August: Days and Dates to Remember

Lest we don't forget, so that we remember, mark your calenders for this month and take any small or big action for the issues and people associated with these days:

6          Hiroshima Day 
8          Global Burma Day 
9          Nagasaki Day / Quit India Day/ International Day of the World’s Indigenous People 
15        Indian Independence Day 
30        International Day of Disappeared Persons

Access the Kriti Information Place and Film Club for books, films, music, posters and other resources related to the themes around these dates and days! Join us for some documentary screenings this month...

a DEAL for Life and Freedom - Kriti Film Club Screenings, Aug. 2010 will run through the month of August at the Kriti workplace on 7th, 13th, 20th, 21st, 27th August from 12.30 to 5.30 pm, in an open house format for viewers to select and make their own 'deal'!! Come and watch documentaries that will trigger you to think, feel and act in solidarity with these issues! If you'd like to borrow the 'deal' of films for viewing in your neighbourhood, college or institution, you are more than welcome to do so...

Hiroshima

Paul Wilmshurst & George Anton/ 1 hour 32 minutes/ Eng

At 8.15am on 6 August 1945, the first atomic bomb was dropped over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. A scientific, technological, military and political gamble - the attack proved to be the defining moment of the 20th Century. We witness the devastation.

In Search of my Home

Sushmit Ghosh and Rintu Thomas/ 30 mins/ English/ 2010

In the world’s largest democracy live thousands of men, women and children with lost homes and forgotten names. Sheltering one of the largest refugee populations in the world, India still lacks a comprehensive domestic refugee law that could guarantee them their basic human needs and a life of dignity. In Search of My Home is a journey with a Burmese and an Afghan family, as it explores the complexities in their everyday battle for survival. Weaving their emotional stories of hope and despair, love and loss, the film uses live-action, photography, music and text narratives to tell a story that is absent from India’s collective conscience. This film was made by as part of the Infochange Media Fellowships 2009.

THE FACE

Amar Kanwar/ 9 mins/ English

In THE FACE you see a unique image of the most brutal dictator in the world - General Than Shwe of the Burmese Military. The Face also remembers Win Ma Oo and Thet Win Aung and the sacrifices of the students of Burma in their movement for freedom. The Face is a tribute to the democracy movement in Burma and a criticism of India's support to the Burmese military.

Ribbons for Peace

Anand Patwardhan/ 4 mins/ Hindi

An anti-nuclear music video reworks an old film song by Kishore Kumar.

Had-Anhad: Journeys with Ram and Kabir 

Shabnam Virmani/ 102 mins/ / 2008

Kabir was a 15th century mystic poet of north India who defied the boundaries between Hindu and Muslim. He had a Muslim name and upbringing, but his poetry repeatedly invokes the widely revered Hindu name for God – Ram. Who is Kabir’s Ram? This film journeys through song and poem into the politics of religion, and finds a myriad answers on both sides of the hostile border between India and Pakistan.

1876-An entertainment

Anasuya Vaidya/ 29 mins/ English / 2008

19 years after the First Indian War of Independence, the colonial British Government in India passed a law to suppress and control theatre. This was the Dramatic Performances Act of 1876. The Act gave sweeping powers to a government representative to ban the enactment of plays and dole out sever punishment, including imprisonment, to the playwright, actors, theatre owners and audiences for attending or getting associated with such plays. The film uses the medium of theatre to present various classes of the Act which amazingly is still on the Indian statute books. The film also briefly explores two other acts - the Entertainment Tax Act and the Societies registration Act, which together with the Dramatic Performances Act, create a stifling and oppressive environment for live performance in India. An important film in the context of campaigns against censorship and uninterrupted public viewing of documentary films.

Freedom of Flight

Raghav Khanna/ 4 mins/ English/ 2008

This short film is about a child's dream to be flying kites like others. The kite here is potrayed as a symbol of freedom, flying high in the skies…

The Lament of Niyamraja - a dongria kond song

Surya Shankar Dash/ 13 min/ Kui

Shaman, healer, bard, druid, & farmer all rolled into one, Dambu Praska sings the soul stirring song of the sacred mountain of Niyamgiri in Orissa. The film captures some moments from this paradise which is yet to be lost to the attempts of Vedanta, an aluminium company wanting to undertake mining on top of Niyamgiri.

Gaon Chohab Nahin (music video)

K.P.Sasi/ 8 mins/Hindi/ 2009

This short music video depicts the situation of the adivasi and dalits population and their struggle against the development projects and corporates induced displacement. “We will not leave village, will not leave forests, will not leave motherly soil, will not leave our Lands!!”

Crossing the Lines - Kashmir, Pakistan, India

Pervez Hoodbhoy and Zia Mian/ 45 mins/ Hindi with English Subtitles/ 2004

After four wars, Kashmiris and their land are divided between Pakistan and India, the source of recurring crises. This path-breaking independent documentary film, made in Pakistan, challenges us to look at Kashmir with new eyes and to hope for a new way forward. Rejecting the national ambitions of Kashmiris, Pakistanis and Indians alike, the film offers a vision of a shared future for all of South Asia built on a common humanity.

Do call or email us if you are planning to come for these screenings! Lunch is available for a small contribution to the Kriti ecocafe, but you need to tell us in advance! 

S-35 Tara Apartments, Alaknanda, New Delhi 110019 011-26027845/ 26033088

space.kriti@gmail.com

facebook group: Kriti team

** a DEAL for Life and Freedom was conceptualised in the context of the signing of the Nuclear Deal in 2008 in the month of August which brings together so many important dates to remember...we decided to start a film series that would make us question and discuss what freedom really means when the majority of citizens are struggling to survive...even while globalisation and nuclearisation 'deals' are signed by the powers to be! 2008 saw 14 films being screened over two days in collaboration with Sangat and DSG; 2009 saw 10 films screened at LSR and DCE, Delhi University!

The Kriti Film Club is an independent educational initiative of the Kriti team and runs with the support of audience and film makers contributions.