Kriti Film Club
invites you for the India premiere of
THIS PRISON WHERE I LIVE
A film by Rex Bloomstein/ 90 mins/ English
Time and Date: 6.30 pm, 30th May 2011
Venue: IIC Main Auditorium, Lodi Road, New Delhi 110003
(nearest Metro: Khan market)
The film will be followed by a discussion with some experts, artists and Burmese people.
About the Film
This is a film about two men joined by comedy and separated by repression.
Maung Thura, better known as Zarganar, is Burma’s greatest living comic.
Relentlessly victimised by the Burmese military junta, he is now in prison. Michael Mittermeier, in stark contrast, is free to practise his art of humour and provocation as one of Germany’s leading stand up comedians.
The genesis of this film begins in 2007, when Zarganar agreed to be interviewed by the British documentary filmmaker, Rex Bloomstein, despite being banned from all forms of artistic activity and talking to foreign media.
Maung Thura, better known as Zarganar, is Burma’s greatest living comic.
Relentlessly victimised by the Burmese military junta, he is now in prison. Michael Mittermeier, in stark contrast, is free to practise his art of humour and provocation as one of Germany’s leading stand up comedians.
The genesis of this film begins in 2007, when Zarganar agreed to be interviewed by the British documentary filmmaker, Rex Bloomstein, despite being banned from all forms of artistic activity and talking to foreign media.
Equally irreverent and famous for tackling taboo subjects in his comic routines, Michael Mitttermeier has extended the range of comedy and satire in the German speaking world. Hearing of Zarganar’s fate and seeing the footage, Michael joined with Rex Bloomstein to make a film about this man who has paid such a price for speaking out against the regime. Together with a small team, they travelled secretly to Burma.
This Prison Where I Live is a feature documentary and is the story of Michael’s exploration into the personality, the motivation and the talent of the man who describes himself as the ‘loudspeaker’ for his people.
About the film maker:
Born in Devon in 1942, Rex Bloomstein began his career as a documentary director with the BBC in 1970 with cinema verité ‘All In A Day’ studies of British life. His work has exposed realities of prison life and addressed aspects of the British penal system previously closed to public scrutiny. Over the years, Rex Bloomstein has produced and directed a number of acclaimed historical studies for television. Rex Bloomstein’s work has also highlighted the abuse of human rights. To mark the 40th anniversary of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1988, he conceived and produced a new series for the BBC called ‘Prisoners of Conscience’.
Rex Bloomstein is a film maker of power and Passion, who is still engaging broadcasters and distributors with his unique, hard hitting, unembellished explorations of life. ‘This Prison Where I Live’ is his third feature length documentary.
ABOUT THE FILM CLUB: Kriti Film Club is an educational and research oriented initiative of Kriti: a development research, praxis and communication team. We offer an independent and informal space for screening documentary films on a whole range of development, human rights & environment issues. We also serve as a borrowing & access space for documentary films.
Phone: 26027845/ 26033088
Facebook group: Kriti team Facebook page: Gestures by Kriti team
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