Untitled Document

BEST FILM OF 2005

PEE - SHIT (26 minutes)

Directed by Amudhan

An offbeat look at the life of a woman who cleans toilets for a living. The director looks at the contrasting lives of different strata in Indian society .

JURY CITATION

The first Prakriti Foundation 'One Billion Eyes' Indian Documentary Film Festival award for best entry goes to 'Pee' by R.P.Amudhan,

for its clarity of vision, simplicity of approacah and its gentle yet incisive humour
for an elegantly crafted film that refrains from succumbing to the temptations of technical wizardry and cinematic gimmickry
In recongnition of the film-maker's admirable commitment to raising awareness about the issue of scavenging, a shocking practise endorsed by the government-run municipal corporation several decades after Mahatma Gandhi condemned it;

and
In the jury's appreciation of the film-maker's attempt to explore a personal narrative style within the context of the documentary form of story-telling

Jury: Rakesh Sharma, Prasanna Ramaswamy, Sharan Apparao and R. Sridhar

FINALISTS 2005

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THE SWORD AND THE SPEAR ( 47 mins )

Directed by Sunil Shanbag, Sanjiv Shah, Sudheer Palsane, Suresh Rajamani
Produced by Sunil Shanbag/Chrysalis Films
Camera: Sudheer Palsane Sound: Suresh Rajamani Editing: Sanjiv Shah
Post-Production Supervisor: Nirupama Kaul

SYNOPSIS

Astad Deboo is one of India's foremost contemporary dancers. His has been a life of travel and exploration, in a quest to create a style of dance that bridges time and cultures. His ability to absorb different influences and styles and create unique dance works has won critical acclaim all over the world. Recently he has been collaborating with the Thang-ta martial arts performers from Manipur. The film picks up the dance company on tour in Taiwan, and explores the relationship between Astad and the Thang-ta dancers.

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GOLDEN BRIDGE POTTERY - THE FILM (52 min)

Directed by Rajiv Krishnan and Ray Meeker

The film takes an in-depth look at the work process at GBP from preparing clay, making and using glazes to the firing of pots in a wood fired kiln. It attempts to do this in a way that is accessible to a broad spectrum of people from a lay viewer to a practitioner of the craft.

The film focuses on Deborah Smith and Ray Meeker and how they complement each other to balance the demands of running a full fledged production unit with teaching and extending the boundaries of their individual art and craft. The film also touches on the teaching program at GBP, and the periodic workshops organized with internationally acclaimed studio potters like Sandy Brown from England and Betty Woodman from the US. Golden Bridge Pottery has become synonymous with Pondicherry pottery. The film examines the abiding influence that GBP has had on other Pondicherry potteries, particularly those in Auroville.

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THE BEE, THE BEAR AND THE KURUBA (63 min)

Directed by Vinod Raja

"Our forests are marked by our trees. They stand as signposts, when we find our way through the thick jungle. For us, they are as permanent as the stars in the sky . "

- Rajappa, a Kuruba in the Nagarahole forest belt.

The Kurubas are the original inhabitants of the forests of Nagarahole and Kakanakote in the Western Ghats , Southern India . Forcible eviction of the Kurubas started in the early seventies. They were driven out of their ancestral lands deep inside the forest, and forced to live on the roadside or plantations on the periphery. Today, they have nowhere to go, struggle with a way of life they find difficult to adapt to, and have become trespassers in their own land.

The film is an attempt to look at the very creation myth of the kurubas. To look at the Adivasi view of the forest as their inseparable home, their world, and their sacred space within which co-existence, mutual interdependency and harmony form their only view of life.

Weaving a story of contradictions and the clash of two diverse points of view, the film reveals the struggles of these people. It tries to put their battle for survival against the co-option strategies of the state and modern society. The questions are many, and the answers complex and seemingly unsolvable.

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NAGARHOLE - TALES FROM AN INDIAN JUNGLE (52 min)

Directed by Shekhar Dattatri

Shekhar Dattatri covers a year in the forest, from the arrival of the monsoon, when the forest gets rejuvenated, to the hot summer months when the water sources dry up and forest fires threaten survival. Human interference in forest habitats - illegal encroachments, deliberate forest fires and coffee plantations along elephant migratory paths - all are factors that threaten the survival of the region's wildlife.

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KITTE MILVE MAHI (72 minutes)

Directed by Ajay Bharadwaj

A deeply felt and moving film, Ajay Bharadwaj's Kitte Mil Ve Mahi cuts to the quick and puts across a well reasoned and eloquent quest of the Dalits in Punjab to take on the legitimacy of the deeply exploitative and humiliating caste system. In the process he is able to weave in the beautiful embroidery of their cultural fabric.

Of all the Indian states Punjab boasts the highest per capita income. At the same time, Punjab also has the highest percentage of Scheduled Castes or Dalits, who form almost a third of its population. Like Dalits in other parts of the country, the Punjabi Dalits are, by and large, landless labourers, petty artisans and factory workers, the poorest of Punjab's poor. The remarkable economic prosperity that Punjab has witnessed in recent decades appears to have bypassed the Dalits, and to have only further enriched the dominant ‘upper' caste elites.

This sensitively crafted and provocative film provides a glimpse of the alternate cultural forms of the Punjabi Dalits that critique the oppression of the ‘upper' castes and articulate a powerful vision of social justice. It focuses, in particular, on the popular Sufi traditions of the Punjabi Dalits, which provide a religiously-shaped discourse that challenges the legitimacy of the caste system and the subordination of the Dalits that is sanctioned by the Brahminical religion.

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WAVE AFTER WAVE (110 min)

Directed by Leena Manimekalai

A film about the aftermath of the Tsunami, and relief and rehabilitation activities in the affected areas.

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HANGOVER (24 min)

Directed by R.Vaidyanathan

A film about the economic impact of Saarang, the annual cultural festival at IIT Madras.

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ANIMALS HIT BY TRAFFIC (1 min)

Directed by Dhanya Pilo

A short film on Animal Welfare.