by Faizan Rizwan & Shaheen Raaj
Bangalore Film Society in collaboration with Marupakkam & SIEDS Bangalore invites you to the Social Justice Film Festival from Thurs, 26th Oct, 2017 to Sat, 28th Oct, 2017 at SIEDS Library Hall.
The Programme: Films Screenings & Discussions, Poetry reading & Evening lecture & Social Justice Songs. Time: 9:00 am to 8:30 pm, Venue: No.33/1 -9, IVth Cross, Thyagaraju Layout, Jaibharath Nagar, M. S. Nagar P. O. Bangalore – 560033. Land Mark: Bharath petrol pump, Jaibharath Nagar.
Entry is Free on 1st come 1st serve basis. All are invited! Kindly confirm your participation as we are organizing refreshments & simple lunch for the participants. Limited seats only!
Day 1 Thus 26 Oct, 2017
10 am Inauguration
11:00 am Our Gauri (opening film)
Dir: Deepu: 67 min: English (subtitles) 2017
Gauri Lankesh was one of Karnataka’s most prominent & fearless journalists. She was shot dead outside her house in Bengaluru on the night of 5th Sept, 2017. Gauri Lankesh spoke out against communal forces in the country & represented dissent & freedom of speech. The film is more than a personal tribute and follows her political journey, envisaging what she stood for & her struggle for communal harmony until her last breath. And her life story has become the history of Karnataka’s fight against right wing communal forces.
12:20 Interaction
1:00 Lunch break
2:00 Introduction to the film
2:15 Beerappa’s Angst
Produced by: Amrit Mahal Kaval Hitarakshana Horata Samithi with inputs from Leo F. Saldanha & Bhargavi S. Rao, 39min: English
Beerappa’s Angst depicts the struggle of the people of Amrit Mahal to keep 10, 000 acres of pastoral land for grazing their live stocks. The Governments of Karnataka & India secretively diverted about 10,000 acres of pristine grassland ecosystems in Challakere Taluk, Chitradurga district during 2007 -2013 for a massive military – industrial – nuclear complex. Local communities were rudely awakened to the diversion when they saw massive double containment high security walls came up all over the grasslands, thus completely blocking their access to their ancient grazing pastures. These grasslands have been protected & conserved by local communities for 100’s of years as grazing pastures for an indigenous breed of cattle called Amrit Mahal: thus the name Amrit Mahal Kavals (Kaval=grazing pasture). Beerappa is considered the God of the Kavals and is revered everywhere as the protector of pastoralists.
3:00 Interaction
3:15 Nuclear Hallucinations
Dir: N. Fatima: 54 min: Tamil with English subtitles
Nuclear hallucinations is a film, which claims to be a documentary, and it is centred around the anti -nuclear struggle against the kudankulam atomic power project in South India.
4:15 Interaction
4:30 18 Feet
Dir: Renjit Kuzhur: 77 min: Malayalam with English subtitles
Karinthalakoottam is an indigenous band that propagates the music of soul to connect people with a sense of historic resolution. 18 feet symbolizes the holy distance dalits & the downtrodden were to ensure for the sanctity of upper castes. P R Remesh, a city public bus conductor, is the man behind the exuberant squad that drums empathy for all in denial of historic untouchability attached to the disused community. The troop is the vanguard in redefining the identity of the people who are battered by senseless incorrectness through centuries. The downtown Kerala band rekindles the sense of sanity for all with a massage of love & harmony.
6:00 Interaction
6:15 Guest Lecture and poetry & songs
Day 2 27 October: Friday
10 am Our Metropolis
Dir: Gautam Sonti & Usha Rao: 87 min: Documentary: Kannada, Hindi, English: 2014
Bangalore is being refashioned as a “world – class” metropolis. Livelihoods & homes make way for flyovers, glitzy malls & a shiny Metro. Threatened with violent transformation of their city, residents confront the authorities. Beneath the State’s ideal of a “global city” lurks the intent to clear a pasture for big business.
11:30 Interaction
12:00 Framing Democracy 32’
Encountering Injustice: The Case of Meena Khalko
Dir: Maheen Mirza: 14 min: Chattishgarhi, Hindi with English subtitles
The film looks into an alleged encounter of a 15 year old adivasi girl, Meena Khalkho who lived in Village Karcha of Balrampur district of North Chhattisharh. She was killed by the police who alleged that she was a naxalite. Moving between the electronic news coverage of the incident & testimonies of her parents and other people from her village, the film investigates the claims of the police. Sexual violence, the attempt to suppress the truth of Meena’s murder & the impunity of the culprits gradually comes to light. We also get a glimpse into how difficult & long the struggle for justice is in the conflict zones of the country. This film is part of a series of films called Loktantra Hazir Ho produced by the Women against Sexual Violence & State Repression (WSS).
Meanwhile the killings continue: The Encounter at Rewali
Dir: Maheen Mirza: 18 min: Godhi, Hindu with English subtitles
In a combing operation in the Dantewara region of Chattisgarh an adivasi was encountered & killed by security forces. He & his wife had gone to a stream to bathe and collect material to make a baadi and were catching crabs when the security forces opened fire. Budhri, the woman hid behind a tree but Bhima Nuppo was shot & killed. The people from rewali village of which Budhri & Bhima were residents called the local leaders & media to investigate this incident and bring out the unprecedented violence that adivasis living in the area have to face regularly. A rally of about 7000 people set out to seek justice for Budhri & her 5 children. They were stopped & not allowed to go to the Collector’s office. Negotiations ensued between the people & the administration. The film documents the entire process.
12:35 Interaction
1:00 pm Nicobar, a long way
Dir: Richa Hushing: 65 min: Nicobarese, Hindi & English
Deep in the Bay of Bengal, the Nicobar archipelago, a tribal reserve protected under Andaman & Nicobar Protection of Aboriginal Tribes Regulation, was worst hit by the Tsunami of 26th Dec, 2004. Self -subsistent & relatively isolated, post Tsunami the aboriginal world was suddenly invaded.
2:05 Interaction
2:30 I am Bonnie
Dir: Farha Katun, Satarupa Santra, Saurabh Kanti Dutta: 45 min: Bengali with English subtitles
Bonnie (33) is again on the run. He has been on the run from his family & sports fraternity since failing “sex test” before the Bangkok Asian Games, 1998. A born intersex, raised by poor, illiterate & confused parents as a girl named Bandana, s/he became one of the finest strikers of Indian Woman’s football team in her/his short career. A Sex Reassignment surgery later transformed her/him to a man but left him without home or career. He left home, took up idol -making for a living. He met Swati (F24) then; they fell in love & married soon but had to move once again fearing social backlash. His fight to establish his identity, struggle for existence is met by a sarcastic society which is yet to learn to take “other genders” seriously.
3:15 Interaction
3:45 Mod (70 min)
Dir: Pushpa Rawat: 69 min: India; Documentary
Mod is an attempt by the filmmaker at communicating with the young men who hang out at the “notorious” water tank in their neighborhood in Pratap Vihar, Ghaziabad. The water tank is a space that is frequented by the so – called “no – gooders” of the locality, a place where they play cricket, play cards, drink & smoke up. When she enters the space with her camera, the boys are curious and at the same time wary of it & her. They sometimes resist, sometimes protest & at times, open up. As the film unfolds we get a hint of the lives the boys lead and the fragile world they create for themselves at the water tank.
4:55 Interaction
5:15 Invoking Justice
Dir: Deepa Dhanraj: 86 min: Tamil with English subtitles
In Southern India, family disputes are settled by Jamaats, all male bodies which apply Islamic Sharia law to cases without allowing women to be present, even to defend themselves. Recognizing this fundamental inequity, a group of women in 2004 established a women’s Jamaat, which soon became a network of 12,000 members spread over 12 districts. Despite enormous resistance, they have been able to settle more than 8,000 cases to date, ranging from divorce to wife beating to brutal murders and more. Award winning filmmaker Deepa Dhanraj (Something Like A War) follows several cases, shining a light on how the women’s Jamaat has acquired power through both communal education & the leaders’ persistent, tenacious & compassionate investigation of the crimes. In astonishing scenes we watch the Jamaat meetings, where women often shout over each other about the most difficult facets of their personal lives. Above all, the women’s Jamaat exists to hold their male counterparts & local police to account & to reform a profoundly corrupt system which allows men to take refuge in the most extreme interpretation of the Qur’an to justify violence towards women.
6:45 Interaction
7:15 Guest lecture, poetry & songs
Day 3: Sat 28th Oct, 2017
10 am Accsex
Dir: Shweta Ghosh: 52 min: Hindi & English
Within stifling dichotomies of normal & abnormal, lie millions of women, negotiating with their identities, Accsex explores notions of beauty, the “ideal body” & sexuality through 4 storytellers; 4 women who happen to be persons with disability. Through the lives of Natasha, Sonali, Kanti & Abha, this film brings to fore questions of acceptance, confidence & resistance to the normative. As it turns out, these questions are not too removed from everyday realities of several others, deemed “imperfect” & “monstrous” for not fitting in. Accsex traces the journey of the storytellers as they reclaim agency & the right to unapologetic confidence, sexual expression & happiness.
11:00 Interaction
11:30 Our Family
Dir: Anjali Monteiro & KP Jayasankar: 56 min: Tamil with English subtitles
What does it mean to cross that line which sharply divides us on the basis of gender? To free oneself of the socially constructed onus of being male? Is there life beyond a hetero – normative family? Set in Tamilnadu, India, Our Family brings together excerpts from Nirvanam, a one person performance, by Pritham K. Chakravarthy & a family of 3 generations of trans – gendered female subjects.
12:30 Interaction
1:00 Lunch break
2:00 Kakkoos
Dir: Divya Bharathi: 108 min: Tamil with English subtitles
The documentary, shot in 25 districts for over a year, conveys the message that even though manual scavenging was banned in India in 2013 it continues to exist & conservancy workers are involved in removing human waste. The film is dedicated to those who maintain a “false silence on manual scavenging”.
3:50 Interaction
4:20 Sikkidre Shikari & Illdidre Bhikari (Bird Trapper or Beggar!)
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