2019

7th Chennai Film Festival 2019 : Screening Schedule

7th Chennai International Documentary and Short Film Festival 2019
6-10 Feb; jointly organised by MARUPAKKAM & Goethe-Institut, Chennai

Screening Schedule
A still from "Small Scale Societies"
 Dir: Vipin Vijay
Section : Artists' Cinema

1) Curtain Raiser Screenings


4 Feb:  5:30 pm at Discovery Book Palace 
Humans Display (Dir: Lam Can-Zhao; 59 min; China)
Madman's Conspiracy (Dir:Algis Arlauskas; 50 min; Spain)
Second Income (Dir: Gal Kedem; 54 min; Israel)

5 Feb : 3 pm at Dept of Social Work, Loyola College
Nimble Fingers (Dir: Parsifal Reparato; 52 min; Vietnam / Italy)
Bakurov (Dir: Yuliya Kiseloyova; 55 min; Russia)

5 Feb: 5:30 pm at Periyar Thidal 
We Have Not Come Here to Die 
(Dir: Deepa Dhanraj; 110 min; India)
Interaction with Navroz Contractor, cinematographer 


A still from "Land of Silences and Darkness" 
Dir: Werner Herzog
Section : Retrospective

2) Screenings at Goethe-Institut, Chennai

Day 01; 6 Feb
10 am to Inauguration
11:00 The Wild Blue Yonder
(Dir: Werner Herzong; 81 min.; Retro)
2 pm Work in Progress
Reason (Dir: Anand Patwardhan; 261 min; India)
Interaction with Anand Patwardhan
7 pm Happy (Dir: Carolin Genreith,  85 min., German films)

Day 02; 7 Feb
9:30 Land of Silence and Darkness  (Dir: Werner Herzog; 87 min)
11 am 9 Pen Cinemackal (Minimal Cinema)
Catharsis (Dir: Indira; 35 min)
Inside (Dir: Sreedevi; 13 min)
Indu (Dir: Anagha Anand; 29 min)
12:15 Interaction with Archana Padmini
12 :30 Reena Mohan Retrospective
Kamlabai (Dir: Reena Mohan; 47 min)

2 pm Reena Mohan Retrospective
Mati Manas (Dir: Mani Kaul; 92 min)
Tales from Planet Kolkata (Dir: Ruchir Joshi; 38 min)
In the Forest Hangs a Bridge (Dir: Sanjay Kak; 39 min; Retro)
Interaction with Reena Mohan

5:30 pm Coral Woman (Dir: Priya Thuvassery; 52 min; India)
6:25 Interaction with Priya Thuvassery
6:45 My Wonderful West Berlin (Dir: Jochen Hick; 98 min., German films)

Day 03; 8 Feb
9:30 am Little Dieter Needs to Fly (Dir: Werner Herzog; 80 min., Retro)
11:00 The Color of My Home (Dir: Sanjay Barnala & Farah Naqvi; 48 min; India)
12 pm The Slave Genesis (Dir: Aneez K Mappilla; 64 min; India)

2 pm Two Flags (Dir: Pankaj Rishikumar; 86 min; India)
3:30 Squeeze Lime in Your Eyes (Dir: Avijit Mukul Kishore; 55 min; India)
4:30  Koothu (Dir: Sandhya Kumar; 52 min; India)

5:45 pm God’s Angry Man (Dir: Werner Herzog; 44 min; Retro)
6:15 Friedland (Dir: Frauke Sandig, 85 min; German films)


A still from "Wagah"
Dir: Supriyo Sen
Section : Filmmaker in Focus

Day 04; 9 Feb
9:30  A Film Unfinished
(Dir:: Yael Hersonski; 89 min.; German films)
11 am Way Back Home
(Dir: Supriyo Sen; 120 min; 2003; Filmmaker in Focus)
Interaction with Supriyo Sen

2:00 pm Artists' Cinema : presented by CS Venkiteswaran
Gigi Scaria : Disclaimer; 9 min 
Lata Mani / Nicholas Grandi : 
De Sidere7; 38 min
Nocturne I  & Nocturne II ; 5 min
Vipin Vijay: Small Scale Societies; 27 min
Aman Wadhan; Letter From Korlai; 22 min
Parvathi Nayar : 
Bubble; 3.08 min
By the Mouth of the River; 12.49 min
Ice Boil; 6.00 min
Order; 3.30 mins
Murali Cheeroth : Pledge; 3.30 min
Sahej Rahel: Barricada; 28 min

5:15  Gandhi, Gandhiness and Cinema Vimarshaa :
presented by Amrit Gangar

Day 05; 10 Feb
9:30 am If I Think of Germany at Night
(Dir: Romuald Karmakar, 105 min.; German films)
Swimming Through The Darkness
(Dir: Supriyo Sen; 76 min; Filmmaker in Focus)
Interaction with Supriyo Sen
12:45  Santhana Gopala (Dir: Sandeep Ravindranath; 8 min; short fiction; India)
Interaction with Sandeep Ravindranath

2 pm Short films from Tamilnadu
Arunagiri (Dir: Ambani Shankar; 10 min)
Mounkia(Dir: Nelson Vasudevan; 9 min)
Marupiravi MGR (Dir: Kumar Rajaraman; 16 min)
Kathaiyin Nayagi(Dir: Charulatha; 16 min)
Peranpudan(Dir: SP Mani; 26 min)
Ranam (Dir: Shalini Charles; 3 min)
Kurumpadam(Dir: M. Saravanakumar; 17 min)
Yendro Oru Naal (Dir: Kishore; 13 min)
Chennai Tamizh (Dir: Arunmozhi; 8 min; documentary)

4 pm : Thadayam
(Dir: Dhamayanthi; 55 min; fiction)
Interaction with Dhamayanthi

5:15 The Death of Us
(Dir: Vani Subramanian; 76 min; India)
Interaction with Vani Subramanian
6:45 pm Closing Ceremony
7:30 Wheel of Time (Dir: Werner Herzog; 80 min; Retro)


A still from "We Have Not Come Here to Die"
Dir: Deepa Dhanraj
Section: Indian films


3) Parallel Screenings

7 Feb 2019
Department of Visual Communication, Loyola College; 2 pm 
9 Pen Cinemackal (Minimal Cinema)
Njaval Pazhangal (Dir: Jeeva KJ ; 23 min)
Ruchibhedham (Dir: Theertha Mythry; 10:20 min)
Ore Udal (Dir: Asha Achy Joseph; 14 min)
Rhythm (Dir : Sivaranjini ; 28 min)
Gi' (Dir : Kunjila Mascillamani; 30 min)
Eye Test (Dir: Sudha Padmaja Francis; 15:30 min)
Interaction with Archana Padmini

8 Feb
University of Madras; 10 am to 4 pm 
Master Class by Reena Mohan
On An Express Highway (Dir: Reena Mohan; 30 min; Retro)
Velvet Revolution (Dir: Nupur Basu; 57 min; Retro)

8 Feb
Dept of Journalism, Ethiraj College; 11 am to 5 pm
The Tribal Scoop (Dir: Beeswaranjan Pradhan; 53 min; India)
There is No Moon (Dir: Ajay TG; 26 min; India)
Tin Satyi (Dir: Debalina; 51 min; India)
Those Stars in the Sky (Dir: Debaranjan; 58 min; India)

9 Feb
5:30 pm at LV Prasad Film & TV Academy
Wagah (Dir: Supriyo Sen; 13 min; Filmmaker in Focus)
Hope Dies Last in War (Dir: Supriyo Sen; 80 min; Filmmaker in Focus)

7th Chennai Film Festival 2019 : International films

7th Chennai International Documentary and Short Film Festival 2019

International Films

1) Nimble Fingers (Dir: Parsifal Reparato; 52 min; Vietnam / Italy)


The film brings out the living and working conditions of migrant women from the rural districts of Vietnam, in Hanoi working at one of the biggest industrial production sites in the world, through their eyes, dreams and fear, and also by their drawings that become animations.

2) Second Income (Dir: Gal Kedem; 54 min; Israel)


M, a 40-year-old divorcee and a mother of a 9-year-old girl, works by day as a sales manager while at night she chooses to supplement her income through sexual encounters with men in order to make it through the month.

We accompany her for a year as she ponders about her life and face an important decision. At a time when women's rights in general and sexual harassment, in particular, are on the international agenda every week, this film is more relevant than ever.

3) Bakurov (Dir: Yuliya Kiseloyova; 55 min; Russia)

He went through the war from Leningrad to Germany. He was awarded two medals of valor and the Order of The Patriotic War of the 2-nd Class. Vladimir lives in a small village of the Irkutsk region. Sometimes he goes to the city to his son, grandson and great-grandchildren by the train. But sometimes there are the moments of silence to sit and remember all the living and the dead. And the more silence, the more the memories, the ghosts of war.

4) Madman's Conspiracy (Dir:Algis Arlauskas; 50 min; Spain)


He wants to build a theatre with his own hands using no machine in a far-away village in Spain. His family, friends and well-wishers believe him. He achieves it finally and has a grant inauguration too.

5) Humans Display (Dir: Lam Can-Zhao; 59 min; China)



There are many animals in the zoo, most of them are human. This documentary pointing camera at humans in the zoo, tries to re-examine the relationship between human and other animals from a new perspective

Contemporary German Films : presented by Goethe-Institute, Chennai

1) Happy
(Dir: Carolin Genreith, colour, 85 min., 2017)

Since separating from his wife, Dieter Genreith has escaped his loneliness once a year by going from the Eifel to Thailand. There, he got to know Tukta, who is about the same age as his own daughter, Carolin. Carolin has serious problems with the relationship: What differentiates her over-60-year-old father from the countless German sex tourists? In an attempt to understand her father, his longings and his fears, she has made a very personal documentary in which both sides are open, honest and tolerant enough to learn from each other. In Thailand, Carolin ends up as her father's maid of honor – whether the marriage can survive all the existing differences and preconditions remains to be seen.

2) Mein Wunderbares West-berlin
(My Wonderful West Berlin)
Dir: Jochen Hick, colour and b/w, 98 min., 2016/17

Germany's infamous Paragraph 175, which had made sexual acts between men a criminal offence since 1872, was only officially repealed in 1994. However, since the 1960s - with West Berlin being the only place were men could at least dance with other men - there had been public locales there, which became a refuge for young gay men from the Federal Republic. Using hitherto unpublished and often provocative archive material, and with support from many contemporary witnesses, Jochen Hick in this documentary film is researching the historical development of the gay scene from its antecedents until today.

3) Friedland
Dir: Frauke Sandig, colour, 85 min., 2015

Friedland is an idyllic town in Lower Saxony. Its claim to fame goes back to 1945, when the British military occupation administration established a camp for internally displaced persons and war returnees here. It has welcomed people ever since, from Hungary, Chile, Vietnam and the former east German GDR. Today it is a reception camp for asylum seekers mainly from Syria, Eritrea und Afghanistan. Documentarist Frauke Sandig lets former German inmates narrate their experiences of fleeing and of life in the immediate post-War era, and she confronts their memories with the experiences of today's refugees. The result is a moving document of hardship, hope and humanity.

4) Geheimsache Ghettofilm
(A Film Unfinished)
Dir: Yael Hersonski, colour and b/w, 89 min., 2010

Secretly filmed extracts from the Warsaw ghettos are critically revisited by witnesses from the era.

During the month of May in 1942, a few weeks before deportations to the extermination camp Treblinka began, secret films were ordered to be shot in the ghettos of Warsaw, on the orders of the SS. The barely touched original footage survived the war, to then emerge from the film archives of the GDR. Up to now, the material has provided detailed insight into the everyday life of the ghettos. The images show the gatherings of the Jewish security services set up by the SS, the work of the Jewish Ghetto Police, the kosher butchering of a hen, death on the streets and burials in mass graves. The filmmaker Yael Hersonski, granddaughter of a survivor of the Warsaw ghetto, sets the 60-minute long, silent, black and white images in the context of comments from witnesses of the era.

5) Denk ich an Deutschland in der Nacht
(If I Think of Germany at Night)
Dir: Romuald Karmakar, colour, 105 min., 2015-17

Impressions and reflections of a music scene that is probably only truly familiar to insiders, but which nevertheless enjoys international regard: German techno music. Karmakar observes and interviews five prominent DJs: Ricardo Villalobos, Sonja Moonear, Ata, Roman Flügel and David Moufang. The focus is on the fluid evolution of former "disc jockeys" into sovereign, experimental musicians whose activities keep them moving between seemingly makeshift studios full of barely recognisable electronic equipment and glamorous gigs at diverse clubs.

Tuesday, January 29, 2019

7th Chennai Film Festival 2019: 9 Pencimackal - Curated by Archana Padmini


7th Chennai International Documentary and Short Film Festival 2019
6-10 Feb; jointly organised by MARUPAKKAM & Goethe-Institut, Chennai 

‘9 Pencinemakal’ : A Package of Nine Visual Experiences from Women 
Curated by Archana Padmini
Minimal Cinema

Screening Schedule

Every single film in this package of nine Malayalam short fictions is a different experimental attempt in the language of cinema. In the realm of cinematic visual language, they are a step ahead in their craft and narratives. Though, independent expressions of Malayali women from various socio-cultural backgrounds, every bit of this package do demonstrate an honest approach towards cinema as an art form. Regardless of their differences in storytelling, content, craft and inherent politics, all of them drew me to them as a viewer, owing to their genuineness in expression. Appreciating and celebrating gender equality is as important as discussing it. Thus, here we are creating a space for woman filmmakers and thereby bringing gender sensitivity in to the semantics of filmmaking.


Archana Padmini is an actor,  curator,  selector,  director,  film society activist,  film festival organiser and a researcher from Kochi,  Kerala.

1. Catharsis
 Dir: Indira; 35 min



The film is mapping out the malady of political vendetta in Kerala which rips through the ethos of democracy. As the orgy of violence, fanned to ogreish flames by political parties, is unleashed with impunity, the existential angst of a common man breeds pity and fear. The victims, caught in ideological cross-fire, are ironically hailed as martyrs who slide into oblivion waving the flag of hatred, animosity and vengeance. Those left behind, the grief-stricken families, are consigned to eternal suffering and anguish.
A film committed to stirring the political conscience of our time, Catharsis is a plea for sanity.

2. INSIDE 
Dir: Sreedevi; 13 min


An old woman is living her past in her present. Memories are still fresh and kept her always at the past days. Nowadays she keeps playing with those memories and keeps getting in touch with them. 
It is a journey for the answers for her questions and memories.

3. INDU
Dir: Anagha Anand; 29 min


'INDU’ is a short fiction film set in a small town in Kerala, INDIA. A nineteen year old girl, Indu, attends a girl’s college and majors in English. Here, she meets Balachandran, her English Literature professor. The film is about the romance that she develops for him and the consequences she faces after she feels the intensity of unrequited love.

4. Njaval Pazhangal 
Dir: Jeeva KJ ; 23 min


Childhood is always like that, they approach everything without any prejudices until they are intervened by external influences. Appu and Ammu were also under this nature's law. They had a childhood that mingled with the tremulous black fishes, nostalgic days awakened by the soaring sourness of black Janine, monsoon that warmed by the softness of black kitties.. But the society grew them up in such a way that people are judged by the external appearance 
and complexion as they are the markers of class, cast and creed. Everyone keeps that hierarchy everywhere. Everyone praises the nobility of fair complexion.

5. Ruchibhedham
Dir: Theertha Mythry; 10:20 min


The film is a slice of life drama between two sisters who find themselves at odds with each other whilst making their mother's recipe of mambazha pullissery.

6. Ore Udal
 Dir: Asha Achy Joseph; 14 min


Traumatised and unable to face life after a physical assault a nun looks into herself for answers. Her body and mind are dejected. Her faith, spirituality and being are at stake. The film is a sojourn of a woman through her own hallucinations and despair for hope after the harrowing violence of a life time.

7. Rhythm
Dir : Sivaranjini ; 28 min


Every film is an autobiography. Everyone has that one story; You run away from it but it chases you down. Rhythm is one such story. It's the same story of life which has been repeating over and again.The past and the future looks one and the same when you are here.Time freezes and space stay motionless. The only truth is this very moment and us.

8. Gi'
Dir : Kunjila Mascillamani; 30 min


Gi and her grandfather who are originally from Kerala live in Kolkata, West Bengal. They are dealing with different planes of memory, abuse and pain while trying to make peace with the city and its people.

9. Eye Test
Dir: Sudha Padmaja Francis; 15:30 min


Eye Test is a short fiction film which explores the affective atmosphere of a mother-daughter relationship, death and bereavment through the realm of memory, following her own mother’s death a few years back. The narrative delves into the mindscape of the 27 year old Nivedita when she visits an eye clinic. The eye clinic territory transforms into a sensorial one for her, invoking memories of her single mother and her own lonely childhood.




Sunday, January 27, 2019

7th Chennai Film Festival 2019 : Filmmaker in Focus - Supriyo Sen

7th Chennai International Documentary and Short Film Festival 2019
6-10 Feb; jointly organised by MARUPAKKAM & Goethe-Institut, Chennai 


Filmmaker in Focus : Supriyo Sen

Screening Schedule

A Berlinale Talent (2007, 2008, 2009) and winner of Berlin Today Award and German short film award (2009) for his short documentary “Wagah”, Supriyo Sen is one of the well known documentary filmmakers from India. He has produced and directed feature and short documentaries like Wait Until Death, The Dream of Hanif, The Nest, Way Back Home, Hope Dies Last in War, Rupban – The beautiful, Wagah etc.

Supriyo has won 36 International awards for his films which include, Crystal Globe at Karlovy Vary Film Festival, Grand Prix at Bilbao International Film Festival, BBC Award at Commonwealth Film Festival, Black Pearl Award at Abu Dhabi Film Festival, National Geographic Award at Flickerfest, Golden Conch at Mumbai International Film Festival, Jury and Audience Award at Krakow, Tampere, Hamburg, Uppsala, Munster, Huesca, Winterthur, Damascus, Zagreb, IFFI (Goa), Rio-de-Janeiro, Parnu, Faito, Saguenay etc. He has also won three National Awards including Swarna Kamal (President’s Gold Medal) for the best Documentary of the year, 2007, for Hope Dies Last in War. His documentaries have been screened at festivals in Busan, Berlin, Sundance, Los Angeles, Karlovy Vary, Busan, Sydney, Traibeca, Amsterdam (IDFA), Hot Docs, Silverdocs, Nyon, Palm Spring, Krakow, Sheffield, Cork, Yamagata, Bilbao, Tampere, Uppsala, Indian Panorama (IFFI), Mumbai (MIFF), Kerala etc.

Supriyo has received grants from Sundance Documentary Fund, Jan Vrijman Fund (IDFA) and Asian Cinema Fund (Busan International Film Festival), DMZ Docs Fund, several times and worked with NHK, DW TV, Planet etc. and German, French American and Japanese producers. He has also made films for Films Division and PSBT and Goethe Institute.

Supriyo has served as juror in Busan International Film Festival, Taiwan International Documentary Festival, Eagle Awards – Indonesia, DMZ Documentary Festival (Korea), Kolkata International Film Festival, Dhaka International Short and Documentary Festival and Indian National Award selection (two times). Retrospective of his films was organized by Thiruvanantapuram International Short and Documentary Festival in 2009 and Persistence and Resistance – Independent documentary film festival, New Delhi.

Films:

Way Back Home (120 min; 2003)


In 1947 India achieved freedom from British colonial rule at the cost of dividing the nation into two.

Pakistan was born as a country for the Muslims. A million were killed in the wake of violent communal riots between Hindus and Muslims.

15 million more became refugees, amongst whom were the director’s parents.

After more than 50 years Supriyo Sen follows his parents as they visit their lost homeland in Bangladesh.

The mother tries to trace out one of her sisters who was abandoned during the holocaust of partition.

The film is about this journey, individual and collective memories and the historical consciousness arises from personal interactions and recollections.


Hope Dies Last in War (80 min; 2007)


54 Indian soldiers taken as Prisoners of War during the Indo-Pak war of 1971 are yet to return home.

While waiting for them, some of the parents died, some of the wives remarried and some children lost hope and committed suicide.

But the real ordeal has been for those who did not give up. For them life has become a tight rope walking between hope and despair.

But they have fought the mental battle of attrition for almost four decades and are still not willing to resign.

This film is a saga of these families' struggle, spanning three generations, to get their men back.

It records a tragic stalemate, sufferings of love and shining moments of humanity, courage and hope.


Wagah (13 min; 2009)


Every evening, the only border crossing along the 3323 km frontier between India and Pakistan becomes the site of an extraordinary event.

Border guards on both sides orchestrate a parade to lower the flags. Thousands of people gather to witness the ritual and afterwards the masses move

as close to the gate as possible to greet their former neighbours. The film looks through the eyes of three children who sell DVDs of the parade to the onlookers.

With a dream of crossing the border they remain quite unmoved by all the ‘patriotic’ madness around them.


Swimming Through The Darkness  (76 min; 2018) 


Hailed from a poor family, blind boy Kanai Chakraborty chooses the daring life of a swimmer than becoming a singer and begging for living.

But his success in the sport couldn’t ensure him a job. Even at the age of 40, he has to continue swimming to retain a respectable identity.

He participates in the world’s longest swimming competition and tames mighty river Ganges covering 81 KM!

His success brings in temporary glory but Kanai continues stumbling off the water while sailing smooth on it!

The film chronicles the roller coaster journey of Kanai who constantly negotiates with destitution, desire and destiny while chasing his dream.

Saturday, January 26, 2019

7th Chennai Film Festival 2019 : Artists' Cinema - CS Venkiteswaran

7th Chennai International Documentary and Short Film Festival 2019
6-10 Feb; jointly organised by MARUPAKKAM & Goethe-Institut, Chennai 

Artists’ Cinema : Curated and presented by CS Venkiteswaran

(Screening Schedule)

Moving image practices, especially since the advent of digital technologies, are expanding and enveloping every field. Today the State and Capital constitute the two biggest image producers and users in the world, for their panoptic surveillance cameras, fixed in every public and open spaces – streets, malls, parks, pubs, offices, transport stations, public transports etc - are constantly at work recording and collating images of everything and everyone passing in front of them. What does this torrent of images amount to and do to us? Today, how does an image-artist work with, through and in this flood of visual information and narratives? How does and can the artist capture Life from the Flow?

These films by artists working in various mediums try to grapple with the very texture, tone, flux and flow of images; they ponder and meditate, interrogate and excavate, counterpose and juxtapose visuals to invite the viewer to enter into certain kinds of intensities of interaction with images: it could be their profound concern with nature, interrogations about hegemonic notions that rule our lives and dreams, explorations into other modes of sexual orientations and experiences, excavations into and through time, reinvention of space etc.

Free from the dictates of conventional narratives, beginning-middle-end structures, meaning-making compulsions and the market impositions about audience expectations, these image essays invite the viewers into exciting journeys into other realms of perception and experiences of the visual.













C S Venkiteswaran is a critic, columnist, curator and documentary filmmaker from Trivandrum, Kerala.





Artists and their films:

Gigi Scaria -

Disclaimer
9 min; 2018



Disclaimer addresses the political reality of contemporary India through a set of tricks performed by a magician. Cups and balls is a famous attraction for any magic show. In this case, the magician takes us for a ride where we witness the transformation from a poor rural reality to a material success story that finally leads to the lynching and scattered dead bodies on the streets. We as citizens willingly give away the realities we possess/address in the hands of magicians who wipe out our realities with their dirty tricks and make us believe we are entertained throughout the show.

Lata Mani / Nicholas Grandi

De Sidere 7
38 min; HD; 2014

De Sidere 7 is an experimental work that interweaves performance, dance, poetry, storytelling and text to reflect upon aspects of desire. Shot in Bangalore and Delhi, the film scripts the work of five performing artists into a sensorially rich meditation on desire’s vexed status as at once, animating force, object of suspicion and ground of contention. De Sidere 7 is conceived as a videocontemplation: a formally plural, multilayered composition intended to be experienced as an integrated whole. The artist book plays with image, frame, text, process notes & artist-critic responses to stage an encounter with the film in print duration.

Nocturne I & Nocturne II
5 min; HD; 2013

The Nocturnes were made in context of the Cross Pollination Lab of the Peaking Duck Arts Network, an interdisciplinary group active in Bangalore, 2012-2013.

Vipin Vijay 

Small Scale Societies; 27 min 



Two living bodies have been installed and improvised within a museum space, scattered with archaeological artifacts, terracotta pots and shreds. The idea of archaeological imagination has been extended from the organized and tagged space of museum with the sense of linear historical time, to various evocative, yet less visited prehistoric sites in India – from the site of survival of human ancestors confronting the catastrophe of volcanic ash, deep down in the past in Andhra, painted rock shelters and megalithic sites of Chattisgarh, to excavation sites and neolithic burial grounds in Kerala, where the interplay of life and death, dream and reality, embodied sense of the ground and hallucinatory perceptions in altered states of consciousness, seem to merge together. As a concept and working principle, the digital visual images have been treated here often as a thin surface of reality with an unknown abyss beneath, where supposedly a plethora of unseen images remain frozen into darkness. At times layers of images have been thrust together using multiple digital tools, to suggest a way of illuminating and digging through that invisibility of the frozen images, an ambivalent effort towards the notion of digital rock art.

Aman Wadhan

Letter From Korlai ; 22 mins


“We’ve inherited hope – the gift of forgetting.

You’ll see how we give birth among the ruins.”

-Wisława Szymborska


Of the cattle that come to graze on the slopes leading to the fort of Korlai, I would ask, why do you not speak to me of your happiness but only stand and gaze at me? Their eyes appear to say, the reason is I always forget what I was going to say—but then they forget this answer, too, and stay silent so that the human being was left wondering before the sea, in the time of yellow grass.

I had first visited Korlai in 2009. A very dear friend of mine had also been there, separately, unbeknownst to me, around the same time. We were both haunted by something mysterious at work over there. We used to write each other about life, about cinema and languages, but we had never mentioned Korlai and its secret indifference, or our desire to return there. It wasn’t until a few years later, when an assignment brought me back to Korlai, that I could begin to speak about it. By then, my friend had disappeared from my life.

It was the walk to the fort I remembered most—following cattle trails, not the dirt road to the lighthouse, finding pockets along the hill which seem to put the whole world into perspective by revealing that the world is blue at its edges and in its depths; from these pockets one can see that this blue is the light that is lost, the colour of where you are not, where you can never go. These nameless places awaken a desire to be lost, to be far away, yet they can also become anechoic chambers where the silence of the Self becomes audible. You take a deep breath, and unto the dust bequeath yourself, to grow from the grass you love.

In the year and a half it took to make this film, to retrace my footsteps and start over again, Korlai, for all its endurance, kept on changing. I have not returned to Korlai ever since, though some of my friends have recently been there and sent me souvenirs. The continuity of memory falls short to measure the abyss between what it once was and what will remain of it in the near future. Though when I think of my long-lost friend, I feel how little some things change—the last stretch of white sand, the three trees, the cattle trails—even if I be not there—it would always be the same. May the grass make it known that wherever you are my friend, if you want to find me again, look for me under your boot-soles.

Film Synopsis

On India's Konkan coast, in the village of Korlai, a sense of quaintness pervades its Portuguese heritage, the Creole, the faces, and the fort. The filmmaker had visited this place once, as did his friend, of whom nothing is ever said. Years later, an assignment brings the filmmaker back to Korlai. Memories revive but what compels his wayward excursion this time is the elemental and the immemorial wherein his solitude finds refuge. In the time of yellow grass, with steps receding and prayers unanswered, a desire for oblivion forks the search for images of exile and belongingness. This experience surfaces through grainy 16mm images and an elegiac voice-over, which retrace a sense of remembrance, loss, perception, and time intersecting with an inner self and with history. A letter for Korlai also becomes a letter to a dear departed; and in reading this letter, in seeking a new way of inhabiting the world, a vision of Korlai emerges that is both attentive and phantasmagoric, a series of possible angles and tributaries that the viewer and traveller might possibly take.

direction, production: Aman Wadhan

cinematography: Niraj Samad

editing: Nachiket Waikar

sound: Bhanu Dhande

production company: Film and Television Institute of India


PARVATHI NAIR

Bubble 3.08 min

By the Mouth of the River 12.49 min

Ice Boil 6.00 min

Order 3.30 min 



Parvathi’s oeuvre has been called a philosophy of space and ways of inhabiting the spaces in which we live, often using science as a viewing prism. Parvathi uses the moving image as an extension of her drawing hand, and the camera becomes an inscriptive tool in such cinematic explorations as the trilogy Of Time and Space. Water as a continuing engagement is a through-thread in many of the films such as Freeze Boil and Bubble which are part of the “An Ocean in Every Kitchen ‘ series, or Haunted by Waters and By the Mouth of the River. Parvathi explores different aspects of this mysterious life-affirming substance that is created when stars are born. Nature needs to be treated as a stakeholder in her own right, in the age of the anthropocene, and the videos give voice to her many aspects– the poetics of water, its essence as the stuff of life, its magical transmutability, and its threatened status in today’s world. The work captures moving pictures through focussed and minimalist – but not reductive – detail, and how relationships between part and the whole are negotiated through the observation of such particulars.

Murali Cheeroth

Pledge; 3. 30 min



Through my work , I am trying to explore and understand the meaning of social pledge, through my memoire of childhood experiences. The idea of pledge has been developed through my conscious participation in political activities, for long. Idea develops over a long period of time, before it finds a political activity and humanitarian thoughts, so to speak…….

A sacred unity,

desire to engage the notion of the modern multi cultural nation.

Current political situation since leads the threads to do the reality check, understanding and how nation offer common man to take the fake pledge, which infected everyone. No single object remains unaffected.

Meaning: A thing that is given as security for the fulfillment of contract or the payment of debit and is liable to forfeiture in the event of a failure.

Sahej Rahel

Barricada



Barricadia begins in the year 2017 – with a group of protesters huddled inside a parabolic structure, learning and rehearsing songs together. Singing an ubiquitous CND campaign refrain, they rebuke the UK, USA, Israel, India, Pakistan, China and Russia for their failure to commit to global nuclear disarmament, repeating together in fugue: “Where were you? Where were you? Why weren’t you there?” The song has no audience except for the participants of the group, who are clearly not the intended target of the questioning.

The group begin to produce vocal harmonies then gently fall apart before joining together again, each individual now confidently knowing their part. This cloistered preparation of song is an important part of their resistance – not simply a production of propaganda for the cause but a process of creating affect, community and conviviality. This is resistance. Beginning with this strange scene, this exhibition explores how we encounter resistance, protest and the end of the world in culture, to question what might be blinding us to reality.

In Rahal’s film, we begin to witness that Barricadia is no more than a document of our world’s already-collapse, by means of various cultural and political episodes occurring throughout 2016. The documentary merges footage of modern and historic rituals and familiar yet unstable landscapes, composed across two parallel images, which occasionally shift and pull away from one another. In one scene we witness a right-wing rally filmed in Mumbai in 2016, sound-tracked loudly with Bollywood dance music. In recent years, this genre has been adopted by Indian Nationalists to bolster the popularity of far-right movements. Throughout this exhibition, the affect of music is key. Across charcoal and ink drawings, text and film narrative Rahal mocks the assumed authority of the male DJ, bringing to life a mythology where the DJ has the power to change the world, to cast away spirits and to protect. His depiction of the legends of the DJ, and elsewhere: the architect, the artist and the writer shows us we can’t escape from the paradox that culture also remains a structure of control.

Elsewhere, the tropes of apocalypse appear in their droves – proud monuments consumed by the soil, ruined buildings, darkness and decay, a ghostly ship leaving a shadowy harbour, a fenced neighbourhood, a strange procession, a forest refuge, caped figures, water rushing in. These tropes are so well-worn that we forget they also represent reality. Rahal’s work explores this apocalypse-aesthetic as a blinker for action - the end of the world is so abstract now that we can only continue to watch it unfold.



Friday, January 25, 2019

7th Chennai Film Festival 2019: Films from Tamilnadu

7th Chennai International Documentary and Short Film Festival 2019: Films from Tamilnadu

a still from Marupiravi MGR; directed by Kumar Rajaraman

The following films have been selected by our selection committee.

Films from Tamilnadu

1) Arunagiri 
Dir: Ambani Shankar; 10 min
A fun loving young man gets a shocking lesson from his mother.

2) Mounkia
Dir: Nelson Vasudevan; 9 min
A little girl who can't speak and hear; her mother is a music teacher.

3) Marupiravi MGR
Dir: Kumar Rajaraman; 16 min
An aspiring actor believes himself to be a reincarnation of late M.G. R., a famous actor and leader
of a state. 

4) Kathaiyin Nayagi
Dir: Charulatha; 16 min
The story revolves around an actress RENU who is trying to make it big as a character artist and the struggle she faces to get roles due to her DARK COMPLEXION.

5) Peranpudan
Dir: SP Mani; 26 min
A shortfilm that portraits the day to day challenges faced by a young adult with autism.

6) Ranam
Dir: Shalini Charles; 3 min
For someone wearing ornaments is symbol of pride. For some it reminds them the loss.

7) Kurumpadam
Dir: M. Saravanakumar; 17 min
When an aspiring filmmaker uses hidden camera to capture secrets of others, it can also evoke not so pleasant responses.

8) Yendro Oru Naal
Dir: Kishore; 13 min
An educated young man from rural area comes to a city looking for a better life. But he doesn't find any.


Arunmozhi, Jeeva Ponnusamy and Josephine David
Selection Committee

Thursday, January 24, 2019

7th Chennai Film Festival 2019 : Reena Mohan Retrospective


7th Chennai International Documentary and Short Film Festival 2019

6-10 Feb; Max Mueller Bhavan

Reena Mohan Retrospective


Reena Mohan is an award winning independent documentary filmmaker and editor who has worked out of India, Dubai, Kathmandu and London. She has received several awards for her work including 3 Rajat Kamals (National Awards) as producer, director, and editor.

She graduated from the Film & Television Institute of India, Pune, in 1982, with a specialization in editing and since then has edited several features, television serials and over 50 documentaries for leading producers and directors.

She produced and directed her first award-winning documentary Kamlabai in 1991. This was followed by more than 10 documentaries that have received widespread recognition including Skin Deep (1998), On An Express Highway (2003), Kill Or Cure (2005).

She has published a paper in Deep Focus magazine titled Of Wayward Girls and Wicked Women on the contributions of pioneering women to early cinema. She has also written articles on documentary film making in Afghanistan and Bhutan for leading newspapers and journals (The Hindu, Himal, Hardnews).

She has conducted workshops on documentary practice for over three decades in leading educational institutes in India (FTII, SRFTI, NID to name a few) and was also the Course Coordinator at SAE, Dubai.

She has served as jury member of several prestigious international film festivals in India and abroad.

As a curator, she has been associated with major documentary festivals in India – Mumbai International Festival for Documentary, Short & Animation Films (MIFF), International Documentary & Short Film Festival Kerala (IDSFFK) and IAWRT Asian Women’s Film Festival (Delhi). She has also been Co-Director of the IAWRT Asian Women's Film Festival, New Delhi, from 2010-2012.

She was the Managing Trustee of the India Chapter of the International Association of Women in Radio and Television (IAWRT) from 2012-2015.

Awards: Best Editing, Indian Documentary Producers Association, 1988 Best First Film of a Director, Bombay International Festival for Documentary, Short & Animation Films (BIFF), 1992 National Awards (Producer & Director), Best Debut Non-Feature Film, 1992 National Award, Best Non-Feature Film Editor, 1998

Films:

1) Kamlabai
Dir: Reena Mohan; 47 min; 16 mm; 1991


Kamlabai Gokhale was one of the earliest theatre actresses of India. She and her mother are also credited as being the first ladies of Indian cinema having acted together in Dadasaheb Phalke's Mohini Bhasmasur in 1913.

Eighty eight years old when the crew starts filming with her, she lives by herself in a flat — an invalid confined to her bed. But her personality beams forth power especially when she recalls her early life and career on the stage in which she frequently played male roles.

Interviews with her form the cornerstone of the film. Past mingles with present as photographs, dramatic re-enactment and period music evoke the near forgotten years at the dawn of the 20th century. However, the film is not purely nostalgic. It gives an impression of the history and the changes, particularly the history of Indian film and theatre as it was experienced by a woman who struggled against the social structures of her times.

2) Tales from Planet Kolkata
Dir: Ruchir Joshi; 38 min; 16mm; 1993
Edited by Reena Mohan


Part fiction, part spoof, part essay, part documentary, the film weaves together disparate strands: a critique of Western media's construction, from the 1960s to the 1990s, of Calcutta as ‘the black hole’ and ‘the worst place in the world’; an elegy to Deepak Majumdar, one of Calcutta's great intellectual mavericks, a teacher and friend to Joshi and many others, who died while the film was being made; and the images and song of a patua – a traditional Bengali scroll-painter.

Starting with a variation on the opening of Apocalypse Now, moving through the performance-interpretations of the scroll-painter, the film-maker himself and an Afro-American video-artist from New York, the film asks questions about one's sense of place and belonging, about the links between memory and image, and about the permanence and transience of this thing we call `culture'.

While referring to the reconstruction of Calcutta in the Hollywood production of City of Joy, (the film based on Dominique Lapierre’s bestseller) or weaving a fantasy about getting Jack Nicholson to act as Majumdar in a film on the latter’s life, the film asks: can ‘the worst place in world’ be anywhere else but in your eyes and your heart?

3) Skin Deep
Dir: Reena Mohan; mini DV; 1998

Six first person narratives comprise the basic structure of the film which is an exploration of body image and self identity among contemporary middle class women in urban India. The feelings of being too tall, too short, too thin, too fat, too dark, too old that women experience and attempt to come to terms with.

4) On An Express Highway
Dir: Reena Mohan; 30 min.; 2003


The film traces the journey of a woman who gave up the material world for the austere life of a Jain Sadhvi.

5) Mati Manas
Dir: Mani Kaul; 35mm, 92 minutes, 1985
Edited by Reena Mohan


Three myths, common to different regions in India, run through the film. The myths not only contain details related to pottery and pot making but throw up clues pointing to changing techniques in pot production. Even more intriguingly, the myths contain the essence of a fundamental struggle between matriarchal and patriarchal societies.
Mati Manas (Mind of Clay) attempts to convey the sensuous experience of working in clay and the association with terracotta objects – tiles on a roof, earthen pots filled with water, toys, ritual icons – that most Indians experience and share from childhood.
The film does not attempt to either recount or interpret these myths but rather to evoke their flavour in living relation to contemporary sensibilities.

6) In the Forest Hangs a Bridge
Dir: Sanjay Kak; 16mm, 39 minutes, 1999
Edited by Reena Mohan


This is a film about an intense period of community life in the village of Damro - a time when bridges are repaired and homes are built. It is also about the spirit which imbues the community, and the ways in which change slowly makes its way to the heart of Adi culture.

7) Velvet Revolution
Dir: Nupur Basu; 57 min; HD; 2017
Edited by Reena Mohan & Nirmal Chander Dhandriyal


In this exciting collaborative film – Velvet Revolution - six women directors take their lens up-close to Women Making News. In a world riven with conflict and dictatorial regimes where journalists are constantly under threat of both, state and non- state actors, what drives these women journalists to do their jobs?

Friday, January 18, 2019

7th Chennai Film Festival 2019 : Werner Herzog Retrospective


7th Chennai International Documentary and Short Film Festival 2109

6-10 Feb; Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan, Chennai


Werner Herzog Retrospective

1) Land of Silence and Darkness  / Das Land des Schweigens und der Dunkelheit
Colour, 85 min., 1971


The Land of Silence and Darkness tells about the destiny of blind-deaf people, who – due to their lack of perceptive faculty – seem to be almost unable to interact with their surroundings in a creative way. The movie helps us to understand the dramatic situation of these people, who are locked in their darkness but still struggle to build up a connection between their existence and the outer world.

The documentary focusses on the daily life of blind-deaf 56-years-old Fini Straubinger but also covers the stories of other blind-deaf people that Fini gets to meet in an unpretentious, moving way.

2) Little Dieter Needs to Fly / Flucht aus Laos
Colour, 80 min., 1997


Driven by his wish to become a pilot in the U.S., 18-years-old Dieter Dengler leaves his hometown in the German Schwarzwald. After joining the Air Force, he starts a career as a fighter pilot at the US-Navy. When his airplane gets shot during a mission in the Vietnam War, Dengler is been held captive. Only under great difficulties he manages to escape to Thailand and back to his unit.

Werner Herzog meets the former fighter pilot in his new domicile in San Francisco. Together they visit his old home in the Schwarzwald and travel to Far East, where Herzog asks Dengler to reenact stations of his escape. A follow up tells about Dieter Dengler’s funeral on a soldier cemetery in Arlington in 2001.

3) God’s Angry Man / Glaube und Währung 
Colour, 44 min., 1980


God’s Angry Man (Literal translation of the German title: “Faith and Currency“) is a documentary about the U.S.-American television preacher Dr. Gene Scott. Almost every day Scott talks about his ideas of Christianity on T.V. In the first place they are about gaining enormous amounts of financial donations. Therefore – according to Scott – great income signifies a “religions” triumph.

Werner Herzog accompanies the controversial Dr. Scott who has been accused of tax evasion, fraudulent conversion, defamation and blackmailing several times. The director abstains from personal judgment on Scott: The statements of Scott and interviews with his family serve the viewer to form his or her own opinion.

4) Wheel of Time / Rad der Zeit
Colour, 80 min., 2002-03


Werner Herzog observes Buddhist ceremonies and rituals in three places: At Bodh Gaya (India), Mount Kailash (Tibet) and Graz (Austria) and specifically focusses on the Kalachakra-Initiation, held by the Dalai Lama. The documentary shows the first film record of secret Buddhist rituals ever and covers footage of a pilgrimage to Holy Mount Kailash in Tibet as well as exclusive interviews with the Dalai Lama.

5) The Wild Blue Yonder
Colour, 81 min., 2005


An alien reports about his escape from a solidified planet in a far galaxy. He tells about his attempts to settle on earth and finally discloses his secret knowledge on how to travel in the opposite direction. Seeking for new living space five astronauts travel to space and explore the abandoned planet, the “wild blue yonder”. When they return home after 820 years they find the world being deserted.

12th CIDSFF 24 : Winners

12th CIDSFF 24 : Award winners 1) Documentary Shubradeep Chakravorthy Memorial Award for  Best Indian Long and Medium Length Documentary  Dr...