The 'One Billion Eyes' annual Indian documentary film festival was launched in August 2005 by the Prakriti Foundation, Chennai. The aim of this festival is to promote documentary films and the filmmakers who push intellectual, political and cultural boundaries and explore issues that are relevant to the Indian context today.
This year's theme is "Our Cities: the Real and the Imagined" - the festival will be looking at cities as locations, the chosen cities being Bombay, Benares, Bhopal and Bangalore. The idea behind this kind of a theme is to look at the kinds of spaces created within these four cities, literal/ideological/imagined spaces. The city, with its specificities, its history, its local dynamics, its cultural politics - these are the kinds of explorations the festival will be hoping to make.The films screened will therefore dwell on these cities in their own ways, not restricting themselves to one idea of what the city 'is' but recognising the billion ways in which a city can be imagined.
Festival
Schedule:
15th August
(6-9 pm)
At Chamiers/Anokhi:
Inauguration
of a photo exhibition on the Bhopal gas tragedy
Screening
of Anand Patwardhan's film "Bombay: Our City" and an interactive session
with the director |
16th
(3 pm - 9pm)
Venue:
South Indian Film Chamber theatre:
Annapurna
- 3:00-3:30 pm
Paromita
Vohra
25 mins/Documentary/colour/Betacam/Hindi-Marathi
English subtitles
| The film is
a portrait of a women's group named Annapurna. Started in 1975 by 14 khanawalis
- women who prepare meals for migrant workers, thus earning the name food-lady.
An exploration of the politics and economics of women's work, the film
is a tribute to the fearless women who started Annapurna, and the feisty
women who carry it on. |
Dandyat
Ram Nahi - 3:30-3:55 pm
Sunil Shanbag
Closer to
Reality - 4:00-4:30
Produced
by 'We for Bhopal'
Directors:
Sumit, Shubham, Kadambari
2005/India/English
and Hindi/24 mins 7 secs
| In October,
2004, 14 students from Delhi University visited Bhopal on a fact-finding
mission. Four members of the team carried a handy cam with which they videotaped
the trip; this was then shaped into the film. The film reaches out to youth
with the important message that "many more Bhopals" are waiting to happen,
unless and until we do our bit to prevent them. |
Is Another
World Possible? - 4:30-4:45
Dr. Pervez
Imam
Break: 4:45-5:15
pm
Above the
Din of Sewing Machines - 5:20-6:00
Surabhi
Sharma
38min/mini
DV/2004/Kannada/Subtitle in English
| This film
documents the exploitative working conditions of women workers in the garment
industry in Bangalore. The amount of foreign exchange earned from garment
export, in Bangalore, was more than that of the IT industry until 2001.
And yet, the workers toil with extremely low wages and an atmosphere of
fear and intimidation. |
Fun @
Sun - 6:00-6:35
Gautam
Sonti
32 mins/English
| Fun@Sun is
an inside look at work and work culture in the software development centre
of a large American multinational company, Sun Microsystems, located in
Bangalore (Indian Engineering Centre, or IEC). The film highlights the
multiple ways in which 'culture' operates as a management tool in the new
global economy. |
Venue:
Anokhi/Chamiers
Quawali
performance by Laique Quawal and group - 7:00-9:00 pm
17th (3
pm - 9pm)
Venue:
South Indian Film Chamber theatre
The Dark
I Must Not Name - 3:00-4:10
Shaan Khattau
Duration:
66 Min
Produced by:
Highlight Films
Format: DV
| 'The dark
I must not name' is a personal exploration of the Indian city of Bhopal
and its people 15 years after the worlds worst industrial accident ravaged
the city. The attempt is to explore the filmmaker's relationship to the
pain and daily rituals of suffering the city lives with. |
Jari
Mari - 4:15 - 5:30
Director,
Producer: Surabhi Sharma
INDIA / 2001
/ Hindi / Color / Video / 74 min
| Jari Mari
is a sprawling slum colony next to Mumbai's airport. More and more textile
mills, formerly the economic foundation of the city, have been shut down
in recent years, while Jari Mari's narrow lanes are increasingly full of
small sweatshops where women and men work for a pittance, leading an unsteady
existence. |
Ordinary
Lives - 5:30-6:10
Sheetal
S Agarwal
2005/38 mins
| Ordinary Lives
uncovers the living conditions of residents in a slum in Mumbai, focusing
closely on the daily struggles of one joint family with ten members of
three generations crammed in a 180-square-foot shack. Through a poised
juxtaposition of voices from both inside and outside the slums, the film
re-examines issues such as poverty, human rights, and gender equality that
have been troubling India and other developing countries. |
Break:
6:10-6:45
Cosmopolis
- 6:45-7:00
Paromita
Vohra
13 mins/English,
Hindi, Marati with English subtitles
| In two discrete
but associated shorts, this film looks at divisions of language, class,
memory and food and queries the myths of Bombay as a great cosmopolitanism
city. |
Siva
Kalyanam part 1 - 7:00-7:15
July Boys
- 7:15-7:45
Gautam
Sonti
30 mins/English
| July Boys
focuses on a small 'startup' company in Bangalore that designs and produces
software products for cellular service providers in Europe and the U.S.
The film explores the creation of a Silicon Valley-style work culture within
this 'cross-border' company that has one leg in Bangalore and the other
in Santa Clara, California. It also highlights the emergence of new kinds
of identities (global, transnational, cosmopolitan) that incorporate and
transcend pre-existing identities such as the national (Indian) and the
regional (Tamil). |
New Empire
- 7:45-8:25
Kurush
Canteenwala
35 min/BW&Colour/2002
| New Empire
is a visually impressionistic, non-fiction film that attempts to chronicle
a personal encounter with neo-colonialism and the accompanying loss of
a way of urban being. The encounter is set around the memory of an Irani
restaurant in Bombay, "New Empire Restaurant and Bakery." The restaurant
is now a McDonald's outlet. |
18th
(3 pm - 9 pm)
Venue: South Indian Film Chamber theatre
Journeys
- 3:00-3:45
Vinayan
Kodoth
40 mins
| A reflective
piece on the nightmare that urban journeys can become. The daily journeys
become a metaphor for life in cities fast disintegrating. |
Twenty years
without Justice - 3:45-4:05
Sanford
Lewis
2004/17 mins
| An excellent
documentary and campaign video which explores the consequences of the disaster,
its causes, and the 20-year campaign which seeks justice for those who
survived it. |
Break -
4:05-4:25
Hunting
Warren Anderson - 4:30-5:30
Talk on
Bhopal, conducted by a survivor of the tragedy and an activist - 5:30-6:45
Break -
6:45-7:00
Where's
Sandra? - 7:00-7:20
Paromita
Vohra
Digital Video/17.5
mins/English
| The film is
a playful look at the figure of "Sandra from Bandra" - part covetous fantasy
of the racy Christian girl from Bombay who works as a secretary, wears
a dress and likes to dance; part condescending stereotype of a dowdy, religious
girl from a minority community. |
Seven Islands
and a Metro - 7:25-9:05
Madhusree
Dutta
2006/100 mnts/Format
DVcam / DG Beta
Language:
English, Hindi, Urdu, Marathi & Bombayia
| The multilingual
Bombay, the Bombay of intolerance, the Bombay of closed mills, of popular
culture, sprawling slums and real estate onslaughts, the metropolis of
numerous ghettos, the El Dorado. This film is a tale of the cities of Bom
Bahia / Bombay / Mumbai, through a tapestry of fiction, cinema vérité,
art objects, found footage, sound installation and literary texts. |
19th (3
pm - 9 pm)
Venue: South Indian Film Chamber theatre
45 ways
around it - 3:00-3:15
The M Way
- 3:15-3:45
Gautam
Sonti
| The 'M' Way
was shot inside MphasiS Limited, a medium-sized Indian IT software services
company that typifies this highly competitive business, in which the provision
of high quality and low-cost service is the key to attracting and retaining
customers. The film focuses on two teams (one for software development
and one for testing, or quality control) that work on a single project
for a U.S.-based customer, depicting the high-pressure work atmosphere
that prevails in this industry. |
SAA - 3:45-4:15
RV Ramani
25 minutes,
1991
| Local trains
form the basic pulse and rhythm of Bombay. This rhythm has been
established, by
the various activities of people living in the city over a
period of time. |
Siva Kalyanam
part 2 - 4:15-4:30
Break -
4:30-5:00
Jaane Janki
- 5:00-5:05
Sushma
Veerappa
Kannada/1
min 12 secs/2006
Produced by
Rainwater Club
| Jaane Janki
attempts to instigate the urban middle class housewife to take the initiative
to harvest rainwater from her rooftop. |
Q2P - 5:05-6:00
pm
Paromita
Vohra
53 mins/English-Hindi
| A film about
toilets and the city. The toilet becomes a riddle with many answers and
some of those answers are questions - about gender, about class, about
caste and most of all about space, urban development and the twisted myth
of the global metropolis. |
John and
Jane - 6:00-6:45
Ashim Ahluwalia
India/2005/English/83
mins/Colour/35mm
John &
Jane is an astonishing look at the souls of the outsourced. Shot on 35mm
and
composed with
unsettling grace, this documentary finds an entirely original and fitting
language to
express the eerie dislocation of virtual work. |
Many People
Many Desires - 6:45-7:30
T Jayashree
Various languages
with English subtitles/45 mins/2004
Produced by
Sangama, Bangalore
| Cutting across
class, gender, language and caste, the film tells the stories of gay/bisexual/lesbian
persons living in the city of Bangalore. Through them it brings forth the
debate on the basic right to one's sexual/gender expression, and it aims
to mobilize debate and discussion and generate support from within and
outside the sexual minority communities. |
20th August
The Museum Theatre - 6 pm
Presentation of the
award for Best Film
The Museum Theatre - 7 pm
ARPANA presents COTTON 56,
POLYESTER 84
A city that
was Mumbai ...
Two Acts,
125 mins.)
Directed by
Sunil Shanbag , Written
by Ramu Ramnathan , Translated
by Chetan Datar
Cast: NAGESH
BHONSLE, KUMUD MISHRA, CHARUSHEEL SABLE-VACHHANI, PRAMOD PATHAK, NIMESH
MEHTA, HRIDAYNATH JADHAV, AANCHAL NANDRAJOG
MUSIC: DEVDATTA
SABLE |
Passes will be available at the following outlets:
Levis Signature
Odyssey
Landmark
Amethyst
Anokhi
One pass is valid for the entire festival. Student passes are priced at Rs.100/- and the rest at Rs.300/-
The complete schedule of our screenings will soon be available on our web site www.abillioneyes.in
For further details, please contact us at:
Email: abillioneyes@gmail.com
Ph: (0) 9342414112
Venue Addresses:
Anokhi - Chamiers,
85 Chamiers Road
South Indian
Film Chamber theatre - C4/5, 606, Anna Salai, Chennai 6
Museum Theatre
- Pantheon Road, Egmore, Chennai 8.
