Azim Premji University
School of Arts and Sciences Presents
Understanding India: A Documentary Film Festival
Curated by Amudhan RP
29,30 April & 1 May; 4 pm to 9 pm
Guru Dutt Auditorium, Azim Premji University, Bengaluru
Screening Schedule
29 April
4 pm : Inauguration
4.15 pm
In the Forest hangs a Bridge
Dir: Sanjay Kak; 39 min; Documentary; 1999
In The Forest Hangs A Bridge is a documentary film that follows the good folk of Damro village which is situated in Siang valley of Arunachal Pradesh. A dense, forest region, it is hard for people from Damro village to travel from one part of the jungle to another, especially when there is an obstacle such as a river. This documentary sees the people of Damro village coming together in order to build a 1000 foot-long suspension bridge using only bamboo and a small steel blade.
5 pm
Janani's Juliet
Dir: Pankaj Rishi Kumar; 53 min; Tamil with Eng subtitles; 2019
Kausalya lost her husband (Shankar), when they were attacked by her own family. They had married against their families wishes. Deeply disturbed by a spate of honour killings in India, Indianostrum, a Pondicherry based theatre group sets out to introspect the implications of caste, class and gender. They adapt Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. What emerges in the process is a critical reflection and commentary of the contemporary Indian society where love struggles to survive.
6 pm
A Foreigner in My Own Land
Dir: Nishajyoti Sharma; 65 min; Nepali with Eng subtitles; Documentary
Nepalis (Gorkhas) of Assam are not foreigners or outsiders, except for few who may have migrated to Assam (India) post 1971. However, the prevalent sentiment among the Assamese masses is quite contrary to what history says and the Assam Accord of 1985 has agreed to.
8 pm
Longing
Dir : Bani Singh; 89.42 min
Against the backdrop of Partition, newly independent India’s first hockey team defeats England, their erstwhile coloniser, to win the Gold at the 1948 London Olympics.
Six decades later, when Nandy Singh, a member of this iconic team suffers a stroke at the age of 84, his tenacious will to recover inspires his daughter to go on a journey to discover the champion he was before she was born.
30 April
4 pm
City Girls
Dir : Priya Thuvassery; 28.14 min; India; Documentary
City Girls' is an intimate portrayal of two young girls from small towns of India now living in Delhi. The film attempts to deconstruct the image of ‘the city’ and what it means for a young woman brought up in an 'elsewhere' she's longed to escape from all her life.
4.30 pm
The Tribal Scoop
Dir: Beeswaranjan Pradhan; 53 min
A small town of Sundergarh lying in the interiors of the state of Odisha has never been touched by modern civilization, but is paying for it with the blood of the tribal people living there. A people so backward that they still depend on forests for survival. And even those forests are fast being uprooted to make way for urban life.
In the midst of this cockpit of destruction there's one hope that they are desperately clinging on to- Hockey. The game that was once the only form of entertainment for a people cut off from the rest of the world has now become a weapon with which Sundergarh is trying to claim it's place in a world that never recognized it.
5 pm
Holy Rights
Dir: Farha Khatun; 53 min; Urdu with Eng subtitles; India; 2020; Doc
6 pm
Our Family
Dir : Anjali Monteiro & KP Jayasankar; 55 min; Documentary; 2007
What does it mean to cross that line which sharply divides us on the basis of gender? To free oneself of the socially constructed onus of being male? Is there life beyond a hetero-normative family? Set in Tamilnadu, India, ‘Our Family’ brings together excerpts from Nirvanam, a one person performance, by Pritham K. Chakravarthy and a family of three generations of trans- gendered female subjects, Aasha, Seetha and Dhana, who are bound together by ties of adoption.
8 pm
Bird Trapper or Beggar (79min); Director: Vinod Raja
The Hakki Pikkis are a free spirited nomadic tribe who began their wandering many generations ago in the North Western part of the Indian subcontinent. Over time they travelled through and settled in different states of the country. As they moved, they survived through trapping birds and hunting small game in the forests and selling them in cities and towns along with lucky charms and
trinkets. If the trap failed, begging was the next best bet! Exiled from the forest, reviled by the city, their traditional ways of life outlawed the Hakki Pikkis share their stories of wit and survival in the film that emerged through a series of community conversations held when we travelled with friends from a settlement in Bannerghatta, Bangalore to other settlements across Karnataka.
1 May
4 pm
The Color of My Home
Dir: Sanjay Barnala & Farah Naqvi; 48 min
What happens to people when they are violently displaced? Forced out of their home and ancestral village, buffeted by winds of hate, running for their lives, scattered like human debris in relief camps. Never able to return. How do they rebuild new homes and new lives, with hearts unable to leave the old one behind?
5 pm
Bonded
Dir: Shobhit Jain; 56:19; India; Documentary
The film takes an ethnographic look into the life of a bonded labourer in a remote tribal village in central India.
6 pm
Mod
Dir: Pushpa Rawat; 70 min; India; Documentary
'Mod' is an attempt by the filmmaker at communicating with the young men who hang out at the ‘notorious’ water tank in her neighbourhood in Pratap Vihar, Ghaziabad. The water tank is a space that is frequented by the so-called ‘no-gooders’ of the locality, a place where they play cricket, play cards, drink and smoke up. When she enters the space with her camera, the boys are curious and at the same time wary of it and her. They sometimes resist, sometimes protest, and at times, open up. As the film unfolds we get a hint of the lives the boys lead and the fragile world they create for themselves at the water tank.
8 pm
Recasting Selves
Dir: Lalit Vachani; 80 min; English and Malayalam with English subtitles; 2019
Set at CREST (the Centre for Research and Education for Social Transformation) in Kozhikode, Kerala - the film documents the 'soft skills' training of Dalit and Adivasi post-graduate students in a sensitive and nurturing campus environment as preparation for their employment in the new Indian economy.
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