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Prakriti Foundation “Festivals” is our theme for the sixth edition of One Billion Eyes – Indian Documentary Film Festival. In India everything is festive, from a family gathering for a meal to the entire ‘tamasha’ of government. This year we invite filmmakers to send us work they have done covering diverse and various aspects of this theme of festivals.
WINNERS 2010 Almoriana by Vasudha Joshi and The Holy Duels of Hola Mohalla by Vani Subramanian jointly won the first prize in this year's festival.
ALMORIANA (WINNER - 1ST PRIZE, ONE BILLION EYES FESTIVAL 2010)
Director: Vasudha Joshi Duration: 30 min Synopsis: This is a cinematic document of the Dussehra festival in the Himalayan town of Almora in Uttaranchal.
THE HOLY DUELS OF HOLA MOHALLA (WINNER - 1ST PRIZE, ONE BILLION EYES FESTIVAL 2010)
Director: Vani Subramanian Duration: 30 min Synopsis: This film is a cinematic document of the Hola Mohalla festival at Anandpur Sahib in Punjab. The festival marks the establishment of the Khalsa Panth by Guru Gobind Singh and is a weeklong celebration of Sikh valor and freedom. Awards: *Golden Statuette, Best Film on Religion, International Festival of Short Films on Culture, Jaipur, 11-13 Feb 2007
THE KILLING FIELDS
Director: Sanjoy Roy & Manoj Kumar Duration: 30 min Synopsis: A look at the ritual of animal sacrifice at the religious fair held annually at Bhunkhal Kalika Devi temple in Garhwal. The film attempts to engage the participants of this archaic custom in a process of having them understand the task they undertake year after year.
CALCUTTA PRIDE MARCH
Directed by: TEJAL SHAH Duration: 12 min Synopsis: 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 - homosexuality remains criminalized in India under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code [IPC]. This was a landmark event in the history of the LGBT movement in India and grew into an annual event called ‘Walk On The Rainbow’, the first pride march ever to be held in India. “Calcutta Pride March” documents the second Pride March held in Calcutta in 2007, which brought together participants from West Bengal, New Delhi, Sri Lanka, Thailand and many other places. As the film interviews onlookers, participants, cops and plainclothes intelligence agents many things rise to the surface: media representations of the LGBT community, people’s curiosity and discomfort, issues of visibility and invisibility, ignorance and prejudice, choice and pride.
IN SEARCH OF DURGA
Directed by: AMITAVA ROY Produced by Theatre Arts Workshop, Kolkata Duration: 59 mins Synopsis: This film is a docu –drama based on real-life people, events and experiences in Kolkata in 1995. The British poet Joe Winter came to Kolkata (playing himself in the film) accidentally during the autumn festival of ‘Durga Puja’ (Worship of Durga). He met with his friend Ishita Ghosh (playing herself in the film) and others (most of whom played themselves in the film) who took him around the city and especially to the workshops of the ‘Kumor’ families (expert clay-image makers) who were then making images of Durga. Joe Winter experienced the run-up to the festival and his friends took him to various festival ‘pandals’ in and around the city and famous family pujas during the five-day festival. As the poet experienced the worship of the Goddess, he found himself associating Mother Durga with his own mother. The climax of his visit ended on the last day of the festival during the immersion ceremony at the Ganges where the poet experienced an epiphany, a revelatory moment of great joy and sadness. He saw Durga as his mother and as the Mother of us all and felt immensely ecstatic and immensely sad at her leaving. He put all these experiences down in a magnificent poem, ‘Meditations on the Goddess’. Again accidentally he showed this manuscript to the film and theatre- director and professor of English, who found it to be a remarkably spiritual and a cinematic testament. Professor P.Lal’s Writers Workshop published the poem. Both Roy and Winter decided to recreate the total experience with as far as possible actual people involved and actual locations. Some of the events and experiences were re-constructed as faithfully as possible by members of Theatre Arts Workshop. This is the birth of the reality-based docu-drama, In Search of Durga.
THE VOYEUR
Photographed, Edited, Directed and Produced by R.V.Ramani Duration: 20 mins Synopsis: The air is potent, during The Other Festival, Chennai, 1999. The artists are involved in their last minute preparations. The filmmaker enters this space.
CITY STORIES
Photographed, Edited, Directed and Produced by R.V.Ramani Duration: 30 mins Synopsis: Students, scholars, writers, artists, filmmakers, and activists meet at the Katha Utsav festival in New Delhi, to understand, debate, explore, discover, issues pertaining to city dwelling.
IS THIS HOW CRATERS WERE FORMED ON THE MOON
Photographed, Directed and Produced by R.V.Ramani Directed by RV Ramani and Monisha Baldawa Duration: 13 mins Synopsis: The Pooram festival at Nammara Vallangi, Kerala, comes to an end.
ALTAR
Directed by: Leena Manimekalai Duration: 50 mins Synopsis: Altar, a documentary intervention on the prevailing customs and traditions of a community called Kambalathu Naicker hailing in central parts of Tamilnadu. The films analyses child marriages and how women and children become victims of religious beliefs and practices. Premeires/Screenings/Awards:
KELAI DRAUPADAI
Directed by: S.Sasikanth, Duration : 120 mins Synopsis: In over 200 Villages in Tamilnadu, the Mahabharata is performed as a festival. In this, for 20 days and 20 hours per day, the Mahabharata is narrated as a story, performed as a villager ritual and enacted as ritual theatre. The Mahabharata is seen as an anti-war text, and listening to the Mahabharata one is meant to introspect as to what causes conflict and strive for ‘samarasam’ or peace and harmony. The central position of this festival is that ‘rigid’ identities like caste, gender, power lead necessarily to conflict and the question the festival poses is whether one would like to have rigid identities and war or fluid identities and peace. The festival becomes a space where you affirm your individual identities and ‘transcend’ them. All castes in the village have a role to play in the festival and in some villages the Muslim community also participates as one of the deities of this festival is Mutthala Ravuttan, a Tamil Rowther Muslim. The festival has been performed for over 1300 years and is an important document of the social structure of pre colonial, what is currently called, Tamilnadu. The Mahabharata which is performed is also a doubled text; it is both the Sanskrit text and also the Mahabharata, or the record of wars, which have been endured by these villages. The Mahabharata which is remembered here is a record of the resilience of the people and an affirmation of their will to live through troubled times. This festival is of a long duration – from 10 days to 40 days and contains a number of elements – narration of the literary Mahabahara epic by Villipuththur Azhwar, rituals involving the icon of Draupati and theru-k-kooththu of the relevant episode at night. In this kooththu there is the mingling of the serious and the profane.
MYLAPORE THERU Directed by: Mohan Das Vadakara Duration: 14 mins Synopsis: The famous Kapaleeswarar Temple is one of the main land marks of Mylapore, Chennai. Every year during the month of March for about ten days Mylapore Festival happens. On the Seventh day morning, the temple chariot is decorated and pulled around the streets of the temple by the devotees. Lakhs of people witness the festival. There are many small activities around the main festival. The atmosphere is vibrating with the chanting and the music. It’s an unforgettable experience.
JAHAJI MUSIC
Duration: 112 minutes
Synopsis:
From the mid-nineteenth century Indian labourers arrived in the Caribbean on boats, bringing a few belongings and their music – the beginnings of a remarkable cultural practice. More than 150 years later musician Remo Fernandes travels to the Islands to explore potential collaborations and create new work.
Jahaji Music: India in the Caribbean is a record of a difficult, if unusual and complex, musical journey. We walk around Trenchtown with Bob Marley's teacher and rastafari philosopher Mortimo Planno; accompany calypso and soca singer Rikki Jai to Skinner Park; chat with visual artist Chris Cozier in the Savannah; follow Dancehall Queen Stacey to Weddy Weddy Wednesday; groove to Lady Saw's lyrics; record a new song with Denise Saucy Wow Belfon and are guests at an East Indian Hindu wedding. Endeavouring, through it all, to weave a story of memory, identity and creativity.
Jahaji Music is an attempt to make meaning of aspects of contemporary culture in Trinidad and Jamaica, even as it is a witness to the nature and possibilities of artistic collaboration.
A STORY OF A GODDESS AND THREE GODS
Directed by: R.Vydianathan Duration: 60 mins Synopsis: This short film is about a post-harvest festival celebration known as “Panguni Thiruvizah” in a village called Alanganallur near Madurai in Tamilnadu (South India). This festival is celebrated once in every two years during the month of March-April. Forty-five days before the final five day celebrations, the local artisans (members of Velallar community) start to make large terracotta idols of the village deities. The craftsman makes the figures of three Gods and a Goddess. These idols are consecrated and worshipped during this Panguni festival. The context of this film is about coming together of people from different communities belonging to three main Hindu sects- Vaishnavism, Shaivism and Shakti devotees. These village guardian deities are folk interpretation of the principle forms of Gods and Goddesses from the mainstream Hinduism such as Muniandi is believed to be a form of Shiva, Karruppu is believed to be a form of Vishnu, Iyyannar is believed to be a form of Ayyappan and Goddess Muthuala Amman is believed to be 1008th and the last incarnation of the Shakthi.The craftsmen also make other objects such as terracotta replicas of human limbs, small dolls of boys and girls and miniaturized cattle forms. These ‘owetifs’ are placed in the Muniandi’s shrine on the second of the festival. According to local myth, it is believed that Goddess Muthuala Amman visited Alanganallur village in form of a small girl came to the three Gods seeking protection from evil forces that were chasing Her. It is believed She took refuge at Alangai for a night.While the three Gods figures are ‘fired mud’ idols, the figure of the Goddess Muthuala Amman is made of ‘Wet Clay’. The Goddess’s figure is destroyed the same night it’s consecrated after a grand procession around the village but the three Gods are kept in their respective shrines at the village limit. One interesting aspect is that the Goddess is born and destroyed the same day in the belief that the Goddess merges with Mother Nature while the three Gods keep guard of the village limits protecting the people of Alanganallur from the evil spirits. The film is a detailed documentation about the process of idol making. The making of the idols and celebrations are juxtaposed with local folk music (Kummi) and popular folk songs that celebrate the divine qualities of the individual deities. The context and the experiences about the festival is presented through series of interviews with the residents of Alanganallur.The film illustrates the celebrations along with cultural programs like a popular folk drama about the “Legend of Goddess Muthuala Amman”. The festival concludes with rural animal sport with the bull and the rope game (Eruthu Kattu). Alanganallur is well known for its “Jallikattu” (bull fight sport).This film is a documentation of the terracotta idol making craft which is rapidly becoming extinct. This film also weaves the entire story about the myths and beliefs about a village post harvest festival in Tamilnadu (South India). This film uses the existing popular folk music about the deities distinctly varied qualities and characteristics.
AZHAR TYABJI
S.JAYACHANDRAN
VASANTHI SANKARANARAYANAN
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