Winter Film Festival 2017, Chennai

Winter Film Festival: Screenings and discussions!

19-21 Dec; Loyola College, Chennai


Jointly organised by LIVE and MARUPAKKAM

Curated by Amudhan R.P.



Day 01; 19 December

10 am Inauguration

10:30 And Miles to Go…

Dir: Sukhdev; 14 min; English; 1967

Assisted by the voice of Zul Vellani, the film is an emphatic call to the citizens of India to be active participants in the future of the country. Made twenty years after India's independence, the film attempts to provoke through a montage of contradicting lifestyles.

10: 45 I am 20

Dir: SNS Sastry; 19 min; Indian languages; 1967

Those born on Independence Day in 1947 were selected from different parts of India and interviewed to know their hopes and desires, ambitions, hobbies, fears and frustrations and the result is this unique film.

11: 05 Interaction

11:15 Tea Break

11:25 Arrival

Dir: Mani Kaul; 20 min; No dialogue; 1979

Concerning the arrival of natural products such as vegetables and livestock as well as human labour into a city from rural areas, this film explores the product-commodity-exchange value relationship. Representing in itself a variety of exchange value, money as capital destroys the natural specificity of people and things. In the process, the labourer is reduced to a mere commodity.

11:45 Interaction

11:55 Knock Out

Dir: B.Lenin; 20 min; Tamil with English subtitles; 1992

A famous boxer of yesteryears is remembered only after his death

12:15 Interaction

12:25 Shit

Dir: Amudhan R.P.; 23 min; Tamil with English subtitles; 2003

Mariyammal, a sanitary worker at Madurai Municipal Corporation shares her experiences while busy cleaning a street filled with shit.

12:50 Interaction

1:00 Lunch break

2:00 pm Yaadhum

Dir: Kombai S Anwar; 57 min; Tamil; 2010

The film „Yaadhum‟ (All) is a celebration of diversity within the Tamil, Indian and Islamic world. It throws the spotlight on the less spoken Tamil Muslim community, its history and identity, and how Islam took early roots in the Tamil country, even as it was spreading across the Arabian Peninsula and beyond.

3:00 Interaction

3:15 Tea break

3:30 Zanzibar Music Club

Dir: Philippe Gasnier, Patrice Nezan; 85 min; English subtitles; 2009

At sunset, in the streets of the ancient old town, the musical clubs of Zanzibar buzz with the joyful sounds of taarab, the music of Zanzibar, whose style reflects two millenniums of cultural exchange and the island‟s place at the crossroads of the spice route.



Day 2: 20 December 2017

10 am : Yuban

Dir: Yaasib Vázquez; 30 min; Spanish; Mexico; 2011

A view of the transformation of a Zapotec community, showing nostalgia for a life principle that is dying out, the efforts of the inhabitants to keep their culture alive.

10: 30 Interaction

10: 45 Mostly Waiting

Dir: Thandi Sebe & Tim Foresta; 30 min; South Africa; Documentary

Cape Town. Three men from Zimbabwe who came to South Africa in search of work and a better life, now spend their days on the side of a street, hoping for a job. An intimate look at what it is like to be a homeless refugee living on the streets of an afrophobic country and the dreams that the men have for their futures.

11: 15 Interaction

11:30 Tea Break

11:45 My Name is Palaru

Dir: RR Srinivasan; 63 min; Tamil; 2008

Palaru is an ancient river of Tamilnadu, some archeologists say Palaru, river is the "ancient Cauvery" [paleo cauvery]. Palaru begins from Nandi hills, Karnataka and flows to Andhra Pradesh, then to Tamilnadu. Breaking the 1892 mysore samasthanam agreement Karnataka built two major dams and stopped the water to Tamilnadu, Within the stretch of 32 kms Andhra Pradesh built 22 dams.

Once a perennial river now become a desert, for five decades there is no water in the river. In Tamilnadu from Vaniyambadi to Ranipet nearly 1000 tannery industries pollute the river with very dangerous chemicals like chromium and nickel. In Kancheepuram once a Buddhist capital. The Palaru changed in to complete sand mining sight. Both the private contractors and the government of Tamilnadu dig the river up to 40 feet to take the sand. In the age of mineral water bottle, a great drinking water source is completely destroyed by the central and state govt.

12:45 Interaction

1:00 Lunch break

2:00 pm SheWrite

Dir: Anjali Monteiro and KP Jayasankar; 54 min; Tamil with English subtitles

SheWrite weaves together the narratives and work of four Tamil women poets.

3:00 Interaction

3:15 Tea Break

3:30 pm Scorpions

Dir: Simo Hakalisto; 74 min; 2012; Cambodian, English; Finland/Cambodia

The documentary “Scorpions” is a story of a disabled volleyball team from a small Cambodian rural village, Toul Prich. Despite the rather poor training conditions, the Scorpions team is striving to become the best team in Cambodia‟s national disabled volleyball league. Many of the team members have been disabled due to the millios of dud land mines still buried in the country as a result of the Vietnam War.



Day 3; 21 December

10 am: A Pestering Journey

Dir: K.R.Manoj; 66 min; Eng subtitles; 2001; India

A pestering journey‟ unravels the many interwoven layers of culture and agriculture and foregrounds the logic of green revolution. Taking a pestering turn, the journey blurs the boundaries of nature and culture, of self and other, of life and death and many other comfortable binaries we inhabit. It tries to ask how much regard for life a culture should have to ponder over the question, what a pest is. In an atypical move, it challenges and changes the idioms of pesticide and genocide and reveals the claims over knowledge and expertise, which pushes a pesticide like Endosulfan to a dubious position between poison and medicine.

11:10 Interaction

11:25 Tea break

11:40 Kutty Japanin Kuzhandaigal

Dir: Chalam Bennurkar; 60 min; Tamil with English subtitles; Sivakasi is a small town in Southern Tamilnadu. It is from here and the surrounding villages that 70% of the requirements of the match box industry and 90% of the fireworks industry are produced.

The film is an attempt to portray the dailiness of their, the production process and the complex socio-political reasons that contribute to such a large employment of children in this area.

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