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Of human bondage
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The recently concluded Tri Continental Film Festival featured interesting films on life, death, hopes and dreams across cultures
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Looking ahead In the Tall Grass tells the story of Rwanda’s search for redemption
The fourth Tri Continental Film Festival put together by Breakthroughwas held recently at Alliance Francaise, Bangalore.
Divided into six sections viz. Imaginary Homelands, Medium is the Message, Gaze Endangered, Cuba Spotlight, Vanishing Histories and, Triumph of the Will, the festival comprised more than twenty films. “Assaulted Dream” (Guatemala/ Germany/ 2006/ Spanish with English subtitles/ 83 minutes) had its Asian Premiere during the festival. Its German director, Uli Stelzner, used just a small Panasonic camcorder to capture the torturous migrant life at the Guatemalan-Mexican border. A poignant story, it showed how hundreds of impoverished Central Americans held on to the great American dream. The candid camera captured the conditions of these people. “Assaulted Dream” particularly follows Noé, a migrant from El Salvador, who fails to make it to the Promised Land and has to return to the border to become an ill-paid sweeper at a bus station. Shattered and disillusioned, short of sleep and food, and always living on the edge, Noé presents a pathetic sight. The film, is dedicated to Noé, who eventually met a tragic end.
Another film which had its Asia Premier was “Independent Intervention” (Director: Tonje Hessen Schei/ Iraq-Norway-USA/ 75 mins. / 2006), an award-winning documentary which focused on the horrors of Iraq war and the role played by corporate controlled media in the US. As a journalist points out in the film, “Truth and conscience are among the biggest casualties of war.”
Among other interesting presentations of the festival were “The Devil came on Horseback” (Directors: Ricki Stern & Anne Sundberg / Sudan/ 85 mins. / 2007), a compelling portrait of the genocide in Darfur; “Hip-Hop Revolution” (Director: Weea Willams / South Africa / 50 mins. / 2006) about an incredible music-n-dance form which combined elements of protest as well as creative self-expression; “The Hands of Che Guevara” (director: Peter De Kock /The Netherlands / 62 mins / 2007) on a search for Che’s hands reportedly severed after his assassination in 1967; and “Pirinop, My First Contact” (Directors: Karane Ikpeng & Maria Correa / Brazil / 83 mins. / 2007) which followed the trails and travails of an indigenous tribe (Ikpeng Indians) dislodged from its ancient settlement.
GIRIDHAR KHASNIS
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