In the summer of 2003 more than 200 documentary and short filmmakers from across India came together

in a Campaign Against Censorship. Out of this solidarity came an act of resistance, Vikalp Films for Freedom, an alternative festival of documentary films organized by filmmakers in Feb 2004 in Mumbai, and which has now spun off in many directions. Delhi Film Archive (DFA) has come out of this process, as an autonomous platform that supports free expression and fearless listening. 3 Screens has been organized at the India Social Forum, New Delhi, in the belief that censorship violates the essential rights of citizens, and since public opinion is an important part of our struggle, we believe it is essential to energise it through discussion, publication, and above all, a strong screening culture. DFA locates itself amongst the many struggles against censorship that have been bravely (and quietly) waged around us for so many years, and which continue to be fought all around us. We are aware that the best way to guard our rights as citizens is to speak clearly, speak honestly and speak from all corners of the country, and the world.

DFA is an archive of documentary films, as well as of materials that stimulate a collective response to censorship and the control of ideas. It is involved in promoting the dissemination of documentary and short films, and creating a screening culture where open access and the diversity of ideas and images is celebrated. It is also involved in raising awareness on the ways in which the censorship regime is used to contain the right to freedom of expression. DFA seeks to intervene in this situation by generating discussion on the politics and aesthetics of filmmaking. It is voluntarily run by filmmakers with the support of all those who believe in free speech, and is independent of any state body or institutional funding.

CONTACT us: delhifilmarchive@gmail.com visit our WEBSITE and archive of films: www.delhifilmarchive.org sign up for a MAILING LIST of events at: http://groups-beta.google.com/group/delhifilmarchive read our BLOG: http://delhifilmarchive.blogspot.com

The festival features four sections: New Images 35 recent films by Indian filmmakers (and a few International films that are about Indians). Other Worlds Are Breathing 22 films shown at World Social Forum, Brazil 2005. Working Lives 22 films in an international package of films on Labour in the time of globalisation Directors Cut 10 films by invited Indian documentary filmmakers, who also show a film each of their choice

3 screens. 3 days. 99 films.

segami wen

new images

new 3 Men and a Bulb

DIR: PANKAJ RISHI KUMAR 74 MIN / 2006 / HINDI (ENGLISH SUBTITLES)

This is a story of 3 men who earn a livelihood from their gharat (watermill) in the foothills of the Himalayas in Uttaranchal, India. The life led by these men is meager, having access neither to electricity, nor employment that brings regular income. Farming is very arduous, as supply of water is scarce. It is the story of Rawat, Satya and young Harish. The three mens personal hopes, anxieties and dreams is set against the rustic life in the mountains. The narrative traverses their changing relationship with self and each other, offering exciting insights into human nature.
prod: Pankaj Rishi Kumar, T Madhavi. editors: Pankaj Rishi Kumar, Shreyas Beltangdy (Associate). sound: Narendra Mishra, Pankaj Rishi Kumar, Pritam Das. music: Sourav Kumar. camera: Pankaj Rishi Kumar.

Pankaj graduated from FTII in 1992 where he specialised in Film Editing. His first documentary, Kumar Talkies, was an examination of the consciousness-shaping role of a local cinema theatre. The film was screened at 40 festivals and won Best Film, Lalternative Barcelona; Special Jury at Zanzibar and Indian National award for Best Sound. His other films are Pather Chujaeri, The Vote and Gharat. He was an Asia Society fellow at Harvard University in 2003. He is currently working on a documentary on women boxers in India. kumartalkies@yahoo.com

images 1000 Days and a Dream

DIR: P BABURAJ, C SARATCHANDRAN 77 MIN / 2006 / MALAYALAM AND ENGLISH

The film 1000 Days & A Dream documents the poignant moments in the four and a half years of anti Coca-Cola struggle in Plachimada, Kerala. The film captures the spirit of the anti Coca-Cola struggle, traces the history of the struggle and discusses the several issues raised by it. The film shares the dreams and sorrows of some of its active participants.
P Baburaj and C Saratchandran have been associated with Alternative Communications Forum (ALCOM), a filmmakers collective involved in producing videos and films on various issues. Their Chaliyar The Final Struggle, received a Special Mention in the MIFF 2000 and a Bronze Tree Award in Vatavaran 2002.. Their other films include Kanavu (Dream), The Bitter Drink and Only An Axe Away. sarat@satyam.net.in directed by: P Baburaj & C Saratchandran. edited by: Ajithkumar B & C Saratchandran. camera: Ajith, Sarat & Joji. music: Chandran V. narration: Nilanjana Biswas.

new AFSPA, 1958

DIR: HAOBAM PABAN KUMAR 77 MIN / 2006 / ENGLISH / MANIPURI

Th. Manorama Devi a 32-year-old lady was picked by the forces of the 17th Assam Rifles from her home on 11th July, 2004 issuing an arrest-memo. Her dead body was later found near a hillock under suspicious circumstances. People largely believe that she was raped and later shot. People throughout the state started holding protest and agitations against the excesses of the security forces and Armed Forces Special Power Act, 1958. This film is a diary of events, which took place in Manipur from the day Th. Manorama Devi died, till a youth dies setting himself on fire in protest against the AFSPA, 1958.
prod: Haobam Paban Kumar, Bachaspatimayum Sunzu. camera: Saikhom Ratan. editor: Sankha.

Haobam Paban Kumar has worked as an assistant with the noted Manipuri director Aribam Syam Sharma from 1996-2002, in making documentaries & feature films. A Bsc from Mysore University, Karnataka, he also has PG Diploma in Direction & Screen playwriting, 2005 from the SRFTI, Kolkata. His films include Orchids And Manipur and A Cry in the Dark haobampaban@gmail.com

10

images Amerika Amerika

DIR: K P SASI 4 MIN 30 SEC / ENGLISH, TAMIL K.P.Sasi started as a cartoonist during the seventies and began making documentaries in the early eighties. His notable documentaries include Living in Fear, In the Name of Medicine, We Who Make History, A Valley Refuses to Die, The Wings of Kokkrebellur and Redefining Peace. These films are used by various activist groups to strengthen struggles. Sasis feature films include Ilayum Mullum, Ek Alag Mausam and ShhSilence Please. His awards include the Best Film Award at the International Rural Film Festival , France, the Special Jury Prize at the International Environment Film Festival, Turkey, Bronze Award at Global Video Festival, Copenhagen, Best Film Award at Enfest and Best Film and Best Director awards at the Swaralaya International Film Festival. films4peace@gmail.com

Based on Kamaan Singh Dhamis anti-war song American War Paar Da! (Check Out the American War!), the music video is a satirical but severe indictment of Americas role in escalating world conflict. Originally written following the post 9/11 bombing of Afghanistan by the USA, and developed to address the occupation of Iraq, the song comments on various aspects of the American empire its stockpile of nuclear bombs, its cozy relations with fanatical and dictatorial regimes, and in fact, the very notion of American peace and liberty. The song is set to the tune of the popular Sinhalese song Surangini and has English lyrics and a catchy chorus in Tamil. Dancing sometimes on Bushs shoulder, sometimes on the roof of Washingtons White House, and sometimes in a colourful parade of children protesting against war, dancer Malavika Tara Mohanan embodies the indomitable spirit of resistance and satire. B Jayashree, Bangalores well-known theatre director and playback singer, has sung the song, while activist and singer, Sumathi, has been part of the conceptualization and music production.

11

new Bare
DIR: SANTANA ISSAR 11 MIN / 2006 / ENGLISH

A daughters search to find meaning, if any, in her relationship with her alcoholic father. In the piecing together of home videos shot by her parents nearly two decades earlier; and through a string of conversations with her father, mother, and sister; a daughter looks to understand the impact of her fathers alcoholism on each of their lives. The sisters refusal to include him in her life; the mothers belief that her daughters should reach out to their father despite her own refusal to see him; the fathers moment of honest introspection. In talking to them, the questions she is struggling with come to the fore: should she stand behind him, drawing only on her memories of what a wonderful father he was? Or should she move on and build her life without him?
editors: Santana Issar, Pankaj Rishi Kumar. sound: Pritam Das.

Santana graduated in Economics from St Stephens College in 2005. Thereafter she has worked for a news channel and as assistant director on a few corporate films. This is her first documentary film. santanaissar@gmail.com

12

images Bhal Khabar

Good News
DIR: ALTAF MAZID 17 MIN 21 SEC / 2005 / ASSAMESE (ENGLISH SUBTITLES)

Altaf is a critic turned filmmaker. He is believer of pure cinema but as the World usually does not entertain pure things, his films make little or no money. His first film Jibon (Life) has won the best directors prize in the Seventh Pyongyang Film Festival of Non-Aligned and Developing Countries. Lakhtokiat Golam (Closed-door-and-stuff-inside-the magazine Syndrome) was able to attract wide range of critical appraisal. Other works include: Our Common Future (2002). The Joy of Giving (2004), Las Vegasat (In Las Vegas, 2004), tayaba@sancharnet.in

A writer looks for a bit of good news in the days of the Assam Movement (1979-85), when the youth had sunk to the lowest depths of degradation, and civilized emotions seemed to be wiped completely out of existence. Everywhere only lust and cowardly violence prevailed. Newspapers had chilling pages of depressing stories and to read them was to be overcome by an even greater feeling of horror and helplessness. Finally the writer discovers a small piece of news in a morning paper that gives him hope, as it brings him tales of inspiring people who survive the troubled times by piously and devoutly reading their holy scriptures.
prod: Zabeen Ahmed. camera: Jyoti Prasad Das & Altaf Mazid. editing: Altaf Mazid & Debankar Borgohain. sound & Music: Debankar Borgohain. narrator: Saurav Kumar Chaliha.

13

new Bhangon
Erosion
DIR: SOURAV SARANGI 60 MIN / 2006 / BENGALI (ENGLISH SUBTITLED)

In the state of West Bengal, India, river banks along Ganga and Padma are getting eroded at an unprecedented pace. More than six hundred thousand people have become homeless and helpless. Over six hundred square kms of land is gone and along with it, the culture, history, an age old bond between soil, water and man. Unfortunately the roles played by the authorities have been most dubious to say the least. Is this erosion natural or manmade? This documentary seeks answers for a few things never questioned before.
producer: Sourav Sarangi. camera: Sourav Sarangi, Ajoy Roy, Bikramjit Gupta. editing: Sourav Sarangi, Partha Pratim Moitra.

Sourav (born in 1964) graduated from the Presidency College, Kolkata and then joined the Film & Television Institute of India, Pune as a student in the editing department. Since then he has been active in the field of film making in various capacities. His ever-observant eyes and sensibilities have enabled him to express both in fiction and non-fiction genres. He is also well known for his abilities to teach in various film schools and workshops. souravsarangi@gmail.com

14

images Bullshit
DIR: PE HOLMQUIST AND SUZANNE KHARDALIAN 73 MIN / 2005 / ENGLISH

Pe and Suzanne are Swedish independent filmmakers who have directed more than 50 documentaries, among them several award-winning films, like Gaza Ghetto, Back to Ararat, Unsafe Ground, Her Armenian Prince, From Opium to Chrysanthemums, My Dad the Inspector and I Hate Dogs the last survivor. pea.holmquist@chello.se www.peaholmquist.com

Her opponents call her The Green Killer. They gave her The Bullshit Award for sustaining poverty. TIME says she is a hero of our times an icon for youngsters all over the world. The filmmakers follow Vandana Shiva, Indian activist and physicist, from her organic farm at the foot of the Himalayas to institutions of power all over the world. Here Vandana Shiva does battle with her toughest opponents like Monsanto and Coca-Cola. The filmmakers describe Monsanto from the inside and arrange what proves a shaking meeting between Vandana Shiva and Barun Mitra, liberal think-tank, lobbyist and fierce critic of Vandana Shiva and the man who gave her the Bullshit Prize. A film on globalisation and the issues of patenting, genetic engineering, bio-piracy, indigenous knowledge and farmers suicide.
camera: Thomas Lindn, Pe Holmquist, Su Lekh, Bertram Verhaag. editing: Lisa Ekberg. sound: Jean Noel Yven, Toby Trotter, Jonatan Karlsson. sound mix: Fabrice Chantome. music: Tuomas Kantelinen, Indian Ocean, Rupi Mahindroo.

15

new Calcutta Pride March 2004

DIR: TEJAL SHAH 12 MIN / 2004 / HINDI & BENGALI (SUBTITLED IN ENGLISH)

Homosexuality remains criminalised in India under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code [IPC]. In June 1999 a small group of hijras, kothis and gay men walked down the streets of Calcutta calling it a friendship walk a walk to assert the rights of sexuality and gender minorities. This was a landmark event in the history of the LGBT movement in India. On June 27, 2004, the second pride march was held in Calcutta. There were participants from West Bengal, Delhi, Bombay, Srilanka and Thailand to name a few. This short documentary tries to bring to surface, the role of the media in the representation of the LGBT community, issues of visibility and invisibility and the various points of view that people hold on the pride march. There are interviews with onlookers, participants, police, plainclothes intelligence agents and supporters.
Camera: Tejal Shah & Natasha Mendonca. Editing: Tejal Shah. Inviewers: Tejal Shah & Georgina Maddox. Voiceover Inputs: Sheba Tejani.

Tejal is a visual artist working and living in Bombay, India. Her video and installation works have exhibited widely in India and abroad. She is the co-founder and curator of Larzish, International Film Festival of Sexuality & Gender Plurality, India. ts@vsnl.net

16

images

17

AFSPA, 1958

new

18

Continuous Journey

images Continuous Journey

DIR: ALI KAZIMI 87 MIN / 2004 / ENGLISH, PUNJABI (ENGLISH SUBTITLES) Ali is one of Canadas leading documentary filmmakers. In 2005 his film Runaway Grooms won The Donald Brittain Award, the highest award for a television documentary. He was recently named Best Documentarian in Toronto by NOW Magazine. Born and raised in India, he graduated from Delhi University in 1983, and studied film production at York University, Toronto. His films have won over thirty awards and honours, including Best Director & Best Political Film, Hot Docs 1995; The Golden Gate Award, San Fran Int. FF, 1995; Silver Conch & Critics Award, Mumbai Int. FF; Gold Plaque, Chicago Int. FF; Most Innovative Canadian Documentary Award, DOXA 2005. Kazimi currently lives in Toronto, where he teaches at York University. ali.kazimi@sympatico.ca

In 1914, the Komagata Maru, a ship carrying 376 immigrants from British India, was turned away by Canada. The consequences were felt throughout the British Empire. Continuous Journey is a compelling and eye-opening investigation into the past and present ramifications of this incident. More than history film, Continuous Journey is a provocative, moving, and multilayered essay that interweaves photographs, newsreels, home movies and official documents to unravel a complex and little-known story.
Prod: Ali Kazimi. Writer: Ali Kazimi. Editors: Graeme Ball & Ali Kazimi. Sound: Sunil Khanna & David Adkin. Music Director & Sound Designer: Phil Strong.

19

new Delhi-Mumbai-Delhi
DIR: SABA DEWAN 63 MIN / 2006 / HINDI (WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES)

Riya dances in the beer bars of Mumbai to make a living. The documentary follows her from her home in Delhi, to Mumbai where hundreds of working class girls come in search of work and a future. Riyas future is unpredictable and the present is marked with its own difficulties. The police harass her family in Delhi, there is constant pressure from her agent in Mumbai to attract more tips, and the work itself is demanding. However, there are other girls to have fun with, there is money to dress well and then there are men This is an intimate portrait of the everyday in the life of the girls, their agents and their neighbourhoods. Shot in the backdrop of the Maharashtra Governments controversial move to ban girls from dancing in beer bars, it interweaves stories of gender, labour, sexuality and popular culture within an increasingly globalised economy.
prod: Rahul Roy. cam: Rahul Roy. sound: Asheesh Pandya & Sunder. editor: Anupama Chandra.

Saba did her masters in Film & TV production from the Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi in 1987, and since has been making independent documentaries. Her work has focused on gender, labour and sexuality. She is currently working on a film on tawaif (courtesan) art and sexuality under a fellowship from the India Foundation of the Arts. Her films include Sitas Family 2002; Bundelkhand Express 1999; Barf (Snow) 1997; Khel (The Play) 1994; Nasoor (Festering Wound) 1991; Dharmayudha (The Holy War), 1989; Invisible Hands, Unheard Voices 1988. sabadewan@gmail.com khel@vsnl.com

20

images Fistful of Steel

DIR: LEENA RANI NARZARY, NIDHI BAL SINGH, SABIR HAQUE 26 MINS / 2006 / HINDI WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES Leena is Associate Producer with NDTV, where she works for the political satire Gustaki Maaf.She likes to work on moving social issues. Nidhi is a freelance filmmaker. Her last project was Science Safari for National Geographic and alltimefilms, New Delhi. She conducts visual communication workshops for differently challenged Children with Shri Ram school and Deepalaya supported schools. Sabir is a documentary filmmaker whose last film as an editor was Capital Water the 24x7 story, which was adjudged the best film in Water & Life II Development Film Festival 2006. He teaches film and video production in Mahe Manipal, Dubai Campus. sabir.haque@gmail.com

The film aims to study the new developments that are being planned in the Eastern Yamuna River bed and documents the consequent displacement of peasants. The film seeks to critique the notion of development, which always means concrete construction and the nullification of the concept of National Capital Territory through pulling more resources into Delhi than diverting them. The film centres around the various ecological misbalances due to such construction on the Yamuna river bank. Five power stations, massive structures like the akshardham temple, Delhi Secretariat and all other legal but illegal constructions of the river bank; open up a Pandora box of what ails the development policies.
A STUDENT FILM

21

new Gaon ke Naon Theatre, Mor Noan Habib

My village is theatre, my name is Habib
DIR: SANJAY MAHARISHI & SUDHANVA DESHPANDE 73 MIN / 2005 / HINDI AND CHHATTISGARHI (ENGLISH SUBTITLES) Sanjay has been working in the field of documentary since 1990 as a director, producer and cinematographer. Since then he has shot more than 150 films as a cinematographer. He is interested in issues around development, education and the arts. He organises filmmaking workshops with children and adult learners. Sanjay lives and works in Delhi. Sudhanva is an actor, playwright and director with Jana Natya Manch, and works as editor in Leftword Books. He writes regularly on theatre and cinema and is a commentator on www.znet.org. He has taught at various institutions including the National Institute of Design Ahmedabad and A.J.K. Mass Communication Research Centre Jamia Milia Islamia, Delhi. sanjay.maharishi@gmail.com

They criss-cross the country by road and by rail, living out of suitcases and trunks, singing, dancing, performing. Naya Theatre (New Theatre) is a professional theatre company founded in 1959, and composed of rural actors from Chhattisgarh. The company is led by Habib Tanvir actor, writer, director, singer, poet, designer, teacher. Shot over two years, the film takes the viewer to the villages the actors come from in Chhattisgarh. The film documents what happened in 2003 when Habib Tanvir and the actors of Naya Theatre came under attack from the Hindu Right for performing the antiuntouchability farce Ponga Pandit. The film records the making of the play Zahareeli Hawa (Poisoned Air), Tanvirs translation of Rahul Varmas English play Bhopal on the Union Carbide gas tragedy of 1984.
Prod: Sanjay Maharishi & Sudhanva Deshpande. Camera: Sanjay Maharishi. Sound Post Prod: Asheesh Pandya. Editor: Sanjay Maharishi.

22

images Health Matters

DIR: SHIKHA JHINGAN 60 MIN / 2005 / ENGLISH

Shikha is an independent documentary film-maker based in Delhi. She graduated from Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia University in 1986 and from the University of WisconsinMilwaukee, Department of Film, School of Fine Arts in 1991. She is a founder member of Media-storm, an independent womens film making collective formed in Delhi in 1986. Some of her work includes The Hidden Story (co-dir); Prisoner of Gender (co-dir), winner of the Silver Panda award at the International Television documentary festival held in Chengdu 1991; and Born to Sing 2001, shown at Kara International Film Festival, 2004 and Tasveer Film Festival Seattle, 2005. shikhaj@vsnl.com

Economic reforms since the 1990s led to unprecedented changes in the Indian health care system. Health Matters takes a panoramic look at health care in India through the everyday experiences of patients in both public and private hospitals, covering a range of rural and urban locations. Stories of a retired mill worker, a domestic help and a daily wage labourer are woven together with fictional explorations, prosthetic bodies and narrative text. As market forces and medical tourists start driving the health industry, words like healing and accountability acquire new meanings
camera: Sabeena Gadihoke. editing: Shikha Jhingan / Jaltson A.C. music: Sandeep Chatterjee. sound: C. Subramanian / Pankaj Bhakuni. post production sound: Asheesh Pandya.

23

new Kaya Poochhe Maya Se

Journeyings & Conversations
DIR: ARVIND SINHA 88 MIN / 2003 / HINDI WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES

The film is about the many faces and facets of Howrah Station, one of the worlds biggest and busiest happenings on rails. Since the station stands on the Ganges, it cannot be seen separately from the dirty, slithering, holy river. The film is also about the varied creatures who exist on the banks of the river. But human lives, especially if they are concentrated in and around a hoary, proverbial river, cannot be seen only in a realistic dimension. It is difficult to escape the philosophical/spiritual/emotional journey of both the rail traveller and the filmmaker. As a result, the film works at various levels, constantly shifting between the physical and the illusory; between the predictable and the absurd; between the realistic or neo-realistic and the vaguely surrealistic.
Script, Production and Direction: Arvind Sinha. Camera: Ranjan Palit. Editor: Amitabh Chakraborty. Sound: Anup Mukhopadhyaya.

Arvind is one of the leading documentary filmmakers of India. Winner of eight National Awards (Presidents Awards), he has also won some of the topmost and most prestigious awards in the world (Leipzig, Bilbao, New York and Japan) for his films. arvindsnh@yahoo.com

24

images Kinjal
DIR: VAANI ARORA 13 MIN / 2005 / HINDI (ENGLISH SUBTITLES)

Kinjal is a short non-fiction film about a young school going, employed girl in a working class environment. Raising issues of gender and aspiration, the director has used an improvisational film technique to make a reflexive piece of cinema that constantly refers to its own making.
camera: Chinmayi Arakali. additional camera: Kinjal Bharat Bhai Waghela, Vaani Arora, Vasu Dixit. sound: Vasu Dixit. editing: Vaani Arora. A STUDENT FILM

Vaani has studied Film and Communication Design at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. She has been doing her own productions and works with the Discovery Channel as a free lance producer. contact: vaaniarora@gmail.com

25

new Kitte Mil Ve Mahi

Where the Twain Shall Meet
DIR: AJAY BHARDWAJ 72 MIN / 2005 / PUNJABI LANGUAGE (ENGLISH SUBTITLES)

Located largely in the Doaba region of Punjab in India, which is dotted with shrines of Sufi saints and mystics. It opens a window onto the Dalits aspirations to carve out their own cultural space through religion, politics and the arts. By exploring a unique bonding between Sufism and Dalits this film brings to life a spiritual universe that is healing as well as emancipatory.
producer: Ajay Bhardwaj. camera: Ajay Bhardwaj. editor:Shachindra Bisht. Ajay is a Delhi based documentary filmmaker. From 1990 96 he directed and produced a diverse range of television programmes. Ek Minute Ka Maun (A Minute of Silence) 1997 was his first independent documentary, and since then he has been making documentaries. ajayunmukt@yahoo.com

26

images Many People Many Desires

DIR: T JAYASHREE 45 MINS / 2005 / ENGLISH (WITH SUBTITLES)

T. Jayashree, has produced, directed and written for Television, Radio, feature and Independent documentaries. Her credits include among others, Annapurna (co-dir, 1995), A Womans Place (Prod, 1998), Agni Varsha (Screenplay, 2002), A Human Question (Dir, 2005). Many people Many desires won the Best Documentary, New York International Independent Film & Video Festival, 2005. She lives in Bangalore, India. jsree.t@gmail.com

Through personal narratives, Many People Many Desires explores the place of a gay, lesbian, hijra, kothi or a transgendered person in Indian civil society. Legal discrimination against sexual minorities operates through the criminal and civil law systems, under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code a law imposed under British colonial rule criminalizing homosexual behaviour. (A law that remains in the Indian statute books although it has long since been removed from the British statute book.) Cutting across class, gender, language and caste, the film tells the stories of gay/bisexual/lesbian persons living in the city of Bangalore. It aims to mobilize debate and discussion and generate support from within and outside the sexual minority communities.
prod: Sangama. camera: Avijit Mukul Kishore. editor: Jabeen Merchant. sound: Girjashankar Vohra.

27

new Mindless Mining the Tragedy of Kudremukh

DIR: SHEKAR DATTATRI 12 MIN / 2003 / ENGLISH & KANNADA (WITH SUBTITLES)

At the heart of the stunning Kudremukh National Park in south India is a huge iron ore mine that has stripped the hills bare for over 20 years. Every year, heavy monsoon rains wash the loose soil from the mined slopes into the Bhadra River, leading to siltation on a massive scale. Floods caused by this siltation leave a thick sludge of iron ore on the fields of farmers cultivating along the banks of the Bhadra, greatly reducing the fertility of the soil. Mindless Mining, was made as a campaign film and played a major role in turning the tide of public and political opinion against the continuation of mining in this fragile ecosystem. It was submitted as evidence to the Supreme Court in a case against the mining in Oct 2002, and the Supreme Court ordered the closure of the iron ore mining operation in Kudremukh.
prod: Shekar Dattatri. writer: Shekar Dattatri. consulting editor : Vishnukrishnaa. narration : PC Ramakrishna.

Shekar is an award winning wildlife and conservation filmmaker based in Chennai, whose films have aired worldwide on international television channels. Moving away from television documentaries, he has devoted the last five years to producing conservation films targeted specifically at decision makers in and out of government. In 2004 he won a Rolex Award for Enterprise for his work in conservation filmmaking. www.shekardattatri.com

28

images

Natak Jari Hai

29

Nalini by Day, Nancy by Night

new

30

images Nalini by Day, Nancy by Night

DIR: SONALI GULATI 26 MIN / 2006 / ENGLISH

Sonali is currently an Assistant Professor at Virginia Commonwealth Universitys Department of Photography & Film. She has an MFA in Film & Media Arts from Temple University, a BA in Critical Social Thought from Mount Holyoke College and completed her schooling at Modern School Vasant Vihar, New Delhi. She has made several short films that have screened at over a hundred film festivals worldwide. This is her first documentary film and has won several awards including the Directors Choice Award from the Black Maria Film Festival. sonalifilm@yahoo.com

Nalini by Day, Nancy by Night is a documentary on outsourcing of American jobs to India. Told from the perspective of an Indian living in the U.S., the film journeys into Indias call centers, where telemarketers acquire American names and accents to service the telephone-support industry of the U.S. The film incorporates animation, live action, and archival footage to explore the complexities of globalisation, capitalism, and identity.
prod / camera / writer / editor / sound / animation: Sonali Gulati. Music: Jay Krishnan.

31

new Natak Jari Hai

The Play Goes On
DIR: LALIT VACHANI 84 MIN / 2005 / HINDI, ENGLISH (WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES) Lalit studied at St. Stephens College, Delhi University and at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania in the US. He was visiting lecturer at the Mass Communication Research Centre, Delhi from 1990-92 and 1996-98 and visiting scholar at the Center for Media, Culture and History at New York University in 1999. His previous documentary films have been on the starsystem and the social worlds within the Bollywood film industry (The Academy, 1995; The Starmaker, 1997) and on the indoctrination, ideology and the politics of Hindutva propagated by the Hindu fundamentalist organization, the RSS (The Boy in the Branch, 1993; The Men in the Tree, 2002). lvachani@del6.vsnl.net.in

What does it mean to perform socialist agit-prop theatre in India in a globalised era of increasing intolerance and inequality? Natak Jari Hai is a documentary about JANAM (The Peoples Theatre Front), the little theatre group that never stopped performing in the face of dramatic political transformation and personal tragedy. The film explores the motivations and ideals of the JANAM actors and their vision of resistance and change as they perform their Peoples Theatre in diverse parts of India. It brings to life the world of socialist theatre through the words of JANAMs members, and through a reflective portrayal of the groups greatest tragedy the assassination of its convenor Safdar Hashmi in 1989.
camera: Mrinal Desai. sound: Asheesh Pandya. additional editing: Sameera Jain. editing, additional camera, production: Lalit Vachani.

32

images Notes from the Crematorium

DIR: AMUDHAN RP 36 MIN / 2005 / TAMIL (WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES)

The film introduces viewers to the world of undertakers, a community that is only remembered in the event of death. They know everything about caring for the dead and treat the dead as their own. They fulfill an important social need, but are among the lowest in the caste hierarchy. They have problems, needs and expectations, but nobody is interested, apart from the dead.
Amudhan RP was born in 1971 and is based in Madurai. Along with local youth, he founded Marupakkam, a media activism group that is involved with making documentaries, and organising regular screenings, film festivals and media workshops in and around Madurai. He has been making documentaries since 1997. His prominent films include Theeviravadigal, and Shit, which won the best film award at the One Billion Eyes film festival, 2005 and the National Jury Award at MIFF 2006. marupakkam@rediffmail.com producer: Marupakkam. camera & editing: Amudhan RP. associate editor: P Madhavan.

33

new One Day from a Hangmans Life

DIR: JOSHY JOSEPH 83 MINS / 2005 / BENGALI, HINDI (WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES)

After many years, an execution took place in India in 2004 in Kolkata. The strong media focus on the hangman had created the kind of anticipation that attended public executions in medieval Europe. The daily cover stories in the media were mostly invented stories, as they had no direct access to the convict at the Alipore Central Jail. The hangman, who is a gifted story-teller, came to their rescue. So my film is a long story and I trespassed into everything in this process for touching the moment of truth.
prod: Suvendu Chatterjee and Benny A.J. camera: Razak Kottakkal. writer/screenplay: Joshy Joseph. editors: Sumit Ghosh. music: Frank Frenzy.

Joshy has made around twenty Documentaries and one Feature Film Imaginary Line. Four of the documentaries won National Awards in consecutive years for Sarang Symphony in Cacophony (Best Promotional Film, 1999), Sentence of Silence (Best Family Welfare Film, 2000), And the Bamboo Blooms (Best Environmental Film, 2001) and Wearing the Face (Best Investigative Film, 2002). Presently working as a Film Maker in Films Division at Kolkata making films centered around North East. jjoshy@gmail.com

34

images One Show Less

DIR: NAYANTARA C KOTIAN 19 MIN / 2005 / HINDI

This student production concerns itself with the closure of low-priced single screen cinemas and what this will mean to the working classes of India. It focuses on one theatre, Usha Talkies, whose spirited employees and raucous, seat-breaking public make it one of a kind. As the ticket seller puts it, this cinema is meant for the masses if this theatre shuts down as well, the question raised is are the masses to be deprived of the incomparable experience of watching cinema on the big screen? Through a series of evocative arguments put forth by the employees of Usha Talkies, a vivid portrait is painted of a unique way of life, which might soon become extinct.
Nayantara is a final year student of Film and Video Communication, National Institute of Design, India. Her previous student work includes Crossed destinies (fiction, 15 min) nayantara.kotian@gmail.com camera : Ruchi pugalia. sound: Akhila Krishnan. editing: Nayantara Kotian. production: Nayantara Kotian. faculty guide: Milindo Taid. A STUDENT FILM

35

new Printed Rainbow

DIR: GITANJALI RAO 13 MIN / 2006 / ENGLISH

A big city. A tiny apartment. There, in solitude, an old woman and her cat rummage through their collection of match-boxes. The printed labels open into a myriad of exotic worlds. Together they explore these magical worlds, where beauty, imagination and wonder triumph over the insignificance of their existence.
animation: Gitanjali Rao. sound: Rajivan Ayyappan. sound mix: Sreejesh Nair, Shajith Koyeri.

Gitanjali graduated from Sir JJ Inst. of Applied Art, Mumbai, India, in 1994, and learnt animation at Ram Mohan Biographics, Mumbai. She works as a freelance animator for advertisements, shorts, channel Ids, and as an illustrator for childrens books. Her animation films include Orange (4 min / 2002) Printed Rainbow has been widely screened at film-festivals, and has won many awards including Golden Conch for best animation film, MIFF 2006; Kodak Discovery for best short film; Young Critics award for best short film; and the Rail DOr for best short film, all at the Critics week, Cannes 2006 gitanjalirao@gmail.com

36

images

37

Printed Rainbow

new

38

Bhangon (Erosion)

images River Taming Mantras

DIR: SANJAY BARNELA, VASANT SABHERWAL 35 MIN / 2004 / ENGLISH & HINDI (WITH SUBTITLES) Sanjay and Vasant are founder members of the Delhi-based production team Moving Images. They have made documentaries on a diverse range of issues including pastoralists of the Himalayas, women in panchayati raj, politics of water, wildlife conservation and environmental degradation, apart from filming a few high altitude climbing expeditions in the Himalayas. Hunting Down Water won the award for Best Documentary at Festival du film de Strasbourg 2004, and Best Direction at the Festival du Cinema de Paris 2004. It also won the award for Best Editing at Miami International short film festival 2004. It was nominated for awards at the Earthvision Environmental film festival, Tokyo, 2005. moving@vsnl.com

Large parts of eastern India are subject to annual flooding. Over the last 50 years the government has built kilometres of embankments in an attempt to tame the rivers of the region. Despite the massive expenditure, flooding has only increased. 16% of Bihar is now permanently waterlogged, a direct consequence of the construction of embankments. The film explores the technological, economic and political rationale that underlies the adoption of such flood control measures, and argues that these attempts to control rivers are unlikely to succeed. On the other hand, the vast sums spent on the building and maintenance of these embankments provide endless opportunities for the siphoning of funds. Flood relief is a milk cow no one wants to see go dry.
prod: Moving Images. camera : Sanjay Barnela. writer: Vasant Sabherwal. editor: Anjali Khosla. sound: Sanjay Barnela, Vasant Sabherwal. music: Amit, Asheem, Rahul.

39

new She Write

DIR: ANJALI MONTEIRO & K.P. JAYASANKAR 55 MIN / 2005 / TAMIL (WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES)

She Write weaves together the narratives and work of four Tamil women poets. Salma negotiates subversive expression within the tightly circumscribed space allotted to a woman in a small town. For Kuttirevathi, solitude is a crucial creative space from where her work resonates. The fact that women poets are exploring themes such as desire and sexuality has been opposed by some Tamil film lyricists, who have gone on record with threats of death and violence. This has been resisted by a collective of poets and artists called Anangu (Woman). Malathy Maitris poems explore feminine power and spaces. Sukirtharani writes of desire and longing, celebrating the body and feminine empowerment. The film traverses these diverse modes of resistance, through images and sounds that evoke the universal experiences of pain, anger, desire and transcendence.
camera & graphics: K. P. Jayasankar. editing & audio mixing: K.P. Jayasankar & Anjali Monteiro. location sound: Elangovan R. music composed and arranged by: S.L. Vaidyanathan.

Anjali is Professor, and Jayasankar is Professor and Chair, Centre for Media and Cultural Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences. Jointly they have won thirteen national and international awards for their films. These include the Prix Futura Berlin 1995 Asia Prize for Identity - The Construction of Selfhood and the Best documentary award at the IV Three Continents International Festival of Documentaries 2005, Venezuela, for SheWrite. They are researchers in the area of media and cultural studies and have published their work. They also serve as visiting faculty to several leading media and design institutions across India. monteiro@tiss.edu umctiss@vsnl.com

40

images Smarana Remembering Lost Children

Smarana Thrigirani biddala kosam
DIR: C VANAJA 31 MIN / 2004 / ENGLISH & TELUGU WITH (ENGLISH SUBTITLES)

C Vanaja, Journalist, Filmmaker and TV presenter, is the recipient of first Ramnath Goenka Award for excellence in Journalism (Uncovering India Invisible) for the year 2005. Trained in mass communications, gained experience for over 12 years across all media print, broadcast, electronic and web both in English and Telugu. Had the distinction of being one of the first anchor reporters in Telugu on social and political issues. vanajac@yahoo.com vanajac.blogspot.com

This is a film on the agony of mothers who lost their children in the ongoing naxalite movement in Andhra Pradesh. About a dozen mothers who are essentially non-political and do not necessarily believe in their deceased childrens politics, talk about their memories, the trauma, repression they have undergone both physically and emotionally when their children were away from home fighting for the cause. Mothers were randomly interviewed from two regions where the movement is intense Uddanam area of Srikakulam district and Jangoan area of Warangal district.
camera: Chowdary, Raju, Kiran, Srikanth and Surendra. editing and post production: TVSA Chowdary, & Kishore.

41

new Tales from the Margins

DIR: KAVITA JOSHI 23 MIN / 2006 / MANIPURI WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES / WORLD PREMIERE

Twelve women strip themselves naked on the streets of Manipur, in protest For five years a young woman has been on a fast-to-death demanding justice; she is kept under arrest and is forcibly nose-fed. Other women have lost their sanity fighting for justice for their children killed in custody. Manipur is a state in Indias North-East region, riven for decades by insurgency and violence. Shielded by undemocratic laws, the Indian government has attempted to crush the insurgency through its military might. Yet, little is heard about Manipur and its troubles across the nations landscape. This is a place that mainland India has marginalised; that the world has forgotten. The film travels to this strife-torn corner of India to seek out tales of uncommon courage in the face of despair. To document the anger and anguish of Manipuri women; and to chronicle their extraordinary protests.
prod: Kavita Joshi. camera: Sunayana Singh. sound: Asheesh Pandya. editing: Mahadeb Shi.

Kavita is an independent documentary filmmaker based in Delhi. Her first film, Some Roots Grow Upwards (2002/52min) explored the work of acclaimed Manipuri theatre director, Ratan Thiyam, and won the Best Film at the UGC-CEC awards India. Tales from the Margins (2006/23min) and Untitled:3 Narratives (2005/17min) are a twin project on women and the conflict situation in Manipur. The latter has won the Best Film on Human Rights, UGC-CEC awards India; and the III Best Film at VIBGYOR Kerala. Apart from filmmaking, Kavita designs and conducts workshops in filmmaking. kj.impulse@gmail.com http://kavitajoshi.blogspot.com

42

images Temporary Loss of Consciousness

DIR: MONICA BHASIN 35 MIN / 2005 / ENGLISH (WITH SUBTITLES)

Monica worked as an editor for several documentary films before graduating from the Department of Film Video & New Media, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, USA in 2004. She is previously a graduate of the AJK Mass Communication Research Center, Jamia Millia Islamia (1992) New Delhi. Her work as Editor includes Present Imperfect Future Tense, Born at Home, In the Eye of the Fish, Some Roots Grow Upwards, and Autumns Final Country. The film has screened at the Indo American Art Council Film Festival in New York 2005, Mumbai International Film Festival 2006 and Signs 2006. monicabhasin@yahoo.com

Temporary loss of consciousness alludes to the recurring displacement of populations in the Indian subcontinent from the time of Partition (1947) to the present. The film explores the ideas of borders, boundaries, limits and forbidden spaces that generate vast expanses of wastelands of human emotion and action. Treated as a poetic essay the film traces these ideas through the voices of those that live in exile in the Indian subcontinent. It has been shot in New Delhi and the borders of India and Pakistan, and India and Bangladesh. The film constructs meaning through juxtaposition of several elements like found footage of Independence/Partition, constructed narratives spoken in the respective languages of the affected populace and abstractions of abandoned spaces or spaces of refuge.
prod / camera / sound / editing: Monica Bhasin.

43

new The Great Indian School Show

DIR: AVINASH DESHPANDE 53 MIN / 2005 / MARATHI (WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES)

At the outset, it is a school like any other school. Except that a closer look could startle you. Closed Circuit Television cameras, 185 of them, cover every square inch of the school premises. School children grow up under the watchful gaze of these cameras. Is this a sign of our times? The concept of Discipline could easily be misrepresented, misinterpreted. Schoolboy mischief could be subverted into major misdemeanor. Memories of school life would probably be interspersed with TV monitors, watchful cameras in classrooms and crackling sound-boxes. What about the teachers? How do they deal with this situation? And yet, we havent even scratched the surface of the plethora of possible hidden agendas behind creating this strange circumstance. Nothing takes time getting used to. Not even 185 cameras perpetually trained on you. And the number of cameras is increasing even as we contemplate on what this phenomenon augurs.
camera: Setu. Writer: Avinash Deshpande. editors: Rhea Dasgupta. sound: Suresh Rajamani.

Avinash is a freelance filmmaker and scriptwriter. He studied Film Direction at the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, where he has been a faculty member in both the Film and the Television wings. Recently, he has started a private Film training school called Framework Academy Of Cinema And Television in Pune. His film Dark Times, is a 30 minute documentary about the plight of cotton farmers who are committing suicide by the hundreds. avinashdesh@gmail.com avinashd@indiamail.com

44

images The House on Gulmohar Avenue

DIR: SAMINA MISHRA 30 MIN / 2005 / HINDUSTANI & ENGLISH (WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES)

Samina is a documentary filmmaker and media practitioner based in New Delhi. Her work includes Home and Away, a multimedia exhibition using photographs, text, sound and an html presentation to explore the lives of British Asian children in London. She has directed Stories of Girlhood, a series of three films on the Girl Child in India. She has also written and photographed Hina in the Old City, a book on the Walled City of Delhi for children, and has translated six childrens stories from Urdu into English. She is currently working on a film about Pregnancy and Motherhood. samina@vsnl.com

Sometimes the story of a life is the story of a search to be at home. The House on Gulmohar Avenue traces the personal journey of the filmmaker through the ideas of identity and belonging. The film is set in a part of New Delhi called Okhla, where four generations of the filmmakers family have lived. An area that is predominantly inhabited by Muslims. An area that is sometimes also called Mini Pakistan. The filmmakers personal history is a hybrid one but she grew up as a Muslim. Set against a quiet presence of the political context in India, the film seeks an honest and deeply personal understanding of what this means when is she aware of being Muslim, when does it matter to her and when is it easier to forget it.
camera: Mrinal Desai. editor: Shan Mohammed. location sound: S Subramanian. music: Sawan Dutta.

45

new The Story of a Golden River

DIR: SOUMITRA DASTIDAR 40 MIN / 2006 / WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES)

Subansiri, the golden river, flows down from the hills of Arunachal Pradesh into the Assam valley. It is believed that the waters of the river once carried gold that was sifted by the people living downstream. The north-eastern part of India houses nearly 31% of the countrys total water resources. The Government of India has commissioned 163 odd dams in the region, of which, the one on Lower Subansiri is even higher than the Sardar Sarovar dam on the Narmada river. The entire north east needs only 1400 mw eletricity whereas the Indian Government is planning to produce 50,000 mw electicity. Why? Where will the power go? What will happen to the hundreds of people who will be displaced as a result of the project? And what about the animals and fish? Where will they go?
prod: Soumitra Dastidar, Barnali G.Dastidar. camera: Bunty, Kingshuk, Shibsankar. editor: Avinash, Sudarshan. script : Madhushree,Soumitra, Uddipana.

Soumitra is a documentary film-maker from Kolkata and has been making films on peoples movements since 1999. Soumitras documentaries include Genocide and After and Our days with Maoist Guerillas. soumitra_dastidar@rediffmail.com

46

images Vande Mataram (The Shit Version)

DIR: AMUDHAN RP 5 MIN / 2005 / HINDI

The music director A. R. Rehman had sung a new version of Vande Mataram on the 50th year of Indias independence. The song became very popular and fit in with the modern, globalised image of India. The filmmaker uses this song as the soundtrack with images of manual scavengers at work in toilets and manholes. The result is poignant, uneasy and uncomfortable.
Amudhan RP was born in 1971 and is based in Madurai. Along with local youth, he founded Marupakkam, a media activism group that is involved with making documentaries, organising regular screenings, film festivals and media workshops in and around Madurai. He has been making documentaries since 1997. His prominent films include Theeviravadigal, and Shit, which won the best film award at the One Billion Eyes film festival, 2005 and the National Jury Award at MIFF 2006. marupakkam@rediffmail.com producer: Marupakkam. camera, editing: Amudhan RP.

47

new waiting...
DIR: ATUL GUPTA & SHABNAM ARA 39 MINS / 2005 / KASHMIRI (ENGLISH SUBTITLES)

This is a story of missing people, boys and men who were picked up by security forces and then simply disappeared. Sandwiched between India and Pakistan, Kashmir is a battleground for both. Since the men are missing, not declared dead, their wives are not widows but half widows. The half widows need extraordinary courage in living. Personally they live with the memories of their love. They have to suddenly switch from being the woman in the veil at home to a bread-earner. As the years have gone by, many have learnt to live with their hopes while others are still caught in conflicts with their in-laws, the state, religion and everyday livelihood. These women are survivors of a cruel period in the history of this paradise on earth.
prod: Atul Gupta. camera: Anurag Singh. editing: Atul Gupta. sound : Asheesh Pandya. music: Shahwar Gauhar Nukeem.

Atul has specialized in digital post production and has edited over 200 documentaries & television programs since 1990. Presently runs Delhi Biscope Company which produces films on issues of education, social concerns and development. 2biscope@gmail.com atul2242@yahoo.com Shabnam has done a Masters Degree in Human rights, International Humanitarian Law & Refugee Law (Jamia Milla Islamia), a Certificate course in Parliamentary and Constitutional Studies and a one year Diploma in Film Making. She has worked as a freelance journalist in Kashmir since 2002. arashabnam@hotmail.com

48

images

49

Delhi-Mumbai-Delhi

new

50

The Great Indian School Show

images

Signature Film: 3 Screens Film Festival

Baat ek Bat ki
DIR: NANDITA JAIN Nandita is a graduate of the National Institute of Design with a specialisation in Animation Film Design. Some of her work includes When Bugwan got Squished, 35mm; and Myths About You a film about evolution and the delicately woven threads of the mystical and empirical on which life balances itself.

A curious bat on a spree of gathering random everyday objects comes up with a strange whole that is more than just the sum of its parts.
animation: Nandita Jain. music: Suchet Malhotra.

51

gnihtaerb era sdlrow rehto

other worlds are breathing

other worlds
Other Worlds Are Breathing 2005 is an attempt to explore alternatives to neoliberal, capitalistic globalisation through the medium of films, and brought together in time for the World Social Forum at Porto Allegre, Brazil in 2005. In order to curate a festival of this kind we had to first define for ourselves the term alternatives, one that is really quite broad. After all, the WSF process itself is a search for alternatives. Hence, we have sifted through the different meanings and nuances of the term alternatives to focus on that precise subsection that resonates our concern. And our concern is with the politics of change. Thus, this film festival is a search for those actual lived experiences that have attempted to delineate a different world. While we accept that the other worlds we are dreaming of exist more in the realm of possibilities than in reality, we started the curation process with the belief that they do exist, albeit in bits and pieces. And that today there is an urgent need to draw these pieces together into a mosaic that can help our collective imagination to reflect, conceive and look for ways forward.

54

are breathing
Therefore, Other Worlds are Breathing 2005 presents political, economic, social and cultural alternatives to globalisation through a vast kaleidoscope of experiences and concerns. There are many differences between these films and yet something seems to tie them together - the breath of life, a flow of creative energy. And it is this common thread, impossible to articulate and more often than not, invisible, that we are trying to explore through this Film Festival. This is a modest beginning, but a beginning nonetheless. We hope that these stories of hope, celebrations of peoples power and determination will ignite our imaginations, and we invite you to join in the debates that this festival attempts to give rise to. With your help, we aim to give Other Worlds are Breathing 2005 a chance to reach out to more people around the world. Thus, more and more people will join in the search for alternatives, bringing the other worlds we are dreaming of a little closer. Gargi Sen & Aurlie de Lalande, January 2005.
CURATED BY MAGIC LANTERN FOUNDATION, AS PART OF @CULTURE, A COLLECTIVE OF INDIAN ARTISTS, FOR THE WORLD SOCIAL FORUM, 2005, BRAZIL.

55

other worlds a night of prophecy

DIR: AMAR KANWAR

This is a simple film about poetry and witnessing the passage of time. Through poetry emerges the possibility of understanding the past, the severity of conflict and the cycles of change. Through poetry you suddenly see where each and all the territories are heading to, where you belong and where to intervene, if you want to.
77 mins / 2002 / India / amarvg@vsnl.com

an evergreen island
DIR: AMANDA KING, FABIO CAVADINI

In 1989, the landowners of central Bougainville in Papua New Guinea closed down one of the worlds largest copper mines that was destroying their land. A military blockade was imposed around their island. This is a film about a pacific people who survived for 9 years without assistance from outside.
45 min / 2000 / Australia / cavadini@tpgi.com.au

56

are breathing el mundo del malek

Maleks World
DIR: NATALIE MUNTERMANN, ANDREA SCHULTENS

cardboard days
DIR: VERNICA SOUTO

The Paladines live and work as puppeteers in Ecuador. It is not easy to survive being an artist there. The film tells the story of Maleks lucky break: His transformation into a dragon.
11 min / 2004 / Germany / natalie.muntermann@gmx.de http://www.ladoc.de

The film casts disturbing light on the biggest economic and social crisis in Argentinas history and the ways it impacts on broad sectors of the population. It focuses on the lives and labour of the so-called cartoneros, who scavenge the streets and rubbish tips of the richer districts of Buenos Aires in search of cardboard, to sell for a pittance. It also serves as a reflection on the remorseless Megalopolis, recycling alternative lifestyles and economic inequity.
51 min / 2003 / Argentina / diasdecarton@yahoo.co.uk

57

other worlds juchitn queer paradise

DIR: PATRICIO HENRIQUEZ

Located near the border with Guatemala, the Mexican town of Juchitn is home to the Zapotec Indians, who have shown remarkable tolerance towards homosexuals. According to a legend, God gave Vicente Ferrer, the patron saint of Juchitn, a bagful of queers. Everywhere he travelled Colombia, Central America, Guatemala he left behind a homosexual. In Juchitn, however, his bag came undone, and they all fell out at once...
65 min / 2002 / Canada / macumba@macumbainternational.com, http://www.macumbaintrnational.com

karen education surviving

DIR: SCOTT O BRIEN, SAW EH DO WAH

This film focuses upon the realities of Karen villagers who live internally displaced throughout the Karen state of Burma. It specifically examines how Karen people organize their schools even as they struggle to survive the Burmese military juntas genocidal activities against them. This film has been created by Karen people and represents Karen perspectives on the socio-political context in which they find themselves.
30 min / 2003 / sobrien1988@hotmail.com

58

are breathing money

DIR: ISAAC ISITAN

Two years ago, thousands of people in Turkey and Argentina took to the streets and attacked the banks when their life savings evaporated overnight. How could these relatively wealthy countries possibly go bankrupt in less than a decade? With this question in mind, Isitan takes us to Turkey, Argentina and the US in a moving portrait of citizens who have lost everything. Faced with a lack of money, people began to initiate credit and barter systems and to develop local parallel economies.
65 min / 2003 / Canada / isca@lesproductionsisca.ca http://www.lesproductionsisca.ca

nazrah: a muslim womans perspective

DIR: FARAH NOUSHEEN

Nazrah is an intimate look at a diverse group of Muslim women living in the Pacific Northwest in the USA. The women discuss their views on Islam, current political events and how they reflect on the image of Islam in the West. They also talk about the difficulty of achieving equality within the Muslim community while fighting stereotypical portrayals of Muslim women in the US media.
55 min / 2003 / USA / alex@arabfilm.com http://www.arabfilm.com

59

other worlds peace one day

DIR: JEREMY GILLEY

It is the story of one mans attempt to persuade the global community via the United Nations to officially sanction a global ceasefire day. This film charts a remarkable 5-year journey, showing the viewer how an individual genuinely can make a difference.
80 min / 2004 / UK / info@peaceoneday.org http://www.peaceoneday.org

pretty dyana
DIR: BORIS MITIC

An intimate look at Gypsy refugees in a Belgrade suburb who make a living by transforming Citroen 2CV and Dyana cars into Mad Max-like recycling vehicles, which they use to collect cardboard, bottles and scrap metal. These modern horses mean freedom, hope and style for their crafty owners. Even the car batteries are used as power generators in order to get some light, watch TV and recharge mobiles! An alchemists dream come true! But the police do not always find these strange vehicles funny.
45 min / 2003 / Serbia / borismitic@hotmail.com http://www.dribblingpictures.com

60

are breathing

61

other worlds

62

are breathing rumble in mumbai

DIR: JAWAD METNI

red butterflies where two springs merge

DIR: GAUKHAR SYDYKOVA, DILIA RUZIEVA

In the border mountain village of Achy-Kaindy, 64-yearold Janyl pursues the tradition of making felt carpets into which she creatively incorporates national motifs. She never relied on anyone, least of all on the government and modern industrial technologies. After the break-up of the Soviet-Union, Janyl became famous in Europe and the director of her own workshop. Yet she didnt change her lifestyle or her independent anti-patriarchal views.
14 min / 2002 / Kyrgyzstan / ordo@elcat.kg p.schreiner@soros.org

The film documents the last World Social Forum held in Mumbai, India, in January 2004. Over 100,000 people attended the forum, all looking to build solidarity and a better world. In keeping with the spirit of the forum, the film provides a platform for marginalized voices to air their grievances. It is also full of high-calibre critiques of neo-liberalism and damning indictments of the ill effects of globalization.
58 min / 2004 / USA / jawad@pinholepictures.com http://www.pinhole.com

63

other worlds the legends of madiba

DIR: HELEN HENSHAW

the art of viye diba the intelligent hand

DIR: CLAUDINE POMMIER

Viye Diba, a Senegalese artist living in Dakar, says that he is not an African artist, but a modern artist living in Africa. His work has evolved from small format paintings to increasingly large metaphorical installations. Whether exploring the mysteries of communication, or in the use of raw and recycled materials, his work raises environmental and socio-political questions and also explores the vital role of Art.
52 min / 2003 / Canada / steinpom@shaw.ca http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/4808/

The experiences of Nelson Mandelas favourite performers demonstrate the vital role that music plays in the face of racism and oppression. The magnetic Canadian/ South African performer Lorraine Klaasen indroduces us to the five remarkable ladies including her mother, Tandie Klaasen. We learn about their music and their experiences during the disruptive years of apartheid. We see how important music is in the life of South Africa and how correct Mandela was when he said the legends have a real hunger to sing.
45 min / 2003 / Canada / hhenshaw@videotron.ca

64

are breathing the rockstar and the mullahs

DIR: RUHI HAMID / ANGUS MACQUEEN

the lijjat sisterhood

DIR: KADAMBARI CHINTAMANI / AJIT OOMEN

More than four decades ago, seven women in a lower middle class suburb of Mumbai began a journey towards self-reliance. Today, more than 42,000 others have joined them in this 3000-million-Rupee grassroots level movement called the Shri Mahila Griha Udyog Lijjat Papad. The film looks at what it means to be part of this sisterhood through the eyes of four key protagonists, their colleagues and their families.
30 min / 2003 / India / psbt@vsnl.com http://www.psbt.org

Why cant spirituality be expressed in a pop song? asks Salman Ahmad, Pakistans most famous pop musician and the lead singer of Junoon. Salman is Muslim and very concerned about Pakistans growing religious intolerance that condemns music as obscene. His quest takes him across Pakistan into the Islamic schools, and eventually to Peshawar, where the local government has banned the playing of music in public.
50 min / 2003 / UK / rebecca.morris@octoberfilms.co.uk http:// www.octoberfilms.co.uk

65

other worlds the take

DIRECTOR: AVI LEWIS

In suburban Buenos Aires, Argentina, thirty unemployed auto-parts workers walk into their idle factory, roll out sleeping mats and refuse to leave. All they want is to re-start the silent machines. But this simple act The Take has the power to turn the globalization debate on its head. What shines through in the film is the workers demand for dignity and the searing injustice of dignity denied.
87 min / 2004 / Canada / klp1@sympatico.ca http://www.nfb.ca/thetake/

thirst
DIR: ALAN SNITOW / DEBORAH KAUFMAN

Is water a basic human right for all people? Or is it a commodity to be bought, sold, and traded in the global marketplace? Thirst tells the stories of communities in Bolivia, India, and the United States that are asking these fundamental questions culminating in the events that took place at the 2003 Third World Water Forum in Kyoto, Japan.
62 min / 2004 / USA / amsnitow@igc.org

66

are breathing venezuela bolivariana: people and struggle of the traje: women and weaving fourth world war in guatemala
DIR: MARCELO ANDRADE ARREAZA. DIR: PHOEBE HART

Traje looks at the transmission of culture and identity via weaving and the wearing of traje in Guatemala. Traje refers to the customary clothing of the 28 existing Mayan language groups strewn across Mexico, Guatemala and Belize. It is made and worn almost exclusively by women, who are the guardians of the tradition. Today, the pressures of changing values, global economies, and racial discrimination are threatening the Mayan weaving practice, but there is resistance.
10 min / 2004 / Australia / phoebehart@hotmail.com http://www.hartflicker.com

The film examines the Bolivarian revolution of Venezuela from the Caracazo riots of 1989 to the massive actions that brought revolutionary president Hugo Chvez back to power, 48 hours after a US-led military coup in 2002. It also shows how the people exercise what is called in the popular movement Revolution within the Revolution. The film focuses on how the Bolivarian revolution transcends the national frontiers of Venezuela and contributes to the fight against neoliberal capitalism.
76 min / 2004 / Venezuela / marcelo@calleymedia.org lino@calleymedia.org http://www.calleymedia.org

67

other worlds work in progress: at the wsf 2004

DIR: PAROMITA VOHRA

waterworks india: four engineers and a manager

DIR: PRADIP SAHA

A film about five unsung people, who have kept the intricate traditional science of water management alive from the modern onslaught. Four of them are engineers and one is a water manager. The documentary introduces the viewers to the techniques as well as the social management practices governing it.
22 min / 1998 / India / psaha@cseindia.org http://www.cseindia.org

The World Social Forum began in Brazil in the year 2000 as a space for defining alternatives to globalisation, economic imperialism, war and discrimination. In 2004, it came to Bombay and widened its horizons to include issues of gender, indigenous peoples rights, alternative sexuality, women and war, caste and racism. For 5 days people protested, celebrated alternatives and resistance and sharpened their imagination of a better world with diversity and justice at its heart, under a common slogan Another World Is Possible. This film was created from video material gathered by student crews to document this 5-day event.
59 min / 2004 / India / parodevi@mtnl.net.in

68

are breathing

69

sevil gnikrow

working lives

working
For some time now it has become evident that the situation of Indian labour has, in some sense, been resistant to normal representation. The Indian State, triumphant Capital, the mainstream media and even the trade unions all seem to be playing out a well rehearsed, and now tired, script of an imaginary battle, a battle whose results have been already foretold. Once in a while this peaceable rehearsal is disturbed by the sudden irruption of reality, as when the police brutally beat up protesting workers of a multinational company, or when bullets mow down adivasis protesting displacement by mega industrial projects. For a few days disturbing images flit across television screens. But are soon replaced by other, more pertinent issues: big stories of double-digit growth rate, of India as the next FDI destination. For nearly two decades now, the most visible signs of the public presence of labour industrial disputes and strikes initiated by workers have been on a steep decline. Since the 1990s the offensive of capital in the form of lockouts of industrial establishments have regularly outstripped worker strikes. Neither the retreat of labour from the public sphere, nor the triumphalism of capital, is unique to India. This is the story of labour worldwide under globalisation.

72

lives
The films in Working Lives provide an opportunity to witness, up-close the stories of labour and globalisation from across several continents and an occasion to discuss and reflect upon the relationship between media and Labour. These are a selection of films that enter the inner spaces of peoples struggles, their triumphs and setbacks. They use various narrative approaches to reveal the lies of the propaganda machines of governments and industrial empires, they document strikes, they expose the murder of labour activists, they take a close look at production processes, and they examine the intersection of gender and labour. The films, question, disturb and inspire. Together they unfurl a vibrant panorama of alternative ways of seeing, thinking and acting. Working Lives is a selection of 22 films from Labour on Screen, an International package of films on labour. The entire package of 37 films will be screened at an International festival of films on Labour, which is being planned as a follow up event. Keep in touch with DFA. Rahul Roy / Prabhu Mahopatra

73

working 5 factories workers control in venezuela

DIR: OLIVER RESSLER, DARIO AZZELLINI

The changes in Venezuelas productive sphere are demonstrated with five large companies: a textile company, an aluminum works, a tomato factory, a cocoa factory, and a paper factory. In all, supported by credits from the government, the workers are struggling for different forms of co- or self-management. The protagonists present insights into ways of alternative organizing and models of workers control. The portrayal of machine processes could be a metaphor for the dream machine of the Bolivarian process, and the hopes and desires it inspires among the workers.
83 min / 2006 / Austria / www.ressler.at

a days work, a days pay

DIR: JONATHAN SKURNIK, KATHY LEICHTER

The documentary follows three welfare recipients in New York City from 1997 to 2000 as they participate in the largest welfare-to-work program in the nation. When forced to work at city jobs for well below the prevailing wage and deprived of the chance to go to school, these individuals decide to fight back, demanding programs that will actually help them move off welfare and into jobs.
57 min / 2002 / USA / kathy@mintleafproductions.com

74

lives blossoms of fire

DIR: MAUREEN GOSLING, ELLEN OSBORNE

The legendary women of Juchitn, a city in Oaxaca, Mexico, have been described as guardians of men, distributors of food. Blossoms of Fire shows them in all their brightly colored, opinionated glory as they run their own businesses, embroider their signature fiery blossoms on clothing, and comment with angry humor on articles in the foreign press that flippantly and inaccurately depict them as a promiscuous matriarchy. The people interviewed in this film share a strong work ethic and a fierce independent streak rooted in Zapotec culture. The film explores not only the powerful women but also the regions progressive politics, manifested in the unusual tolerance of homosexuality.
72 min / 2000 / Mexico Canada / www.maureengosling.com

breaking walls
DIR: NIR NADER, VIDEO 48

Video 48 is a group of alternative filmmakers focusing on the situation of Arabs inside Israel. When Israel began walling itself off from the Palestinians of the West Bank, Mike Alewitz, who paints colourful murals, from L.A. to Baghdad, asked the Workers Advice Center (WAC) to help him find a site in an Arab village. WAC chose Kufr Qara, where workers picked a promising wall at the football stadium. They told Alewitz that they wanted a mural that would help them explain to other workers why joining a union is important.
47 min / 2004 / Israel / nirnader@yahoo.com / www.hanitzotz.com/video48/breakingwalls.htm

75

working csr promises responsibility

DIR: EMANUEL DANESCH

class dismissed
DIR: LORETTA ALPER, PEPI LEISTYNA

Based on the forthcoming book by Pepi Leistyna, Class Dismissed navigates the steady stream of narrow working class representations from American televisions beginnings to todays sitcoms, reality shows, police dramas, and daytime talk shows.
62 min / USA / 2005 / maggie@mediaed.org, pleistyna@hotmail.com

How are a Sudanese refugee and a Kurdish farmer connected to the responsibility of Austrian companies? Two big Austrian companies promise responsibility. Two situations contradict this; on the one hand how little two Austrian companies (OMV and VA Tech Hydro) value Corporate Social Responsibility. And on the other, it reveals what remains of the companys promise to responsibility at the end of the chain of influence where the actions of the companies make an impact: in a village located in the flooding area of a barrage in South-Eastern Turkey and in a village in an exploration field in Southern Sudan. Theory versus reality. This film shows the contradiction.
68 min / 2006 / Austria / www.danesch.at

76

lives friend or foe dance with farm workers

DIR: WU WENGUANG DIR: LABOUR NEWS PRODUCTION, SEOUL

A documentary about a very unconventional performance: the project involved not only actors and dancers, but also 30 Beijing farm workers from the poorer regions of Sichuan province. The rehearsals and the performance took place in a former textile factory that could soon be torn down as part of Beijings rapid modernisation. The migrant farm workers, are the supporting pillars of this modernisation as also of this performance. The 30 workers on building sites in Beijing had at first the sole wish to be paid 30 yen a day. It was only some time later that they found themselves standing centre stage.
90 min / 2001 / China / wu-wenguang@263.net

When Korean Telecommunication initiated a structural adjustment plan in 2000, non-regular workers became the main target for their so-called downsizing. Although the targeted workers launched their own new union, eventually 7,000 workers were fired. Their struggle continued for 517 days. They finally lost partly due to the oppression by the police and the betrayal by regular workers. Friend or Foe is a detailed document of their struggle which exposes the serious situation imposed by globalization on workers being compelled to accept nonregular status; and provides a critical analysis of the weakness of the current labour movement.
23 min 40 sec (excerpt) / 2003 / Korea / www.euromayday.org

77

working hammer and flame

DIR: VAUGHAN PILIKAN

A vision into the ship breaking yards of Gujarat, where in an unending cycle, the greatest of manmade titans are taken apart piece by piece, using the simplest of tools.
10 mins/ 2004 / UK / info@greyfilms.com

mardi gras: made in china

DIR: DAVID REDMON

Millions of Americans have attended the New Orleans Mardi Gras celebration. Hidden behind the celebration are the sweatshop workers, mostly women and teenagers who produce the millions of beads that are thrown out to the crowds during the celebration. This film counterpoints the party with the lives of the workers who make the beads. In illuminating interviews we learn about the method of production that is now employing large numbers of Chinese workers as well as the ideology of the owners.
71 min / 2005 / USA / ashley@mardigrasmadeinchina.com

78

lives

79

working

80

lives murdered coca-cola unionists in colombia

DIR: BAERBEL SCHOENAFINGER

mexican holiday innworkers

DIR: MICHAEL MOORE

Mexican Holiday Inn workers risk being deported from the U.S.A. for creating a union.
12 min (excerpt fr. The Awful Truth) / 2004-05 / USA / www.euromayday.org

Each year around 100 unionists are killed in Colombia, in a context where trans-national corporations like Coca-Cola and Nestl play an important role. In order to show the linkage between these corporations, the paramilitaries and the Colombian state, one exemplary case is investigated: On December 5th 1996, paramilitaries entered the Coca-Cola bottling plant in the north-eastern part of Colombia, and killed Isidro Gil. The film reconstructs this and embeds it in the history of the region Urab, where between 1995 and 1998 all social movements an effective left-wing party and the unions have been literally exterminated.
59 min / 2004 / Germany / www.kanalb.de

81

working plan of regeneration

DIR: WANG HSIU-LING, LO SHIN-CHIEH

new penelope
DIR: GEORGII DZALAEV

Economic depression and political chaos force Tajik men to become migrant laborers, working in unsafe conditions and with inconsistent pay. Tajik women attempt to keep their families alive, and, in some cases, enter polygamous marriages to feed themselves and their families. Often, these women relate to Penelope, the wife of the mythical hero Odysseus, who waits many years for her husband to return. The men working abroad and the women left behind face the same fate: hard work and human rights abuses.
25 min 48 sec / 2006 / Tajikistan / vitenberg@lfond.spb.ru, mmgp@genderpolicy.ru

Despite being hailed once as one of the top ten stateowned enterprises in Taiwan, The China Shipbuilding Corp had suffered great losses for years. At the end of 2001, the Government ordered the company to start The Plan of Regeneration. 254 of the employees were forcefully dismissed. The Union failed to protect the workers. To make things worse, the Company breached the governments order, deciding to dismiss further 70 employees. After 6 months of negotiation, 62 of them got their job back, a new page in the history of Taiwans Labour Movement.
109 min / 2004 / Taiwan / akai8128@ms32.hinet.net

82

lives railroad of hope

DIR: NING YING

santas workshop
DIR: LOTTA EKELUND, KRISTINA BJURLING

Every year during August and September, thousands of agricultural workers leave Sichuan by train for a trip of more than 3,000 kms, lasting three days and two nights, towards Chinas far west: Xinjiang Autonomous Region, where endless cotton fields are awaiting the harvest. For most of the workers its the first time away from their villages, as well as their first ride on a train. The aim of Railroad of Hope was to cast a light on the relatively new phenomenon of internal migrations in China. The result is a documentary in which, probably for the first time ever, we can listen to Chinese peasants from poor interior regions speaking openly and sincerely about their lives.
56 min / 2001 / China / eurasia@public3.bta.net.cn

Workers tell us about long working hours, low wages and dangerous work places. Those who protest or try to organise trade unions risk imprisonment. Santas Workshop takes you to the real world of Chinas toy factories. Low labour costs attract more and more companies to China. Today more than 75% of our toys are made in China. But this industry takes its toll on the workers and on the environment. The European buyers blame bad conditions on the Chinese suppliers. But they say that competition gives them no option. Who should we believe? And what can you do to bring about a fairer and more humane toy trade?
33 min / 2004 / Sweden / info@fairtradecenter.se

83

working tale of an immigrant

DIR: BERNADETTE FELBER

I tell the Mexican dream of those people who are arriving in Mxico D.F. in hope of a better future. This dream is rarely realised. The situation is difficult there is no infrastructure nor an efficient system of education to reduce increasing criminality and the growth of gangs. A large percentage cannot read and write Spanish. Sixty percent are living in extreme poverty, conditions which motivate towards an illegal emigration to the USA, which becomes a game of death The capital Mxico D.F. is transforming herself into an incredible conglomerate. It is a living society where within chaos and poverty can be found creativity and the joy to live day by day.
8 min / 2001 / Mexico Austria / www.ifoi.at/felber

the big avenues

DIR: COLECTIVO PRESENTE

The documentary deals with the social consequences of the Chilean military dictatorship. In September 2003 the country is experiencing all sorts of commemoration events and demonstrations as well as rising poverty and the selling off of the public sectors by the protagonists of the film. The neo-liberal system, which was installed by the military junta, is regarded as a second wave of repression after the political one. The documentary contextualises the conjunctions between dictatorship, economic restructuring and the democratic attempts.
76 min / 2004 / Chile Germany / steenotor@riseup.net

84

lives who will sing a lullaby...

DIR: NINA RUDIK

we are workers, or not?

DIR: MIRYE KIM

From the 1990s, the flexibility of the labour market became apparent in Korea, which resulted in a lot of non-regular workers and so-called special employment workers, of which the latter are not even legally recognized as workers. One group of such workers are truck drivers in the construction industry who have to suffer under bad working conditions and low wages because they dont have any right to organize. This is a story of the three-year struggle by these workers, who never lost their self-confidence and belief in labour liberation.
60 min / 2003 / Korea / docu@mi-re.com / miraedocu@yahoo s.co.kr

Mashas father and Katyas grandfather are on paternity leave. They are among the few, the very few (46 to be exact), men from Kiev who dared to use their right to take parental leave. Challenging their traditional role as breadwinners, overcoming social stigma, and encouraging their wives to realise themselves outside of the home, Mashas father and Katyas grandfather do not think of themselves as heroes or dependants. Instead, they are pleased that with their own courage and support from family members and friends personal choice can prevail for them and their wives over traditional gender roles.
28 min 32 sec / 2006 / Ukraine / vitenberg@lfond.spb.ru / mmgp@genderpolicy.ru

85

working working mans death

DIR: MICHAEL GLAWOGGER

Is heavy manual labour disappearing or is it just becoming invisible? Where can we still find it in the 21st century? The film follows the trail of the HEROES in the illegal mines of the Ukraine, sniffs out GHOST among the sulphur workers in Indonesia, finds itself face to face with LIONS at a slaughterhouse in Nigeria, mingles with BROTHERS as they cut a huge oil tanker in Pakistan and joins Chinese steel workers in hoping for a glorious FUTURE. Meanwhile, the future is now in Germany, where a major smelting plant of bygone days has been converted into a bright and shiny leisure park.
122 min / 2005 / Austria / www.workingmansdeath.com

zapatistas compilacion IX: collective work in resistance

DIR: PROMEDIOS DE COMUNICACIN COMUNITARIA A.C.

The communities of Zona Norte show how they daily push and experience their autonomy. Their production as well as the educational and health care system are being organised collectively. In this manner the fight against oblivion and marginalisation proceeds. The film shows the efforts of the communities in resistance to keep their cultural identity despite surviving under hard conditions.
18 min / 2000 / Chiapas/Mexico / Kdemigue@gmx.de

86

lives

Working Lives comes in collaboration with:

normale, Austria, which screens socio-economic and political documentaries (www.normale.at) globale, Germany, offers critical perspectives on globalization, merging film-festival with political gathering (www.globale-filmfestival.de) labor B, Germany, active in the intersections between global labor and media activism, organizes the programme labormov[i]e at the Globale (www.laborB.org)

The Labour on Screen package includes 15 other films listed overleaf.

87

labour
a decent factory
DIR: THOMAS BALMS

above the din of sewing machines

DIR: SURABHI SHARMA

ballad of builders
DIR: GARGI SEN, SUJIT GHOSH, RANJAN DE

When Swedish cell-phone giant Nokia sends a team of ethics experts to the Chinese factory that supplies their parts, the result is a comedy of manners as culture and gender clash with the bottom line. Maddeningly, the experts seem less concerned about the big picture than minor details, and the Nokia executives are mainly interested in preserving the image of Scandinavia. And when interviewed, the factory workers claim only to want better lunches. Factorys bemused tone belies its larger message of the impossibility of ethics without common ground.
79 min / 2005 / Finland / mailroom@frif.com

This film documents the exploitative working conditions of women workers in the garment industry in Bangalore. This Industry is largely geared towards exporting to big Brands in the West. The amount of foreign exchange earned from garment export in Bangalore exceeded that of the IT industry until 2001. And yet, the workers toil with extremely low wages and in an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.
38 min / 2001 / India / Surabhi_sh@yahoo.com

In India, construction continues to be the common foundation of growth and civilisation. Yet, the construction workers, over 20 million in number, continue to eke out a miserable living where even the basic necessities for dignified living are denied to them. In 1985 a unique process for drafting a comprehensive legislation was begun by organisations of construction workers. Workers from all over India, with help from legal experts, participated in the drafting of a Bill that could ensure social justice to construction workers. But the Bill was never passed.
60 min / 1993 / India / magiclantern.foundation@gmail.com

88

on screen
before the flood
DIR: YAN YU, LI YIFAN

bundelkhand express
DIR: SABA DEWAN

jari mari: of cloth and other stories

DIR: SURABHI SHARMA

Fengjie, a city with a thousand-year-long history on the Yangtze River, represents Chinese cultural heritage. Despite this, Chinese government decided to flood the city, move the locals out and build the biggest dam in the world here. Before the Flood captures the hopelessness of local inhabitants facing bureaucracy and corrupt power. It celebrates the beauty of Fengjie, the town of poetry, but calls attention to the irreversible destructive processes started by Chinese government and their engineering experiments...
150 min / 2005 / China

Bundelkhand Express is a labour train. It picks up hundreds of children and adults deserting the impoverished districts of southern Uttar Pradesh, India in search of work. Some of these people are heading towards neighbouring Mirzapur the capital of carpet production in India. The documentary connects the stories of these children and their parents with the carpet economy. Traditional craft and global capital, meticulous craftsmen and non-artisan exporters tied together by a thin and fine thread, woven into a nightmare.
72 Min / 1999 / India / sabadewan@gmail.com

Jari Mari is a sprawling slum colony adjacent to Mumbais Chhatrapati Shivaji International airport. Its narrow lanes house hundreds of small sweatshops where women and men work, without the right to organise. Their existence is on the edge their illegal dwellings could be demolished any time by the airport authorities, and jobs have to be found anew everyday. This film explores the lives of the people of Jari Mari, and records the many changes in the nature and organisation of Mumbais workforce over the past two decades.
74 min / 2001 / India / Surabhi_sh@yahoo.com

89

labour
meanwhile lunchtime comes
DIR: KARIN BRANDBAUER

occupation: mill worker

DIR: ANAND PATWARDHAN

tales of the night fairies

DIR: SHOHINI GHOSH

Austria in the 1930ties. The story of a sociological study of a small Austrian town suffering from economic decline and the rise of Nazi ideology. Following this study the people face their unemployment either with unbrokeness, resignation, despair or apathy.
94 min /1987/ Austria / Kdemigue@gmx.de / Austrian Television ORF.

Textile mills were once the backbone of Bombays economy and provided the city its working class culture. Today, foreign investment and rising real-estate prices have made selling mill lands more profitable than running mills. Mill sickness is now an epidemic. Occupation: Mill worker records the inspirational action of workers who, after a four-year lockout, forcibly occupied The New Great Eastern Mill.
22 min / 1996 / India / anandpat@vsnl.com

Five sex-workers four women and one man along with the filmmaker/ narrator embark on a journey of storytelling. Tales of the Night Fairies explores the power of collective organizing and resistance while reflecting upon contemporary debates around sex-work. The simultaneously expansive and labyrinthine city of Calcutta forms the backdrop for the personal and musical journeys of storytelling
74 min / 2003 / India / shohini@vsnl.com

90

on screen
the city beautiful
DIR: RAHUL ROY

the fire within

DIR: SHRIPRAKASH

the take
DIR: AVI LEWIS

Sunder Nagri (the beautiful city) is a small working class colony on the margins of Indias capital city, Delhi. Most families residing here come from a community of weavers. The last ten years have seen a gradual disintegration of the handloom tradition of this community under the globalisation regime. The families have to cope with change as well as reinvent themselves to eke out a living. This is the story of two families struggling to make sense of a world, which keeps pushing them to the margins.
78 min / 2003 / India / rahulroy63@gmail.com

The Fire Within draws a painful portrait of the transformation of the land of the Tana Bhagats, a sect of the Oraon tribe who were believers of nonviolence and Gandhian philosophy, to a land witnessing violent maoist movement today. They owned this coal rich land till the British dispossessed them. Since 19th century, the railways were introduced and the extraction of coal began in a big way. 25 years after Independence, the Coal industry was nationalised and the situation worsened, as the Mafia and corrupt bureaucrats ushered in an era of violent culture. From being owners of land the indigenous people are forced to turn into coal stealers in the eyes of the law.
57 min / 2002 / India / kritikashri@yahoo.com

The Take is a political thriller that turns the globalization debate on its head. The film follows Argentinas radical new movement of occupied businesses: groups of workers who are claiming the countrys bankrupt workplaces and running them without bosses.
87 min / 2004 / Canada / www.thetake.org

91

labour
there are women in russian villages...
DIR: PAVEL KOSTOMAROV, ANTOIN KATTIN

we buy, who pays?

DIRS: LOTTA EKELUND, KRISTINA BJURLING

west of tracks: rust, remnants, rails

DIR: WANG BING

In this film, two women, a mother and her daughter, demonstrate that poverty in Russia is increasingly a womens phenomenon. Luba and Alesya live in a Russian village: the population consists of male drunkards, with few or no exceptions, and exhausted women. Luba and Alesya are milkmaids at a state farm a profession that is underpaid and perceived as too strenuous for most people. But Luba and Alesya, who are raising children and fleeing domestic violence, have little choice. They have no one to rely on in their small, isolated village except themselves.
27 min 33 sec / 2006 / Russia / vitenberg@lfond.spb.ru mmgp@genderpolicy.ru

A documentary about Western companies producing clothes and shoes in developing countries. The film visits factories in India and talks to suppliers, labourers, NGOs and farmers who give their point of view.
25 min / 2002 / Sweden / info@fairtradecenter.se

The Tie Xi district in Shenyang in northeast China was established during the Japanese occupation and transformed into a highly populated industrial area. This unusually longform documentary, takes us on a tour of this now decaying area, spreads over nine hours and three parts entitled Rust, Remnants, and Rails. Factories and towns become ruins, people are buffeted by change, and time ebbs away. An extraordinary documentary that puts the realities facing Chinese society into stark relief, through an exclusive and extended exploration of the region.
545 min / 2003 / China / wangbing20026@sina.com

92

on screen

93

t u c s r o t c e r i d

d i r e c t o r s c u t

d i r e c t o r s
Other worlds are breathing, and as documentary filmmakers, we have been privileged to witness those breaths the long thoughtful intake, the quickened compulsive ones, the slow exhaling of ideas that disperse into a seemingly amorphous audience. Images and sounds drawn from many worlds have come together as documentary films that inform, reflect and challenge. There is a landscape of documentary films in India and it is a landscape that abounds in diversity. Directors Cut is a first attempt to explore this diversity, reflect on the journeys that made this diversity possible, and contemplate a future. The Delhi Film Archive set upon the difficult task of selecting 15 documentary filmmakers from across India, because we see this is as a way of initiating a dialogue about our work. Documentary films are about dialogue about issues, people, every day life. They are also about ways of looking and ways of creating art. And so, what better way is there to talk about them than to talk around them. Directors Cut will make it possible to centre this dialogue around questions that emerge in the course of our work whether we are making a film about communalism or about a life led in the early days of Indian cinema. We recognise that this dialogue needs to continue. Five invited filmmakers Mani Kaul, Nilita Vachani, Ranjan Palit, Reena Mohan and Ruchir Joshi have been unable to come for the festival. And so, we plan to continue this conversation every year with a new set of filmmakers.

96

cut
The set of filmmakers selected this year represent the diversity of documentary filmmaking in India. These filmmakers have engaged rigorously with the documentary form over a period of time and their work has been closely connected to the development of documentary filmmaking in India. Anand Patwardhans films have contributed to key debates not just on communalism and nationhood but also on what documentaries can achieve. Deepa Dhanrajs Something Like a War was one of the earliest feminist voices in documentary films in India. It inspired an entire generation of feminist filmmakers to engage with the construction of womens images. Many of these films can be considered milestones of the documentary film movement in the country and have pushed the boundaries of the discussion both in terms of the polemic and in practice. Manjira Dattas Sacrifice of Babulal Bhuiyan was an early attempt to find an autonomous language for documentary films, a language that could encompass both politics and aesthetics. This search for lyricism in political filmmaking continues, and can be seen in the work of Amar Kanwar. Moving away from reality filmmaking, Amar Kanwar has tried to search for a more interpretative form that can be both compelling art and a powerful political statement.

97

d i r e c t o r s
The dominant domain of documentary filmmaking, the activist film, has been contributed to by many filmmakers, and on many issues. The work of K P Sasi represents a long term engagement with this kind of filmmaking. But this has also found new and dispersed voices in many parts of the country. Instead of being dependent on the outsider who will speak for a community. Meghnath and Biju Toppo represent this strand of filmmaking. They speak from within the indigineous peoples movement and their work constantly challenges development paradigms. Several documentary filmmakers in India are concerned with form as an important element of their filmmaking. Madhushree Duttas work is characterised by a multiplicity of narratives and varied histories, and an attempt to weave together theatrical form and installation art as part of documentary filmmaking. Paromita Vohras work reflects a desire to create art that people can engage with and enjoy. Stylish and flamboyant, Unlimited Girls looked at feminism in a new, conversational way and even in her later films, she continues to search for meaning not just in what is said but how it is said. Vipin Vijays films are highly experimental in their form, with documentary reality finding little or no space. Instead, there are very strong images and accentuated sounds that communicate in a more expressionist manner.

98

cut
The skill and vision of technical crew is a significant part of the documentary film landscape in India. Camerapersons like Ranjan Palit and editors like Reena Mohan have played an important part in shaping many of the films made by the directors on this list. They have also gone on to make their own films. Reena Mohans Kamlabai is memorable for the intimate personal space that the filmmaker created in her conversations with Kamlabai, a space in which she was very much present, although never visible in front of the camera. R V Ramani is another cameraman-director whose work stands out in its attempt to experiment with the camera, almost like a paintbrush. He has also fearlessly experimented with technology and has told stories with ease using a variety of formats, including VHS. The role of the documentary film is to create and reflect dissent. And dissent presupposes the presence of multiple visions. Just as we believe that there has to be room for multiplicity in society, so too there has to be room for multiplicity in our art. Directors Cut is Delhi Film Archives presentation of multiplicity at work.

99

d i r e c t o r s Amar Kanwar
A Season Outside
30 MIN/ 1998 / ENGLISH Amar was born in 1964 and lives and works from New Delhi. His films have been about issues of violence, politics, ecology and sexuality. Some of his notable works include The Many Faces of Madness (2000), King of Dreams (2001), Baphlimali 173, (2001), A Night of Prophecy (2002), To Remember (2003) and Henningsvaer (2006). He is the recipient of the Edvard Munch Award for Contemporary Art from Norway, the Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival; the Golden Conch at Mumbai International Film Festival; the First Prize at the Torino International Film Festival. Italy; and the Grand Prix at EnviroFilm, Slovak Republic. He has exhibited at Whitney Museum, New York (2006), Sydney Biennale (2006) and Documenta XI (2002).

There is perhaps no border outpost in the world quite like Wagah, where this film begins its exploration. An outpost where every evening people are drawn to a thin white line and probably anyone in the eye of a conflict could find themselves here.
direction & script: Amar Kanwar. camera: Dilip Varma. editing: Sameera Jain. sound: Uma Shankar. research consultant: Dilip Simeon. music: Susmit Sen.

100

cut amars choice

Unedited footage from Manipur
UNEDITED FOOTAGE / 30 MIN / 2004

The second film that I wish to show is raw and partially cut footage from the protests against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act in Manipur following the rape and murder of Manorama in 2004. The disrobing protest as well as Irom Sharmilas hunger strike for the last 6 years are incredible illustrations of non violent protest against an armed opposition. These are struggles that inspire us to carry on as activists and filmmakers. We are passing through a period of intense violence against peoples struggles in different parts of India. We are also witnessing an increasing number of people, especially non professionals taking to the camera and documenting the events that take place in daily life. I want to bring attention to these processes of shooting. Now is the time for every one to pick up the small digital camera and shoot in just the same way as we all picked up the pen and wrote. Amar Kanwar

101

d i r e c t o r s Anand Patwardhan
In the Name of God / Ram ke Naam
75 MIN / 1991 / ENGLISH & HINDI

Independent India has been a secular state since 1947. But now, as religious fundamentalism grips much of Indias population, the greatest danger to the nations extremely strained social fabric may come from Hindu fundamentalists who seek to redefine India as a Hindu nation. In The Name Of God focusses on the campaign waged by the militant Vishwa Hindu Parishad to destroy a 16th century mosque in Ayodhya said to have been built by Babar, the first Mughal Emperor of India. Filmed prior to the mosques demolition, In The Name Of God examines the motivations which would ultimately lead to the drastic actions of the Hindu militants, as well as the efforts of secular Indians to combat the religious hatred that has seized India in the name of God.
Camera / Editing: Anand Patwardhan. Sound: Pervez Merwanji. Production and Editing Assistance: Paromita Vohra, Pervez Merwanji, Narinder Singh, Simantini Dhuru, Jabeen Merchant, Shashi Mehta.

Born in 1950, Anand studied English Literature, Sociology and Communications. He has participated in several peoples movements against all unsustainable, unjust development and against nuclear weapons, militarism and jingoism. His films include Waves of Revolution (1974), Prisoners of Conscience (1978), Bombay our City (1985), In Memory of Friends (1990), Father, Son and Holy War (1995) and War and Peace/Jang aur Aman (2002). He has won several awards including the National Award for Best Documentary, Special Jury Prize at Cinema du Reel, Citizens Prize at Yamagata, International Critics Prize (FIPRESCI) at the Sydney Film Festival and the Silver Conch at the Zanzibar International Film Festival.

102

cut anands choice

Autumns Final Country
SONIA JABBAR 66 MIN / 2003 / ENGLISH & HINDI WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES

Autumns Final Country was originally recorded as a testimony for the South Asia Court of Women in Dhaka, 2003. Her four subjects were from disparate backgrounds but were all cruelly impacted by religious or political conflict. Indu is an English teacher who fled her comfortable family home in Srinagar when religious violence flared. Zarina was brought from Bangladesh to Kashmir by a family friend, only to be sold as a young bride who quickly became the virtual slave of a two-wife family. Shahnaz was abducted as a young girl, raped by Kashmiri guerillas, only to be saved and raped by the Indian police who turned her into an informant. And finally Anju, a young Hindu adolescent living in a refugee camp in Jammu, who fled her family home along the Pakistani border when its army shelled her village in attempts to destroy a nearby Indian army outpost. Anand quotes from a review to explain why he would like to show the film: The effect is not just to make you ache with sadness at what these women have undergone. Its real value lies in its shattering of the myths and nationalistic notions constructed over the years by the respective governments of Pakistan and India and the non-state actors engaged in the conflict in Kashmir (Beena Sarwar, The News, Pakistan).

103

d i r e c t o r s

104

cut

105

A Season Outside

d i r e c t o r s Deepa Dhanraj
Something Like a War
53 MINUTES / 1991 / HINDI, MARWARI WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES Born in 1953 Deepa has shared a close relationship with the womens movement in India. Her Something Like a War was one of the earliest feminist voices in documentary films in India. Deepas other notable films include: Kya Hua Iss Shehar Ko -What has happened to this City? (1986), The Legacy of Malthus (1994). Her films have been screened regularly in film festivals in India and abroad. The Mumbai International Film Festival, Festival International Du Film Documentaire - Nyon, Switzerland, International Short Film Festival -Leipzig, Germany, Festival of South-Asian Women Directors - Sakhi, New York and Tampere Film Festival - Finland. Deepa has been the recipient of several awards that include the Swiss Television Award (1992) and the Best long Documentary award at Films De Femmes Creteil, France (1993).

Something Like a War examines Indias national Family Planning programme from the perspective of women, who are its primary targets. The film traces the history of the family planning programme and exposes the cynicism, corruption and brutality, which characterize its implementation. It also questions the ethics of internationally funded contraceptive research, which use Indian women as guinea pigs. As the women discuss their status, sexuality, fertility control and health, it is clear that their perceptions are in conflict with the programme.
Camera: Navroze Contractor. Sound: Dileep Subramaniam. Editor: Haida Paul. Workshop Facilitator: Abha Bhaiya. Director: Deepa Dhanraj. Produced by: D&N Productions with Equal Media for Channel 4 Television, U.K

106

cut deepas choice

A Certain Liberation
YASMINE KABIR 37 MINUTES / 2003 / BANGLA WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES

Gurudasi Mondol gave herself up to madness in 1971, during the Liberation War of Bangladesh, as she watched her entire family being killed by the collaborators of the occupying forces. Thirty years later, Gurudasi continues to roam the streets of Kopilmoni, a small-town in rural Bangladesh, in quest of all she has lost; snatching at will from strangers and breaking into spaces normally reserved for men. She is unafraid of authority and scorns it. In her madness, she has found a strategy for survival. In Kopilmoni, Gurudasi has attained near legendary status. Through her indomitable presence, she has kept alive the spirit of the Liberation War. Gurdasi Mondal who has survived appalling violence and watching her negotiate her world is indescribably moving. By shooting it herself the filmmaker has created an intense and intimate conversation between them. The video is as much about their emotional relationship as it is about Gurdasi Mondals story. Deepa Dhanraj

107

d i r e c t o r s K P Sasi
The Source of Life for Sale
70 MIN / 2004 / MALAYALAM AND HINDI WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES Sasi started as a cartoonist during the seventies and began making documentaries in the early eighties. His notable documentaries include Living in Fear, In the Name of Medicine, We Who Make History, A Valley Refuses to Die, The Wings of Kokkrebellur and Redefining Peace. These films are used by various activist groups to strengthen struggles. Sasis feature films include Ilayum Mullum, Ek Alag Mausam and ShhSilence Please. His awards include the Best Film Award at the International Rural Film Festival, France, the Special Jury Prize at the International Environment Film Festival, Turkey, the Bronze Award at the Global Video Festival, Copenhagen, the Best Film Award at Enfest and the Best Film and Best Director awards at the Swaralaya International Film Festival.

A documentary on the impact of privatisation of water bodies in India and the subsequent struggles of the local people against the sale of rivers in Periyar, Malampuzha, Attappadi, Sheonath, Kelo, Ganga Canal and the River Linking Project and the protest of the local people against the impact of Coca - Cola production in Plachimada and Mehdiganj. The film is being used by various groups struggling against water privatisation in India.
director: K P Sasi. music: Santhosh Nair. editing: Aditya Kunigal. camera: Sajan Kalathil / Sunil Kupperi. voice-over: Nilanjana Biswas. asst. director: Viju Varma. produced by: Vikas Adhyayan Kendra.

108

cut sasis choice

Voices from Baliapal
RANJAN PALIT AND VASUDHA JOSHI 43 MIN / 1988 / ORIYA WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES

Voices from Balliapal protests about a missile testing range in Orissa, India. This is our land, our sea... we will die rather than lose this place was the cry raised by 70,000 people in Baliapal when the Indian government announced its decision to locate a missile testing range there in August 1984. Since then a remarkable nonviolent struggle has been taking place. Significant struggles in history should not be forgotten. Well made documentaries made on such struggles can inspire people even today. The film has played a role not just in strengthening the struggle against the Baliapal Missile Test Range but also various other struggles against destructive development in India. This was perhaps one of the first films to question the defence interests in India. The film may be two decades old, but the need to screen such films has only increased. KP Sasi

109

d i r SomethingtLike arWar e c o s

110

cut

111

Seven Islands and a Metro

d i r e c t o r s Madhushree Dutta
Seven Islands and a Metro
100 MIN / 2006 / ENGLISH, HINDI, URDU, MARATHI & BOMBAYIA

A frayed rug round his shoulders, My father came down the Sahyadris And stood at your doorstep, With only his labour in his hands. MUMBAI BY NARAYAN SURVE This film is a tale of the cities of Bom Bahia / Bombay / Mumbai the multilingual Bombay, the Bombay of intolerance, the Bombay of closed mills, of popular culture, sprawling slums and real estate onslaughts, the metropolis of numerous ghettos, the El Dorado. Structured around imaginary debates between Ismat Chugtai and Sadat Hasan Manto, the two legendary writers who lived in this metropolis, the film weaves a tapestry of fiction, cinema vrit, art objects, found footage, sound installation and literary texts.
Actors: Harish Khanna, Vibha Chibbar. Camera: Avijit Mukul Kishore. Editing: Reena Mohan, Shyamal Karmakar. Dialogue: Sara Rai. Sound Design: Boby John. Music: Arjun Sen.

Madhusree is an alumni of National School of Drama, New Delhi. She has been making non-fiction films since 1993. Gender, identity and marginalisation are her chosen areas of work. Some of her notable films include I Live in Behrampada (1993), Memories of Fear (1994), Scribbles on Akka (2000) and Made in India (2002). Many of her films have won awards, including the Filmfare Award and the National Award for best documentary, and are also being taught as texts in academic and media & film institutions. She is also the founder and executive director of Majlis, a centre for multi-disciplinary art initiatives and rights discourse.

112

cut madhushrees choice

The Boy in the Branch
LALIT VACHANI 26 MINUTES / 1993 / ENGLISH SUBTITLES

This is a film about the indoctrination of young Hindu boys by a branch of the RSS, the foremost Hindu fundamentalist organisation in India. The film was actually conceptualised and shot before the Babri Masjid demolition changed the social fabric of India forever. What surprises me about the film is its non-polemic form which, with its easy aesthetics grows into a terribly unsettling narrative one that would eventually lead to the demolition. I believe that the film started a new genre in political film narrative in India. But it never got its due because our expectations from political films was rather narrow and didactive in those days. I hope the inclusion of this film in the India Social Forum film festival will help put in perspective both the history of fundamentalism and the history of resistance in filmmaking in India. Madhushree Dutta

113

d i r e c t o r s Manjira Datta
Sacrifice of Babulal Bhuiya
63 MIN / 1988 / ORIYA WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES

Sacrifice of Babulal Bhuiya is a portrait of the community of the undead and an investigation into the murder of Babulal Bhuiya, a casual worker, who was killed in 1981 by the industrial security guards of the coal washery. The film concentrates on different versions of the story of the killing by many witnesses. The many meanings of this death are understood through the martyrs memorial day. The ceremony of the Shaheed Diwas is used as an event to discuss problems,and the kinds of oppression affecting the people of this area called Mailagora or the place of dirt.
cinematography: Ranjan Palit. sound: Umesh. Editing: Reena Mohan. Script, Producer, Director: Manjira Datta.

Manjiras documentary films shot over two decades have attempted to portray some of the startling visual images and the world of characters such as Babulal Bhuiya, Savitri , Basanti. Manjira has always attempted to penetrate into the innermost seams of this society be it caste, labour, gender, politics, the rural world or the environment in a moving, involved manner. Her notable films include Raaste Bandh Hain Subh, Portraits from a Dream Show, Seeds of Plenty, Seeds of Sorrow and Rishte. These have been screened in several film festivals and have also won national and international awards.

114

cut manjiras choice

The Farm
JONATHAN STACK AND LIZ GARBUS 96 MINUTES / 1995 / ENGLISH

The Farm has been shot in a penitentiary in Louisana where lifers are housed. Significantly, this remote, arid landscape has a very high percentage of black inmates, only 15% of whom come out alive. The film is a tour de force as the understated cinematography and sometimes startling close-ups relentlessly reveal the development of the system of prisons, police organisations, adminstrative and legal hierarchies for social control. It is an excellent example of a documentary film which graphically illustrates the growth of a disciplinary society in one of the largest democracies. The quiet intimacy of the filmmakers with some of the lifers yield their unbearable pain and suffering. For me, this film amongst others, has been a source of inspiration, as yet again a documentary film successfully reveals the dark, hidden side of an inhuman, systematic control by the modern state at its efficient best justice a developing unrelenting manmade force which threatens our everyday existence. Manjira Datta

115

d i r e c t o r s Meghnath & Biju Toppo

Development Flows from the Barrel of the Gun
54 MIN / 2004 Meghnath is a social activist who for the last 25 years has worked closely with the Adivasis. As a film maker he has tried to document the voice of those section of people who remain unheard. Biju is one of the first Adivasi filmmakers who have effectively used the camera to counter the misrepresentation of his community by the mainstream media. His films have received national and international recognition. Meghnath and Biju are the founder members of AKHRA, an organization working in the field of culture and communication. Together they have made several notable films that include Unknown Martyrs, Yet Another Accident, Where Ants are Fighting Elephants and Development Flows from the Barrel of the Gun that won the Star Best Documentary Film Award at VATAVARAN 2005. Bijus latest film, Kora Rajee, was awarded the Silver Conch (National) at MIFF 2006.

The film focuses upon the human rights violation of the indigenous people in India. It documents state violence upon the people affected by development projects in the country. The film explores the relationship between violence and the new economic policy and globalisation.
direction: Biju Toppo, Meghnath. camera: Biju Toppo. editing: V G Raja Ashok. script: Meghnath. production: AKHRA.

116

cut meghnath & bijus choice

Naata
ANJALI MONTEIRO AND K.P.JAYASANKAR 45 MINUTES / 2004 / ENGLISH

Naata is about Bhau Korde and Waqar Khan, two activists and friends, who have been working with neighbourhood peace committees in Dharavi, Mumbai, reputedly, the largest slum in Asia. Naata juxtaposes the multi-layered narrative on Dharavi and the stories of the filmmakers, thereby attempting to foreground a critical and active viewership. Naata has a strong anti communal narrative and is extremely relevant to the times we are living in. The film mounts a passionate attack on the ideology and politics of communal hatred. Meghnath & Biju Topo

117

d i r e c t o r s Paromita Vohra
Q2P
54 MIN / 2006 / ENGLISH & HINDI Paromita is a filmmaker and writer. Her films as director include Q2P, Wheres Sandra? Work In Progress: At the WSF 2004, Cosmopolis: Two Tales of a City (Award at Indo-British Digital Film Festival), Unlimited Girls (Womens News Award, WFFIS, South Korea), A Womans Place, A Short Film About Time and Annapurna: Goddess of Food. She is the writer of the features Khamosh Pani (Best Screenplay, Kara Film Festival, Golden Leopard, Locarno Film Festival), Promises to Keep (under production), Kumari Shobha (in development) and the documentaries A Few Things I Know About Her (Silver Conch, MIFF 2002 and National Award for Best Film, 2003), If You Pause and Skin Deep. She lives in Bombay where she also teaches scriptwriting as visiting faculty at the Sophial Polytechnic.

Who is dreaming up the global city? Q2P peers through the dream of Mumbai as a future Shanghai and findspublic toilets not enough of them. As this film observes who has to queue to pee, we begin to understand the imagination of gender that underlies the citys shape and the constantly shifting boundaries between public and private space. We meet whimsical people with novel ideas of social change, which thrive with mixed results. We learn of small acts of survival that people in the citys bottom half cobble together. In the Museum of Toilets, at a night concert, in a New Delhi international toilet, in a Bombay slum, we hear the silence that surrounds toilets and sense how similar it is to the silence that surrounds inequality.
producer: PUKAR. director: Paromita Vohra. camera: Ajay Noronha. editing: Jabeen Merchant. sound: Anita Kushwaha, Samina Mishra. animation: Shilpa Ranade. music: Tarun Shahani, Nirav Gandhi. narrator: Tuhinaa Vohra.

118

cut paromitas choice

And I Make Short Films
S.N.S.SASTRY 16 MIN /1968 / ENGLISH

An impressionistic portrayal of short film making by a short filmmaker. The film explores the process, ideas and the context of documentary filmmaking in India at the time art or documentation of reality. The views expressed in the film are sometimes bitter, often humorous, at times satirical but seldom complimentary. I find this film remarkable for its fierceness, its humour and the ability to turn a recurring personal experience into a strong political statement. Its conversational, playful style belies a palpable anger at the feudal minded compartmentalisation of art or politics and of the polite and ponderous way in which these things are often discussed. I think its also a style that hasnt quite been handed down enough in documentary. Discovering this film, made by a man who worked for Films Division all his life, revealed to me that the history of documentary filmmaking in India is more complicated than the way its told; that independence is a matter of spirit, not location. Paromita Vohra

119

d i r e c t o r s

Q2P

120

cut

Video Game

121

d i r e c t o r s R V Ramani
Brahma Vishnu Shiva
19 MIN / 1998 / NO DIALOGUES

Toshikazu Kanai, a Japanese sculptor, tries working with sand as the medium, near the waterfront on a beach. A film happens, revealing the process of creation, sustenance and destruction, all happening at the same time.
Photographed, Edited, Directed and Produced by R.V.Ramani

Ramani, studied filmmaking from Film and TV Institute of India, Pune. He is one of the few filmmakers in India, who has established a style of his own, making independent impressionistic documentaries which have found recognition both in India and abroad. His notable films include Saa (1991), One Two Three Four (1995), Nee Engey (2003), Aura (2006) and City Stories (2006). His retrospectives have been presented in important international film festivals. He has also been associated in many short films, documentaries and feature films as cinematographer, many of which have won national and international acclaim.

122

cut ramanis choice

Portraits of Belonging: Bhai Mian
SAMEERA JAIN 30 MIN / 1998 / URDU AND HINDI WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES

Bhai Mian is a kite maker who lives in the last historic Delhi Shahjahanabad, the city built by Mughal emperor Shahjahan in the 17th century. The film is a portrait of the man in his context, a man whose ordinariness barely conceals his imagination and resilience. He has turned a favourite pastime into a serious profession and continuously adapts his craft to new tastes. Like many others of the Muslim minority community in India, Bhai Mians life is a struggle against all odds. This is one of my favorite films. It made me feel proud of being a documentary filmmaker! I am choosing Sameeras film for this festival basically because it is in direct contrast to my film Brahma Vishnu Shiva. Bhai Mian has an exceptional structure and flow. Its like an intricately woven tapestry. The central character Bhai Mian, the kite maker, emerges wonderfully through the multiple crisscross layers Sameera weaves in. Also, there is this first person narrative of the filmmaker meeting Bhai Mian, which makes it all personal. R.V. Ramani

123

d i r e c t o r s Vipin Vijay
Video Game
30 MIN / 2005 / ENGLISH

A complex video journey on a MOTORCAR, that incorporates mythic themes of searching, the need for being, for love, for a home and for a promise of a different future. It also serves as a map of current cultural desires, dreams and fears. It begins its Fetch-Decode-Execute cycle as the subject enters the suburbs of hell, the psycho-geographical zone in transition where the soft technologies of the interior (the body) and the hard technologies of the exterior (the environment) are thrown together in collision and almost surgically cut each other up.
camera & direction: Vipin Vijay. editing: Debkamal Ganguly. sound design: Debkamal Ganguly, Vipin Vijay. script: Debkamal Ganguly, Vipin Vijay. producer: Rajiv Mehrotra.

Vipin, 30, studied filmmaking at Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute of India, Calcutta in 2000 and went on as a research fellow at the British Film Institute, London with a Charles Wallace Arts Award. His films have been shown widely in India and abroad and have won the National Jury Award at MIFF 2002, Best Director, Kerala State Award, IDPA Award 2002, John Abraham National Awards (2005 & 2006) and National Winner- CinematographyKodak competition. At present he is working on his feature project titled the Legend of the Holy Net Potato with support from the Hubert Bals Film Fund from the Rotterdam International Film Festival, The Netherlands.

124

cut vipins choice

F for Fake
ORSON WELLES 88 MIN / 1972 / ENGLISH

Trickery. Deceit. Magic. In Orson Welless free form documentary F for FAKE, the legendary filmmaker (and self-described character) gleefully engages with the central preoccupation of his career - the tenuous line between truth and illusion, art and lies. Beginning with portraits of the world-renowned art forger Elmyr de Hory and his equally devious biographer, Clifford Irving, Welles embarks on a dizzying cinematic journey that simultaneously expresses and revels in fakery and fakers of all stripes not the least of whom is Welles himself. The film is an inspired hoax and a searching assessment of the essential deception of Cinema. Vipan Vijay

125

smlif fo xedni

index of films

index
3 Men and a Bulb / PANKAJ RISHI KUMAR / 6 1000 Days and a Dream / P. BABURAJ & C SARATCHANDRAN / 7 5 Factories Workers Control in Venezuela / OLIVER RESSLER, DARIO AZZELLINI / 72 A Certain Liberation / YASMINE KABIR / 105 A Days Work, a Days Pay / JONATHAN SKURNIK & KATHY LEICHTER / 72 A Night of Prophecy / AMAR KANWAR / 54 A Season Outside / AMAR KANWAR / 98 AFSPA, 1958 / HAOBAM PABAN KUMAR / 8 Amerika Amerika / K P SASI / 9 An Evergreen Island / AMANDA KING & FABIO CAVADINI / 54 And I Make Short Films / S.N.S. SASTRY / 117 Autumns Final Country / SONIA JABBAR / 101 Bare / SANTANA ISSAR / 10 Bhal Khabar (Good News) / ALTAF MAZID / 11 Bhangon (Erosion) / SOURAV SARANGI / 12 Blossoms of Fire / MAUREEN GOSLING, ELLEN OSBORNE / 73 Brahma Vishnu Shiva / R V RAMANI / 120 Breaking Walls / NIR NADER, VIDEO 48 / 73 Bullshit / PEA HOLMQUIST / 13 Calcutta Pride March 2004 / TEJAL SHAH / 14 Cardboard Days / VERNICA SOUTO / 55 Class Dismissed / LORETTA ALPER, PEPI LEISTYNA / 74 Continuous Journey / ALI KAZIMI / 17 CSR Promises Responsibility / EMANUEL DANESCH / 74 Dance With Farm workers / WU WENGUANG / 75 Delhi-Mumbai-Delhi / SABA DEWAN / 18 Development Flows from the Barrel of the Gun / MEGHNATH & BIJU TOPPO / 114 El Mundo del Malek (Maleks World) / N MUNTERMANN & A SCHULTENS / 55 F for Fake / ORSON WELLES / 123 Fistful of Steel / LEENA RANI NARZARY, NIDHI BAL SINGH, SABIR HAQUE / 19 Friend or Foe / LABOUR NEWS PRODUCTION SEOUL / 75 Gaon ke naon Theatre, Mor naon Habib / S MAHARISHI & S DESHPANDE / 20 Hammer and Flame / VAUGHAN PILIKAN / 76 Health Matters / SHIKHA JHINGAN / 21 In the Name of God (Ram ke Naam) / ANAND PATWARDHAN / 100 Juchitan Queer Paradise / PATRICIO HENRIQUEZ / 56 Karen Education Surviving / SCOTT O BRIEN & SAW EH DO WAH / 56 Kaya Poochhe Maya Se / ARVIND SINHA / 22 Kinjal / VANI ARORA / 23 Kitte Mil Ve Mahi / AJAY BHARADWAJ / 24 Many People many Desires / T JAYASHREE / 25 Mardi Gras: Made in China / DAVID REDMON / 76 Mexican Holiday Inn Workers / MICHAEL MOORE / 79 Mindless Mining the Tragedy of Kudremukh / SHEKAR DATTATRI / 26 Money / ISAAC ISITAN / 57 Murdered Coca Cola Unionists in Colombia / BAERBEL SCHOENAFINGER / 79 Naata / ANJALI MONTEIRO & K.P.JAYASANKAR / 115 Nalini by Day, Nancy by Night / SONALI GULATI / 29 Natak Jari Hai / LALIT VACHANI / 30 Nazrah: A Muslim Womens Perspective / FARAH NOUSHEEN / 57

128

of films
New Penelope / GEROGII DZALAEV / 80 Notes from the Crematorium / AMUDHAN RP / 31 One Day from a Hangmans Life / JOSHY JOSEPH / 32 One Show Less / NAYANTARA C KOTIAN / 33 Peace One Day / JEREMY GILLEY / 58 Plan of Regeneration / WANG HSIU-LING & LO SHIN-CHIEH / 80 Portraits of Belonging: Bhai Mian / SAMEERA JAIN / 121 Pretty Dyana / BORIS MITIC / 58 Printed Rainbow / GITANJALI RAO / 34 Q2P / PAROMITA VOHRA / 116 Railroad of Hope / NING YING / 81 Red Butterflies Where Two Springs Merge / GAUKHAR SYDYKOVA & DILIA RUZIEVA / 61 River Taming Mantras / SANJAY BARNELA & VASANT SABHERWAL / 37 Rumble in Mumbai / JAWAD METNI / 61 Sacrifice of Babulal Bhuiya / MANJIRA DATTA / 112 Santas Workshop / LOTTA EKELUND & KRISTINA BJURLING / 81 Seven Islands and a Metro / MADHUSHREE DUTTA / 110 She Write / ANJALI MONEIRO & KP JAYASHANKAR / 38 Smarana - Remembering Lost Children / C. VANAJA / 39 Something Like a War / DEEPA DHANRAJ / 104 Tale of an Immigrant / BERNADETTE FELBER / 82 Tales from the Margins / KAVITA JOSHI / 40 Temporary Loss of Consciousness / MONICA BHASIN / 41 The Art of Viye Diba the Intelligent Hand / CLAUDINE POMMIER / 62 The Big Avenues / COLECTIVO PRESENTE / 82 The Boy in the Branch / LALIT VACHANI / 111 The Farm / JONATHAN STACK & LIZ GARBUS / 113 The Great Indian School Show / AVINASH DESHPANDE / 42 The House on Gulmohar Avenue / SAMINA MISHRA / 43 The Legends of Madiba / HELEN HENSHAW / 62 The Lijjat Sisterhood / KADAMBARI CHINTAMANI & AJIT OOMEN / 63 The Rockstar and the Mullahs / RUHI HAMID & ANGUS MACQUEEN / 63 The Source of Life For Sale / K P SASI / 106 The Story of a Golden River / SOUMITRA DASTIDAR / 44 The Take / AVI LEWIS / 64 Thirst / ALAN SNITOW & DEBORAH KAUFMAN / 64 Traje: Women and Weaving in Guatemala / PHOEBE HART / 65 Unedited footage from Manipur / SEVERAL / 99 Vande Mataram (The Shit Version) / AMUDHAN R. P. / 45 Venezuela Bolivariana: People and Struggle of the Fourth World War / ARREAZA / 65 Video Game / VIPIN VIJAY / 122 Voices from Baliapal / RANJAN PALIT & VASUDHA JOSHI / 107 Waiting / ATUL GUPTA & SHABNAM ARA / 46 Waterworks India: Four Engineers and a Manager / PRADIP SAHA / 66 We are Workers, or Not? / MIRYE KIM / 83 Who Will Sing a Lullaby... / NINA RUDIK / 83 Work in Progress: at the WSF 2004 / PAROMITA VOHRA / 66 Working Mans Death / MICHAEL GLAWOGGER / 84 Zapatistas Compilacion IX: Collective Work In Resistance / PROMEDIOS DE COMUNICACIN COMUNITARIA A.C. / 84

129

acknowledgements
ITU CHAUDHURI, for generously crafting the 3 Screens poster graphic MONICA NARULA, for sharing her photographs (pages 50, 59, 60, 67, 92) PRAKASH MOORTHY, for sparking off the signature animation SUDHANVA DESHPANDE, for helping with the printing MUKUL MANGLIK / OLIVER LERONE SCHULTZ / BARBARA WASCHMANN APEEJAY MEDIA INSTITUTE / PAUL MOVIES

DELHI FILM ARCHIVE Amar Kanwar / Anupama Srinivasan / Atul Gupta / Gargi Sen / Gurvinder Singh / Kavita Joshi / Manak Matiyani / Nakul Sood / Nitin K / Rahul Roy / Ranjan De / Raj Baruah / Ranjani Mazumdar / Saba Dewan / Sabeena Gadihoke / Sabina Kidwai / Sameera Jain / Samina Mishra / Sanjay Kak / Sanjay Maharishi / Sanjay Mohan / Santana Issar / Sherna Dastur / Shikha Jhingan / Shohini Ghosh / Shubhradeep Chakravorty / Shuddhabrata Sengupta / Uma Devi / Yousuf Saeed