Jashn E Azadi

2007-09-20T01:00:00.000-07:00

how we celebrate freedom

written and directed by sanjay kak
photography ranjan palit
edited by tarun bhartiya
(Click here for complete credits)

It’s 15th August, India’s Independence day, and the Indian flag ritually goes up at Lal Chowk in the heart of Srinagar, Kashmir. The normally bustling square is eerily empty– a handful of soldiers on parade, some more guarding them, and except for the attendant media crews, no Kashmiris.

For more than a decade, such sullen acts of protest have marked 15th August in Kashmir, and this is the point from where Jashn-e-Azadi begins to explore the many meanings of Freedom–of Azadi–in Kashmir.

In India, the real contours of the conflict in Kashmir are invariably buried under the facile depiction of an innocent population, trapped between the Terrorist’s Gun and the Army’s Boot. But after 18 years of a bloody armed struggle, after 60,000 civilians dead (and almost 7,000 enforced disappearances), what really is contained in the sentiment for Azadi–for freedom?

Amidst the everyday violence and ever-present fear in Kashmir, there are no easy answers to such questions. Where truth has been an early victim, all language–speech, poetry, even cinema–becomes inadequate to describe what we know and feel here. So we reshape our curiousity, and point ourselves at what we can see, what we are allowed to see. The film then combines several forms and modes of expression to evoke the past as well as unravel the present:

We are witness to an ageing father in the Martyr’s Graveyard; we are with a group of men as they survey the dead in the mountain villages of Bandipora; we sit quietly in the Out Patients Ward of the Govt Psychiatric Hospital in Srinagar. But we look elsewhere too, in the satirical farce of Bhand folk performers as they play in a village square; in the tense undercurrents of an Army Sadhbhavna (Goodwill) camp in north Kashmir; and in the images conjured up by the work of contemporary Kashmiri poets.

Shot and edited between August 2004-2006 Jashn-e-Azadi engages us with the idea of Azadi in Kashmir.

In 2007, as India celebrates it’s 60th anniversary of Independence, this is also a conversation about Freedom in India.

138 mins / Digital Video
Kashmiri/Urdu/English (English subtitles)
2007 (under production)

For discussions, comments and observations, please go to the film's blog, here: Jashn-e-Azadi

Festival of Theatre Films

2006-11-22T22:48:00.000-08:00

Prithvi Theatre Festival in partnership with the
Delhi Film Archive and Max Mueller Bhavan
presents an array of Theatre films...
at the:
Max Mueller Bhavan, 3 Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi
On 25th & 26th November 2006

ENTRY FREE, NO PASSES NEEDED

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************ SCHEDULE & SYNOPSIS**************

Day 1: Saturday 25thNovember ‘06

11:00 am – 12:35 pm
My Name Is Bertolt Brecht – Exile In USA
Director: Norbert Bunge, Germany, 95 min., 1989
After his escape from Nazi Germany Brecht tried to become established in the Hollywood film business. However, the years of exile from 1941 to 1947, were marked by a sense of failure and deep resignation. Brecht, like many other film directors and authors of the group "Hollywood 10", in October 1947 was interrogated by an investigation commission because of any possible anti-American activities. Following this he left the United States returning to Germany via Switzerland. The film is based on Brecht's diary and talks with his friends of those times as well as close fellow workers. It also provides an insight into the situation in the United States during the thirties and forties.

12:35 pm - 1:15 pm
Pather Chujaeri (The Play Is On...)
Director: Pankaj Rishi Kumar, India, 44 mins
How does art survive in a regime of fear? I first encountered this question in 1999, while taking photographs of Kashmir during that mindless war with Pakistan. That summer, I established contact with the National Bhand Theatre, Wathora, and the Bhagat Theatre, Akingam, two groups that were still performing in the traditional pather form of satire. I returned twice in 2001, now armed with a camera. I was encouraged by what I found: an illiterate community has sustained a centuries-old tradition in the face of debilitating social and cultural changes. Although perenially intimidated by the corruption, violence and intolerance that prevail in Kashmir, the bhands are still affirming a commitment to their theatre, to the critical potential of its form and the liberating joys of performance. Faith in Sufism has tempered their enthusiam for satire and they identify with the collective voices of Kashmir's freedom.
The Play is on.... follows the two groups as they prepare for public performances, a rare phenomenon today. For the bhands, who daily witness the erosion of their way of life, each performance represents both a change as well as a repetition of the same brutal fact: that they are not free to share their revolutionary spirit.
enquiries: kumartalkies (at) yahoo.com

1:15 pm – 2:00 pm : LUNCH BREAK

2:00 pm – 3:15 pm
Some Roots Grow Upwards
Directors: Kavita Joshi and Malati Rao; 52 mins, India, 2002
[The film will be preceded by a 5 minute clip on the situation in Manipur.]
What is the relevance of theatre (or all art, for that matter) to the crisis of our times? Some Roots Grow Upwards explores the work of theatre director Ratan Thiyam against the backdrop of the violence torn state of Manipur. For over 25 years now, Ratan Thiyam has been creating a theatre that is as visually compelling as it is intellectually stimulating. His theatre is steeped in the traditional performing arts of his home state, Manipur. But while his aesthetic influences are traditional, his concerns are intensely modern. His plays reflect upon the socio-political crisis gripping Manipur, the youth unrest, war and violence; at the same time, they also dwell on the larger human condition. The film examines the art of Ratan Thiyam, and seeks to delineate the imagination & the influences that give form to this theatre.
enquiries: kj.impulse (at) gmail.com
followed by a discussion with Kavita Joshi

3:15 pm – 3:30 pm
Bertolt Brecht
Director: Ines Jacob; 14 min., Germany, 1998
If he were still alive today, writer and theatre director Bertolt Brecht would turn 100 years old on February 10th, 1998. His best know play internationally is "The Threepenny Opera". It´s a crazy saga about prostitutes, scroungers, beggars, and gangsters. His style, and his use of language continue to have a great influence on modern theatre. Famous director Hansgünther Heyme analyses the features, and charm of Brecht´s scripts. Using excerpts from rehearsals for "The Threepenny Opera", this report documents the role and timeliness of the theatrical work of Bertolt Brecht.

3:30 pm - 4:00 pm : TEA BREAK

4:00 pm – 5:45 pm
The Plaint of the Empress (Die Klage der Kaiserin)
Director: Pina Bausch; 103 min., Germany, 1989
"Die Klage der Kaiserin" was produced between October 1987 and April 1989. It is the first film by choreographer Pina Bausch, who was born in Solingen in 1940. The general framework is set by the changing seasons - autumn, winter and spring.The film's inner structure reflects Pina Bausch's method of working as developed with the Wuppertal Theatre of Dance during the 1973/74 season. The film consequently does not tell a story, but is made up of various scenes put together as a collage reflecting certain moods and invoking different associations. A variety of themes which Pina Bausch has frequently dealt with in her stage productions are also loosely interwoven in the film. Unlike the stage productions, however, the film scenes, some of which are thoroughly absurd, are set in different locations, such as the woods and fields around Wuppertal, the city centre, the suspension railway, a carpet shop, a greenhouse and the rehearsal room in a former cinema (Wuppertal's "Lichtburg"). The film features the dancers and an actress from the Wuppertal Theatre of Dance whose text improvisations, dancing and scenic variations leave their usual distinctive mark on the overall production. The futility of human activity and the search for love make up the film's central theme set against the strains of a Silician funeral march. "The despair is tangible. After all, the film is a lament", according to Pina Bausch.

Day 2: Sunday 26th November ‘06

10:30 am – 1:00 pm
Nee Engey (Where Are You)
Director: RV Ramani; 150 mins, 2003, India
This film, with the Shadow Puppeteers, living in South India, is a celebration and dedication to the art of moving images and to its original practitioners and community. An impressionistic ethnography, reflecting on shadow puppet theatre, history, mythology, cinema and our lives.
enquiries: ramanirv (at) hotmail.com
followed by a: Discussion wth R V Ramani

1:00 pm – 1:45 pm : LUNCH BREAK

1:45 pm - 3:20 pm
Love Me You
Director: Sylvie Banuls and Sabina Engel; 92 mins, 2003, Germany
Love Me You is a film about some very special actors in an extraordinary theater and about the unusual love between two of them: Moritz and Nele. They both have Down's syndrome and both act in productions of the Ramba Zamba Theater in Berlin – frequently playing to full houses. The film sheds light on a world which most "normal" people tend to regard as substandard. Despite the international trend of global assimilation and homogenous lifestyles, the film reveals life without the filters of society and its rules: one which is not only different, but also uniquely special and full of color. Against the backdrop of the bio-ethics debate, the film shows people who are assumed to be far removed from the norm, yet nonetheless manage to live a rich and whole-hearted life – wonderfully free from the constraints of social conventions.

3:20 – 3:30: Break

3:30 pm – 5:15 pm
Naatak Jaari Hai
Director: Lalit Vachani; 84 mins, 2005, India
Natak Jari Hai is a documentary about JANAM (The People's Theatre Front), the little theatre group that never stopped performing in the face of dramatic political transformation and personal tragedy. The film explores the motivations and ideals of the JANAM actors and their vision of resistance and change as they perform their 'People's Theatre' in diverse parts of India. It brings to life the world of socialist theatre through the words of JANAM's members, and through a reflective portrayal of the group's greatest tragedy – the assassination of its convenor Safdar Hashmi in 1989.
enquiries: lvachani (at) vsnl.com
followed by a: Discussion with Sudhanva Deshpande of JANAM (to be confirmed)

5:15 pm – 7:00 pm
Die Spielwütigen
Director: Andres Veiel; 108 min., Germany, 2003
Four drama students are observed during their training at the reputed Ernst Busch school of drama in Berlin. They are very different as regards their vita, their mentality and their social conduct, but they share the same passion for drama. They conclude their training successfully and we also hear of their first professional experiences.

********END********

3 Screens Film Festival: poster

2006-11-07T12:34:00.000-08:00

3 Screens Film Festival: announcement

2006-11-07T12:25:00.000-08:00

3 SCREENS FILM FESTIVAL
at the Public Ka Multiplex
India Social Forum

WHAT: 3 Screens. 3 Days. 99 Films

WHERE: at the India Social Forum, Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium Grounds, New Delhi

WHEN: 10-11-12 November 200610am - 10pm (approx,. depending on date)

The film festival is OPEN TO ALL
(entry is through a one-time registration at the ISF entrance)

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