Arsenal on Location - The Chennai Edition

Arsenal – Institut für Film und Videokunst (Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art), Germany  and Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Chennai presents a programme with screenings and conversations.

Indian cinema plays an important role in Arsenal's program since the early days of the institution. The archive reflects this history, as many of the films shown in the cinema have found their way into the collection over the decades, including film prints that are now considered rare or unique. In recent years, Arsenal has digitally restored some Indian titles and made them accessible again. Returning films to their country of production plays an important role.Arsenal on Locationoffers the opportunity to present a selection of restorations to the public in collaboration with the Goethe-Institutes in India and Sri Lanka, which have often supported these projects. The events are being presented at seven locations in November and December.

Arsenal has digitally restored films by filmmaker Deepa Dhanraj, including her feature-length documentary KYA HUA IS SHAHAR KO? (1986) as well as four films by the Yugantar Collective, of which she is a founding member. In TAMBAKU CHAAKILA OOB ALI (1982) , the collective explores the cultural significance of tobacco cultivation and its socio-political impact in rural India. Additionally, the programme will feature the screening of SUDHESHA (1983), another film by Yugantar, which captures the intersection of tradition and modernity in rural life, offering intimate portrayals of individuals and their evolving worldviews.

The screenings will be accompanied by a discussion between Markus Ruff from the Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art and the film maker Deepa Dhanraj, Film maker, on her art of filmmaking and her work as a writer.

Film Screening

Tambaku Chaakila Oob Aali
Year: 1982
Duration: 25 Minutes
Language: Marathi

Tambaku Chaakila Oob Aali traces the history and strike actions of the all women trade union of over 3000 tobacco workers in Nipani (Karnataka). It was made in collaboration with female tobacco factory workers. The film documents, re-enacts and takes forward one of the largest movements of unorganised labour of its time and context which sparked unionising processes across Karnataka and Maharashtra throughout the 1980s. Attracted by the power of these large scale strike actions provoked by women workers and following the spirit of mobilising for the left labour and the women’s movement the Yugantar film collective embarked on their 2nd film. The collective spent four months with the women tobacco factory workers in Nipani, listening to their accounts of exploitative working conditions, discussing strategies for unionising and concrete steps to broaden solidarities across factories for massive strike actions. Through this collaboration, the film team was able to film circumstances inside factories hitherto unrepresented in film as they followed the women workers’ leads as to what, where and how their actions should be recorded.

The film collective developed a loose script through the workers’ narratives. Yugantar’s continuous commitment to the complexity of political friendships and how to ‘stand with’ provoked a then pioneering collaborative filmmaking practice embodied in large scale re-enactments of protests, a voice-over as pluriverse testimony and the production of the first screen presence of working class women on screen organising and ‘speaking to power’. This film is a powerful example of a feminist third cinema, a factory film, also called a ‘strike manual’ by current union activists.

Sudesha
Year: 1983
Duration: 30 minutes
Language: Hindi and Garhwali

A portrait of Sudesha Devi, a woman who is a village activist in the Chipko forest conservation movement in the foothills of the Himalayas. Here people’s livelihoods depend on the forest which is threatened to be destroyed by powerful timber traders. While men work away from home and alcoholism is a problem, women carry out most of the labour. They also became active agents of the Chipko movement. Sudesha navigates family life, the strenuous terrain of the mountains and living her life through protest which also brought her to prison. While scenes of protests have been re-enacted for this film as well and political meetings are followed, the film carries a calmness when attending to the women’s daily routines and complexities of securing livelihood in the Himalayas; complexities that link the film to past and current eco-feminist concerns.

Yugantar’s fourth and last film returned to working with a political movement. While women were not official leaders of the Chipko movement, its protests were largely sustained by women and women were affected the most by the issues raised within this early ecological movement. While working with movement leaders at the time, the collective’s focus stayed with women participants, this time with one main protagonist Sudesha.

In hindsight members of the collective question how women and in particular working class women have been driving forces in movement politics while not being supported to become leaders. Sudesha was part of the film series “As women see it. How do women see their lives and their future?” A film project with seven documentary films from India, Senegal, Peru, Nicaragua, Egypt, Italy and Germany. Production Faust Film GmbH, Munich. 1981-1983. As the only Yugantar film produced outside India, Sudesha travelled internationally as part of the “As women see it” film series and won awards.