India. Incredible India, to many! Unbelievable India, to a few! But India remains an ethnological enigma to filmmakers not only from the perspective of length and breadth but also from the sheer diversity of more than one billion people who live there.
The ethnological diversity of the country that stretches from the picturesque mountains in the north to the luminous blue seas in the south and from the desert lands in the west to include the wettest part on the Earth in the northeast presents a landscape that film connoisseurs from across the world would find hard to resist. Couple this with the fact that India is home to one of the largest pool of human resources to the world and one can understand why this Special Programme comprising selected films on the ethnography of Indian diaspora would be hard to let go even by the hardest cynics.
A word about the making of this programme. It has taken years of correspondence and exchange of emails (coupled with government procedures but that is another story) to put this together for a few hours of sheer viewing and listening pleasure and learning. It has also taken the combined efforts of several filmmakers who have spent from their own pockets so that their films could be exhibited to an international audience.
This programme is expected to whet the appetite for more such ethnological films from the Indian sub-continent region. Bon appétit!
Curated by Sujoy Bosu
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Footwear
2006, 73’
DIRECTOR
Amudhan R. P.
CINEMATOGRAPHER
Amudhan R. P.
EDITED BY
Amudhan R. P.
SOUND
Amudhan R. P.
PRODUCED BY
Marupakkam
The Catholic Arundhatiyars of Dharmanathapuram, traditional shoemakers, grow increasingly assailed between caste discrimination and competition from the shoe manufacturing industry.
Have you seen the Arana?
2012, 73’
DIRECTOR
Sunanda Bhat.
The film interweaves contemporary narratives with an ancient tribal creation myth to explore the effects of a rapidly changing landscape on lives and livelihoods.
Notes on Man Capture
2007, 43’
DIRECTOR
Nandini Bedi
CINEMATOGRAPHER
Nandini Bedi
EDITED BY
Nandini Bedi, Farshad Aria
SOUND
Nandini Bedi, Mohandas
PRODUCED BY
Chitra Katha Productions
In South Asia, men take most of the important decisions, even about women's lives. Ratmi, a young, single mother in a village in the Garo Hills wants to get married. Among her people, marriage happens by 'man capture'. Her male relatives attempt to capture a man for her although she has had lovers. The narrative observes the players behind Ratmi's marriage in 2000/2001 and again in 2006, and captures how decision-making shifts back and forth from woman to man, individual to group, 'insider' to 'outsider'. Humour, ease with the subject of sex and roots in a matrilineal society reveal an unusual people of India.
Out of thin air
2009, 49’
DIRECTOR
Samreen Farooqui
CINEMATOGRAPHER
Samreen Farooqui, Shabani Hassanwalia
ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK
Ashhar Farooqui
EDITED BY
Samreen Farooqui, Shabani Hassanwalia
SUPPORTED BY
India Foundation for the Arts and Sir Ratan Tata Trust Draw-Down Fund
The story of Ladakh, not through the postcards that tourists often see, but through an underground, local film movement, which has become a voice of the people.
They who walked mountains
2002, 34’
DIRECTOR
Manju Kak
CINEMATOGRAPHER
Chokalingam
EDITED BY
Ankush Gupta, Rakesh Andania
SOUND
Subhash
PRODUCED BY
Manju Kak
The Bhotias, an ancient trading community of the Himalayas.
Born At Home
62’ 2000
PRODUCED BY
Janet Chawla, Matrika and Sublunar Films
CINEMATOGRAPHER
Rita Banerji
Additional CINEMATOGRAPHER
Sameera Jain
EDITED BY
Monica Bhasin
SOUND
Asheesh Pandya
Additional sound
Rita Banerji, Sameera Jain
Music
Susmit Sen
Born at Homeobserves indigenous birth practices and practitioners in some parts of India – rural Rajasthan, Bihar, and an urban working-class area of Delhi. Poised between social reality and the eternal mystery of childbearing, the film presents an intricate delineation of the figure of the dai (midwife), who is almost always a low-caste, poor woman. The dais' methods are holistic, conceiving of childbirth not as pathology but continuation of organic life. Dais handle about 50% of the births in India. Their inherited skills, though accessible and low-cost, are continually devalued by the mainstream. The film poses a critical question: why does the state not recognise the almost one million traditional practitioners in the country?