Films from The Moving Image: Open Form Course (MIC)
The film directors will be present.
Shabani Hassanwalia will introduce the films and moderate the discussion. Shabani is a writer and filmmaker whose work engages with changing socio-political realities, volatile subcultures, and intimate personal histories in an India-in-transition.
Over a period of 6 months (January- June 2018)
MIC worked with early career creative practitioners in developing their conceptual and cinematic skills.
SACAC’s pedagogical engagement with documentary started in 2013, with the initiation of the
Creative Documentary Course (CDC), an intensive filmmaking programme designed for students from diverse backgrounds.
Since 2017, CDC has been collaborating with
Thinking Film (an initiative supporting film pedagogy and inquiries into diverse forms of image-making) and
Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan.
SCHEDULE
18:00
© Prateek Shekhar
Chai Darbari (Directed by Prateek Shekhar, India, 2018, colour, 29 min., English subtitles)
Followed by a discussion
A search for ‘truth’ stumbles upon varied textures of conversations. Conversations carrying echoes from print, electronic, social media; redolent with the local atmosphere and the context of the city’s past. Since 1992 Ayodhya has been a crucial ground for electoral politics and debates. Unverified and politically motivated videos, circulated on an ever growing WhatsApp web, have complicated the issue a little more. These videos are one-way dialogic conversations, encoded with an us versus them subtext. Parallel to this, all arguments around Ayodhya overlook multiple lived realities of the residents. While these realities transmute into endless conversations over
chai (tea) in Ayodhya, the nature of the discourse is significantly different in the cities.
Chai Darbari is a small tapestry of a few such conversations.
19:00
© Arunima Tenzin Tara
Moment’s Notice (Directed by Arunima Tenzin Tara, India, 2018, colour, 20 min., English subtitles)
Followed by a discussion
The film explores the relationship between a woman and her body. It seeks to understand menstruation, as a biological but also an emotional act. At its core the film is driven by a curiosity; a desire to look at and enjoy an act considered taboo and to also make one more aware of one’s own body. It is critical of modern advertisements and ancient superstitions, but the focus remains on the individual and her relationship outside of society’s understanding of the act. The colour red is important. It is dramatic and frightening but also bright and beautiful.
19:40
© Mallika Visvanathan
Zabaan Par (City/Tongue) (Directed by Mallika Visvanathan, India, 2018, colour, 19 min., English subtitles)
Followed by a discussion
The film is an exploration of the fault lines between politics, history and language. Drawing on passages from C.M. Naim's
Ambiguities of Heritage, the film seeks to reflect upon the history of Urdu and the place it holds in India. The origin of the word ‘Urdu’ can be traced to the language of the camp but it was also used to refer to the city of Delhi in the 18th century. The film is based in an Urdu class, where the film-maker tries to learn the language. As such, it is about the simple labour and joy involved in learning a new language. It is also an attempt to document the everydayness of language and nationalism in a constantly changing city.
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