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Celebrating the spirit of struggle

Driving masses: A still from the film ‘Hope will win over fear’ to be screened at the film festival.

Weaving together tales of the struggle of individuals versus the nation and exploring the role of censorship in arts is a festival of political films and documentaries that opens at India International Centre in the Capital beginning this coming Monday.

Tilted “Persistence resistance: A festival of contemporary political films”, the three-day show will screen 100 films showcasing a range of subjects and forms and interrogate the emerging aesthetics of political film-making. It will re-emphasise the fact that political films are no longer bound by the binaries of the past, perhaps developed during war film-making.

Besides screening films in regional languages like Tamil, Telugu and Bengali, the festival will also show South African, Norwegian, German and Serbian movies.

Addressing a press conference on Tuesday, Magic Lantern Foundation’s Gargi Sen said award-winning films both national and international would be screened. “These films will have a storyline on different issues plaguing society. We want these films to be in circulation and are even encouraging colleges to screen these contentious films.”

Stating that the festival will also carry a section on international documentaries that are difficult to access in our country, Ms. Sen said: “Although these films deal with issues and themes that are unique and not very well known in India, there is indeed a common resonance. So the festival is also an attempt to explore the notions of internationalism in the present scenario of neo-liberal globalisation.”

Organised by Magic Lantern Foundation in collaboration with India International Centre, the films will showcase a retrospective of the works of desi film makers -- R.V. Ramani, Sehjo Singh, Paromita Vohra and Madhushree Dutta -- as well as South African film maker Rehad Desai.

A highlight of the festival will be an exploration of the confluence of literature, theatre and films through the works of Habib Tanvir, an illustrated talk by Sudhanwa Deshpande and the Delhi premiere of a film on Tanvir.

Some of the films traverse a vast spectrum of human landscape striving for different styles of existence, acknowledging differences of experience in fighting homogenisation. Films will be screened from the collection of movies that are distributed through Under Construction, a non-broadcast, non-commercial, educational distribution initiative.

Madhur Tankha

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