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Jammin'
the Blues
(Approx
Duration: 40 minutes)
Jammin'
the Blues is a personalized kind of memoir of some of the
things that used to happen to this particular writer, our
central character, when he was young and confused. In
comparison to his stable sort of professional and personal
universe today, events used to have a particular zing to it.
Comic,
poignant, wistful and occasionally black, Jammin' the Blues,
is a dense collection of events and incidents, which have a
certain naïve and precocious charm about them.
Footwear
fetish
Duration:
5 mins
A
character is terminally amused by all kinds of footwear he
sees people wearing. He maintains he can dissect personalities
by looking at the person's footwear.
This
leads him to many adventures of the obsessive kind, where
people can't fathom some of the things he does to get to the
'bottom' of people's personalities.
Film
Poem
Approx.
Duration: 6 mins
Titled
What was happening that Night this sensuous film poem explores
the tangles of reality and pretensions in the art and literary
world. It thrives on a certain erotic tension that propels the
poem till its culmination. Eventually, the erotic experience
itself remains somewhat hazy, somewhere between reality and
dream, in search of a religious awe, but of a different
kind.
The
poem is a powerful one and within its short length,
experiences many explosions. The film attempts to capture the
aesthetics and eroticism of the images that constitute the
poem.
Short
Shorts
Approx
Duration: 4 minutes each
Man
and Woman, The Young Prodigy, A letter from a Sardar and How
Old am I? are four extremely short but hilarious Short
Films.
Bandish
Approx
Duration: 50 mins
In
order to explore the nuances of Bandish (composition) in
Hindustani music, this documentary takes up the metaphor of a
river. The river has its own beauty, the way the water in it
flows non stop but the river as entity remains the same. In
the same way, the singer (or the instrumentalist) goes on
weaving various beautiful melodious and rhythmic patterns in
and around the Bandish while the basic Bandish remains the
same.
In
the process it unfolds the nuances of different kinds of
compositions, what aspects take prominence in Dhrupad, what
others come into play with the compositions of Khayal, Thumri,
Tappa, Kajari, Geet, Gazal, etc, as also how compositions are
done for instruments like Sitar or Sarangi or percussions like
the Tabla. What is the difference between old compositions and
the new ones. And so on …
Slum,
Suburbia and Bollywood
Approx.
Duration: 25 minutes
In
India, the slum and the popular cinema bear a tremendous
metaphorical affinity towards each other. Popular cinema in
India can even be called, in many ways and quite often, the
slum's point of view of Indian politics and society. There is
in both of them the same stress on the lower middle class
sensibilities and the same ability to shock the haute
bourgeoisie with the directness, vigor and even crudity of
everyday realities.
Just
like the discarded, obsolete population that inhabits the
unintended city is a constant embarrassment to the rest of
their urban brethren, the style of popular cinema is often an
embarrassment for the devotees of art films and high culture.
These discards show the same cussed unwillingness to bow out
of history, the same obstinate ability to return and
'illegitimately' occupy a large space in public domain,
geographically just as the popular cinema does,
psychologically.
The
documentary, Slum, Suburbia and Bollywood will try to explore
the extent to which the commercial Indian cinema reflects as
well as shape our everyday life and contributes to the growth
of popular culture of sorts (which may not be the mass
culture).
The
Missing Link
Approx.
Duration 45 minutes
The
documentary, The Missing Link, as the name suggests, aims to
look into this once-in-a-lifetime kind of case study in
context of one of the most debated theories of all time ---
Darwin's theory of evolution, where he proposed that men have
evolved, over a huge period of time, from apes. The theory,
however, has little proof --- fossil or otherwise --- and has
never been conclusively proved. With the DNA tests and
behavioral observations of these three ape-like creatures born
to human parents (who have also produced five other perfectly
normal children), The Missing Link, becomes an exciting
prospect to explore with scientists, naturalists, scholars,
researchers as well as the religious and social
pundits.
Qawwali:
A Soulful Flight
Approx
Duration: 50 mins
What
is the power of this musical genre called Qawwali? How does it
express itself, revealing to the seeker realms beyond his
knowledge? What is the essence of this shared musical
experience?
This,
in very brief, is the experience the documentary, Qawwali: A
Soulful Flight, seeks to explore. In the process, it aims to
showcase this unique genre of light classical music of India
and Pakistan in all its ethno-musical dimensions: the
distinctive features of Qawwali music, the charged ambience of
the various Sufi shrines where it is performed, the belief
system behind its mystic bearings and the kitschy
glamorization we have seen in popular films.
A Handful
of Sand
Approx.
Duration 25 minutes
The
film, A Handful of Sand, will attempt to bring out the sand
sculptor, Sudarshan Patnaik's inner self, in the process of
exploring his unique art (of sculpting in sand) and try to put
into perspective, the artist's struggles and achievements.
Diamond
Sized Wound
Approx.
Duration: 25 minutes
Diamond
Sized Wound is a lyrical documentary featuring the street
children who sell newspapers and water bottles at the various
traffic signals in the city of Mumbai. The film will attempt
to encapsulate the experience these children go through and
contrast it with the rich and stylish mindset of those who
shoo them away from behind their air-conditioned car
screens.
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