Imprints: Gender | Films | Intersections

Saturday, 19 April 2025, 21:00-00:00

With discussant Aparna Sanyal

Films, stories and conversations that offer poignant explorations of a range of complex and interconnected gendered experiences, celebrating the diversities of our beings, our individual and collective desires, resistances and solidarities. Produced, mentored and developed under the Rough Edges Uncode Fellowships, distinct in form, approach and expression, they provoke reflections on the truths of our complicated existence; recognise the many textures of our experiences, the tyranny of persistent patriarchies, barriers and stereotypes, the vulnerabilities and interiorities of our beings, in interaction with our caste, class, religion and work, even as they engage with questions around film practice, the act of looking through the camera and finding and framing the everyday stories of women.

Through imprints, we aspire to recognising and interrogating the inescapable imprints of gender on our histories, beings and bodies and engendering transformative and lasting imprints of films on our memories, lives and cultures, in affirmative and compelling interactions with each other.

About Rough Edges
Rough Edges is a nascent initiative that seeks to enable, mentor, produce and disseminate imaginative documentary films that explore diverse, intersecting and complex realities, boldly informed by feminist and queer politics and a commitment to social justice. Supporting films across multiple political and aesthetic practices, we hope to celebrate the distinctive voices of women, trans and queer artists, collectively catalysing conversations around contemporary narratives and how they shape us. Through the making and sharing of films, we aspire to engagements with intention, perspective, process, form and expression and how they resonate in a structurally intricate and unequal world.

Founded by Ridhima Mehra and Tulika Srivastava, who draw on over two decades of experiences with the commissioning, creative realisation and outreach of close to 700 films, diverse in artistic form, subject and authorship.

About Aparna Sanyal Aparna Sanyal is a multiple award-winning documentary director and producer based in New Delhi, India. Her documentary films reflect her deep interest in human psychology, education and ideas around resilience and finding meaning in life. In the past, she has worked extensively on long-format documentaries for both Indian and international television. She also runs Doc_Commune', a mentoring program for young documentary filmmakers for the Public Service Broadcasting Trust. Currently, she is the Managing Trustee for the India Chapter of the International Association of Women in Radio & Television.

Film Details

Log Kya Kahenge (What will People Say) by Rafina Khatun
40 minutes | Hindi, Gujarati with English subtitles | 2024

Gulnaaz remains committed to using community radio to shed light on injustices and oppressions faced by marginalised communities, despite constant scrutiny and control by her family and community. Through her empathetic storytelling, she brings attention to untold narratives and advocates for unity and harmony. Amidst her fight for social change, Gulnaaz grapples with her own struggles for freedom and autonomy. This is the story of a young Muslim woman dreaming differently in a patriarchal society determined to silence her.

• IAWRT Asian Women’s Film Festival, Delhi
• Kolkata People’s Film Festival
• Constitution Hill Human Rights Film Festival, Johannesburg
• ImagineIndia Madrid

Rafina Khatun is a filmmaker and editor, dedicated to amplifying the voices of women through her work. With a degree in Journalism and Mass Communication from Calcutta University, she has honed her skills by assisting renowned filmmakers like Debalina, Susmita Sinha, Sankhajit Biswas, Farha Khatun and Baudhyan Mukherji on various documentary and fiction projects. In 2021, Rafina was awarded the prestigious Third Eye Fellowship from Nirantar Trust, which enabled her to create her debut film A Journey to Home, which intimately explores the unfulfilled dreams of her family members. She has worked with Drishti in Ahmedabad, where she edited films and actively participated in community skill training programmes. Currently, she is pursuing Editing at SRFTI.
  Umbro by Prachee Bajania
34 minutes | Gujarati, Hindi with English subtitles | 2024

Umbro, the threshold of a home, is the liminal space that speaks to the lives of women, including the filmmaker's mother and her friends who live in the small town of Dhrangadhra in central Gujarat. The Film explores joyful friendships among women, routinely dismissed and unsung - carrying in them moments of shared stories, solidarities, conflicts and, most of all, routine acts of resistance. Umbro attempts to locate these flights of desire in the everyday, while celebrating the women’s indomitable love for life, and each other.

• Best Documentary, ReelFocus, Beijing International Film Festival
• Second Best Film, Short Documentary, International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala, Trivandrum
• Indian Documentary Film Festival, Bhubaneswar
• Dharamshala International Film Festival
• Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, Mumbai
• IAWRT Asian Women’s Film Festival, Delhi
• Kos Minar International Documentary Film Festival, Haryana

Prachee Bajania is a filmmaker, editor and writer based in Gujarat. An alumna of the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, and the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, Prachee has been making films since 2011. Her interest in history, poetry, life sciences and the ordinary influences her film work. Her most recent film Umbro (The Threshold) won the ReelFocus Award for Best Documentary at the 14th Beijing International Film Festival and Second Best Film, Short Documentary at the 16th International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala, 2024. Prachee’s films have shown at many national and international film festivals and institutions.
  All that we Own by Aprajita Gupta
34 minutes | Hindi with English subtitles | 2024

She recalls the memory of her first home in Nagaland, each memory a lingering echo of displacement. Is visiting her homeland on a chanced return, a moment of rootedness or a reminder that belonging remains elusive?

• IAWRT Asian Women’s Film Festival, Delhi

Aprajita Gupta is an independent filmmaker and artist driven by a curiosity for novel artistic expression. Her artistic practice is informed by her holistic approach exploring skills and forms and narratives on women's lives intersecting with sexuality, identity and migration. She has directed three short films under the guidance and patronage of Creative Documentary Course (SACAC) 2020-2022, reFrame genDeralities Fellowship 2023 and Rough Edges Uncode Fellowship 2023. Her films have screened at International Documentary Short Film Festival of Kerala; Dharamshala International Film Festival; Seoul Women International Film Festival and Litchess Theatre, Germany, to name a few.
  Making Space by Nikita Parikh
14 minutes | Hindi with English subtitles | 2024

Alsana lives in a small, chaotic neighbourhood in Ahmedabad, cut off from the rest of the city by an 85 acre landfill on one side and a highway on the other. In a place like this, a room of one’s own is hard to come by, but Alsana has a corner. Meanwhile, Alsana’s drawings show signs of the society seeping in, as she grapples with her identity and conflicts closer to home.

• Competition, Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles
• International Documentary and Short Film Festival, Kerala
• National Documentary Short Film Festival, Thrissur
• Dharamshala International Film Festival
• Beyond Borders Feminist Film Festival, Delhi
• IAWRT Asian Women’s Film Festival, Delhi
• Bulbul Children's International Film Festival, Goa
• Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles

Nikita Parikh came to filmmaking through working with children. She traveled to classrooms across the country making videos for Teach for India, an NGO which works in government and low-income private schools. During her Master’s degree in Education at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, she started researching and using participatory media with teenagers. She is driven to create films which promote understanding, empathy and change.