Saturday, November 19, 2016

18th Madurai Film Festival 2016 : Amshan Kumar Retrospective

18th Madurai International Documentary and Short Film Festival 2016
6-10 Dec 2016 , Multiple Venues, Madurai
Organized by MARUPAKKAM
Retrospective : Films by Amshan Kumar
1.Third Theatre : English/1995/53mts 

Third Theatre is a documentary on the theatre of Badal Sircar, the rebellious playwright-director from West Bengal who died in 2011.
The documentary has Badalda`s detailed talk on every aspect of his theatre and also the perceptive analysis of his plays by Samik Bandyopadhyay and the criticism of Dharnai Ghosh. Besides the documentary has captured the live performances of his graded plays on the occasion of a theatre festival on a pavement in Calcutta in January in 1995.
The film was premiered at the MIFF in 1996 and later in many fora including the festival at Koln, Germany.
2.Subramania Bharati : 1999/52mts
Subramania Bharati (1882-1921) was truly a renaissance figure of Modern Indian Literature. He brought in a new wave of sense and sensibility to Tamil poetry that continues to exert enormous influence on the succeeding generations of readers and poets.
This documentary focuses on his multifaceted life not only as a towering poet but also as a pioneering journalist, a mainstream nationalist and a thinker with unfettered spirit. Shot extensively on locales related to his life and times including Benares, Pondicherry and Tamilnadu it has rare photos and documents and the rarer interviews of two nonagenarians who knew the bard in person.
3.Yazhpanam Thedchanamoorthy—Music Beyond boundaries.: 2014/35mts

This is a Tamil documentary on the great Tavil Vidwan Yazhpanam Thedchanamoorthy. He was lionised for his musical accomplishments by both his fans and carnatic musicians. To this day they remember his great performances in India and Sri Lanka. As an iconic figure he helped bridge the ties between the two countries through soulful music.
The film had been premiered in London, Toronto, Jaffna, Chennai, Paris and Sydney to rousing reception from his fans. It won the National Award for the Best Art Documentary in 2015.
4.Modern Art in Tamilnadu Part 1 & 2. Tamil ( Each Part 28mts)

Part I traces the genesis of modern art in Tamilnadu and its growth up to the sixties.
Second Part is about the art movement from seventies till now..
5. Oruthi ( 2003. /91mts)
Those were the times when Zamindars ruthlessly collected high amount of taxes from the hapless farmers and spent them frivolously. Since the revenue never reached them, the Britishers punished the erring Zamindars by ordering the farmers to pay the tax diretcly to the State.
In a remote village in South Indis this transformation takes place due to the intervention of a poor dalit girl. As a thanks the villagers are too ready to do good to her. Her simple request is to get married to a boy she has fallen in love with.
The film is an adaptation of a story written by the Sahitya Akademi Award winner K.Rajanarayanan. It participated in the Indian Panorama and won the Best film awards from Government of Pondicherry and Tamil association of New Jersey.
Cast: Poorvaja, Thomas Ober, Bharati Mani, Ganesh Babu.
Camera : P.S.Dharan
Music: L.Vaidyanathan
Art: A.C.Pillai
Produced by Thara and Gopal Rajaram
Script and Direction : Amshan Kumar

Friday, November 18, 2016

18th Madurai Film Festival 2016 : Women Making Films

18th Madurai Film Festival 2016

Special packages  # 1

Women Making Films – Curated by Vaishnavi Sundar

The World Before Her
Dir : Nisha Pahuja; 152 min

The World Before Her is a Canadian documentary film, released in 2012. Written and directed by Nisha Pahuja, the film explores the complex and conflicting environment for young girls in India by profiling two young women participating in two very different types of training camp — Ruhi Singh , who aspires to become Miss India, and Prachi Trivedi, a Hindu nationalist with the Durga Vahini.

A Pinch of Skin
Dir: Priya Goswami; 27 min

A Pinch of Skin is documentary on the Female Genital Cutting in India. The film juxtaposes voice of questioning dissent along with pro tradition voice; to weave complex fabric of the social norm which propells the community to cut their seven year old daughters.

Bachelor Girls
Dir: Shikha Makan; 65 min

In the heart of Mumbai, the leading urban metropolis of India, single independent women are facing housing discrimination because of their status of being 'unmarried'. ‘Bachelor Girls' as labeled by the society, struggle to find homes amidst many biases, and question the idea of freedom for women in today's modern India.

Banaz a love story
Dir :Deeyah Khanl; 70 min

This is a documentary film chronicling an act of overwhelming horror -- the honour killing of Banaz Mahmod, a young British woman in suburban London in 2006, killed and "disappeared" by her own family, with the agreement and help of a large section of the Kurdish community, because she tried to choose a life for herself.

Vaishnavi Sundar:


Ex corporate PR, writer, filmmaker and a feminist. Merging activism and art through films, she has founded the production company, Lime Soda Films (www.limesodafilms.com) to produce feminist content. She is also the founder of Women Making Films (www.wmfindia.com), a community for female filmmakers to come together and collaborate.