Coming Soon: Voices from the Waters 2008
“Obie Trice, real name no gimmicks” – Obie Trice
[Intro]
Two trailer park girls go round the outside;
round the outside, round the outside
{*scratches*
Two trailer park girls go round the outside;
round the outside, round the outside
{*scratches*
Guess who’s back
Back again
Shady’s back
Tell a friend
Guess who’s back, guess who’s back, guess who’s back, guess who’s back
guess who’s back, guess who’s back, guess who’s back.. {*Eminem hums*)
From ‘Without Me’ by Eminem.
So we are back to the water film festival, officially called Voices from the Waters 2008- The Third International Film Festival on Water, the biggest film festival on water in the world.
I had a ball in last year’s festival, meeting film makers, eating samosas, watching films, drinking beer(not in the fest though since it’s a ‘water’ fest and not a ‘beer’ fest), hitting on chicks, contemplating the solutions to global warming, formulating an opinion, playing Mr. Journalist etc. I intend to do the same this time around too.
So the festival (a 6 day long marathon) will be held at Jnana Jyoti Auditorium, Central College Campus, Bangalore from the 13th September 2008 to 18th September 2008. The organizers include Bangalore Film Society, Arghyam, SVARAJ- Society for Voluntary Action Revitalization and Justice, Bangalore University, Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival, Ithaca College, USA (FLEFF) Mountainfilm Festival in Telluride, USA, Alliance Francaise de Bangalore, Max Muller Bhavan, Bangalore and Water Journeys – Campaign for Fundamental Right to Water.
The official jazz aside, I hope to cover the festival for the ‘I hate documentary social initiatives and NGO events’ filmgoer. And I guess that’s where we should be headed – a coming together of viewpoints, as nothing, as Mr. Pillai said in his now infamous Sarkar Raj review, is sacred.
You can see my festival diaries(Day One, Day Two, Day Three & Four) from the last year to see how we had so much stuff happening in 4 days – film screenings, live discussions, Water Voices, photo exhibitions, aquascope films, installations etc. it should only be better this time, with a bigger(I hope) venue, more chicks(I hope that one even more), better films(this one looks almost possible), conferences, workshops, art exhibitions showcasing the work of local artists, an exclusively put up photo exhibition showcasing some of the cool works of traveling film makers and bikers through the breadth of the country for the last year or so in search of subjects, narratives, stories around the theme of water, and of course, Shekhar Kapoor, who will be opening the festival this Saturday.
To cut some slack, I will mention few films that I am looking forward to. There are a total of around 70 films to be screened from over 30 countries that cover realistic documentaries addressing the issues at a grassroot ‘documentary’ level to abstract artistic explorations (read ‘world’ cinema) to some master works including Werner Herzog, Bert Haanstra etc. Bert Haanstra is someone I have never heard of before but these lines are motivation enough:
A strange land where everything about it escapes your comprehension- the language, the people, the customs, the road signs. You have walked the asphalt all day trying to spin a frame of reference around all that is revolving around you but only to find that, in a strange elastic way, you just end up spinning it around you. Tired and beaten, you rest on a bench by the riverside and try to collect scattered pieces of yourself when along walks a stranger and sits besides. He looks towards you, nods and offers you the first warm smile you’ve had all day. It is a smile and nod that goes beyond the alienation, the strangeness of it all and even though you don’t speak the same tongue, there is a strange connection- the kind of ancient emotion described by sailors when they narrate incidents of how some port half-way across the world felt like ‘home’. You have not just received a friendly nod and smile but it is as if, he has imparted you to share his gaze. His whimsical, ironic, poetic gaze in which the world unfolds with warmth and humor. The superficialities of language, land, customs, road signs comes apart and you can witness, clear as the afternoon sunlight on the flowing river, the great human tragicomedy unfold.
This is the cinema of the great Bert Haanstra.
One reason for me to cheerlead for the festival (apart from the chicks) is to explore the different aspects of the craft – it stirs my imagination to see the sometimes mundane sometimes exciting work that goes behind putting such an event up, Mr. Pillai would be a better person to comment all that, and how so many themes collide to create something new. Film making takes diverse proportions and connotations and the film moves out of the screening space. I would hope with my heart that the original motive of the ‘traveling festival’ is realized with all these initiatives. As for the ‘I don’t care about your vision statement’ viewer, I could say only one thing. “Drop in. it’s free!”
Now for the films I am looking forward to…
The films I am looking forward to:
A FILM FROM PAKISTAN:-
Awaiting The Cranes’ Return (Category:Murky Waters)
Pakistan
Dir: Samina Aslam
Production: Eveready Pictures
Dur: 18min
Director Aslam’s intriguing documentary studies the Badin district in the Sindh province of Pakistan. She calls it a study in contrast- a chronicle of disaster, degradation and paradoxically, development. She presents a city of one of the earliest civilizations with its 400 year old haunted ruins which is also a city with an industrial belt with its massive refineries and factories. Amidst this megabucks oil business also lies the dire poverty of a region where the poor do not even have access to freshwater as water resources have turned increasingly brackish. Even as the Arabian Sea encroaches, salinates and makes the ground fallow, it has been an agrarian land with abundant rice and sugar-cane cultivation. The Badin sugar-cane is of the highest quality with the highest sucrose content but the people of Badin themselves make do with jaggery as they themselves cannot afford the price of sugar. Through interviews with natives and experts and officials, Director Aslam explores the complexities of the land and tries to come up with a viable vision for the course towards the future.
A FILM BY GERMAN MASTER WERNER HERZOG:-
The Wild Blue Yonder: A Science Fiction Fantasy (Category:in memory of rivers and lands lost)
Germany/USA/France/UK
Dir: Werner Herzog
Production: Andre Singer
Dur: 80min
Light-years ago, a liquid planet along the outer limits of the universe known only as ‘The Wild Blue Yonder’ comes under an apocalyptic Ice Age and the inhabitants have no other alternative but to bid farewell to their homeland and take the long trip through space to the closest inhabitable planet- Earth. They arrived not with the regular extra-terrestrial ambitions of domination and enslavement but with the simplest of migrant dreams- a colony of their own with a housing complex, a shopping center and a memorial to the Galaxy Andromeda. But as the narrator of Herzog’s self-professed ‘science fiction fantasy’- The Alien prefers to tell the story, not only was the journey to Earth boring but they failed even in their simple dreams and that ‘all aliens suck’. A film that defies easy classification, Herzog’s masterpiece is a bizarre amalgamation of eclectic images and sounds- unusual videos of the mysterious space and space-crafts from the NASA archives, otherworldly psychedelic nature footage shot by musician-cameraman-adventurer Henry Kaiser from underneath the virgin depths of the Atlantic, vintage black-and-white educational videos, interviews with modern-day ‘rogue’ scientists, an eccentric ham of a performance from a disheveled Brad Dourif (Lord of the Rings, Child’s Play) and the ethereal sounds of Ernst Reijsiger collaborating with Senegalese vocalist Mola Sylla and a Sardinian shepard choir- into an elaborate narrative that is as much sci-fi as it is vintage Herzog. As an Earth spacecraft undertakes a journey to the Wild Blue Yonder, Herzog not just denounces the rise of civilization (the domestication of the pig is called ‘the first great sin’, followed by what else but Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe) and its relentless consumption and destruction of nature, but with typically deadpan Teutonic swagger, offers the coming apocalypse as the only redemption.
SILVER CONCH-winning FILM BY BANGALORE-based DIRECTOR VINOD RAJA WITH INPUTS FROM ACTIVIST-WRITER MAHASWETA DEVI:-
Mahua Memoirs (Category:in memory of rivers and lands lost)India
Dir: Vinod Raja
Production: Grass Roots Media
Dur: 82min
This is the tale of a beautiful land and its beautiful people, of ancient rituals and peaceful cultures. The Bard and the Baiga take us on a mysterious journey of song and legend through the indigenous communities who have lived in the mountain tracts and forests of the Eastern Ghats since the beginning of time. The trees, the mountains, the animals all are revered as a central part of the cycle of life in these once isolated regions. Now as the ancient rich lands are under siege from the ideology and paradigms of liberalization and development, the land that once sustained them itself becomes the source of its people’s greatest insecurities. A way of life continuing over the ages now teeters on the brink of existence and its voices and screams are stifled by the ruthless cartels of the wheels of change and an apathetic media. With insights from renowned activist and writer Mahasweta Devi, Director Vinod Raja’s Silver Conch-winning poignant and striking ‘Mahua Memoirs’ allows us a rare glimpse of the beautiful life through the eyes of the adivasis and documents their struggles against the merciless mining that is consuming their lands and lives.
Raga of River Narmada (Waterscapes)
India
Dir: Rajendra Janglay
Production: Madhya Pradesh Madhyam, Bhopal
Dur: 12min
Winner of the Certificate of Merit at MIFF 2008 for its fascinating visuals and exceptional use of the Dhrupad, Director Janglay’s Raga of the River Narmada is cinema just as it is a poem as the many moods, colors and shapes of the Narmada are juxtaposed with a traditional Dhrupad recitation. Like a Dhrupad melody, with its single melodic line and complex framework of ragas, the river too is a single entity which takes on various incarnations from the playful gush of the streams to the turbulence of the rapids to the ethereal calm of its union with the sea. The river evokes the song that echoes over the valleys and plains, setting tune to life itself, and the song plays on and the river flows endlessly, each an ancient entity with a life of its own but joined together in tradition, in culture, in nature.
The Rising Wave (In Memory of Rivers and Lands Lost)
India/Australia
Directed & Produced by Yask Desai & Shweta Kishore
Dur: 65min
A rich women with no heir to carry forward her legacy donates a pond to the community she lived in. Now, her name lives on, in so many fond remembrances interspersed among so many memories of so many people. And the pond, it is remarked, served her legacy as well as any heir would. Yask Desai and Shweta Kishore’s eloquent documentary ‘The Rising Wave’ is just as much about everyday intimacies as it is about the larger scheme of culture, civilization and critique. Beautifully shot across three states, the film unspools like a nostalgic conversation- remembering childhoods, legends, grandmother’s songs, long walks, evenings past and trysts with nature. It shows that not only are we deeply connected to water via our culture and history but that a glimpse into the past will reveal about how the relationship around water was one of goodwill and sharing. It traces how so many ancient lands with their age old connections with the water around them have now been destroyed, literally washed away by the water they once revered, just so the industries could flourish. People themselves, their identities, professions and practices now seem outdated as the country lurches into a synthetic future of the modern. Their own water is now out-of-bounds for them and can now only be purchased, wrapped and contained in plastic, from across a store-counter.
Jala Tarangani (Waterscapes)
India
Conceived and Produced by the Students and Teachers of Christel House India
Dur: 13min
“… trains coming, children when school’s out, hungry cows… rollercoaster, ice melting, tap dancers, beatboxers… fog horns, a busy restaurant kitchen, newsrooms in old movies, elephants stampeding… owls, mockingbirds, doves. The world’s making music all the time”- Tom Waits
Wave splash, rain pitter-patter, puddle plop, wind whoosh, stream pop, river silences- the music of the natural world. Mellifluous calms, operatic storms and the rainy day blues- the omnipresent yet oft unnoticed music of the natural world where notes intersperse to form the melody of the earth. Weaving notes of instruments like the flute and the guitar with the sound of the water and the students of Christel House India learn to make music in this delightful film and in the process discover a reason to celebrate and care for water as a wondrous element of everyday magic and also a scarce natural resource of immense importance for the well-being of the planet.
Warming (Considering Climate)
Canada
Dir: Colleen McIssac
Dur: 4min24sec
A short animated film that attempts to address the issue of climate change in a lyrical and visually contemplative manner by focusing on the interconnectedness of the eco-systems and societies in which we live.
Texas Gold (People Speak Out)
USA
Directed & Produced by: Carolyn M. Scott
Dur: 24min
When Diane Wilson, mother of five and fourth generation fisherwoman finds out that her home Calhoun County, Texas has been named among the most toxic places in America as more and more chemical waste is recklessly dumped into blue Gulf bays of Texas, she knew she had to take action even if it was an impossibly uphill battle against the most infamous and murkiest of all chemical corporations- Dow/Union Carbide with their huge pockets and bands of influential lawyers and manipulative PR agents. A self-confessed ‘unreasonable woman’, Wilson with sheer courage and conviction, embarks on a long, arduous and continuing struggle to get the toxic trespassers off her home. The spirit of this tough sun-burnt determined woman who dares to call it as it is, is captured in director Scott’s award-winning and inspirational documentary.
Baikal, The Immortal Lake (Baikal, Le Lac Immortel) (Waterscapes)
Russia/France
Dir: Jean Afanassieff
Production: MC4- France 3
Dur: 52min
‘The Blue Eye of Siberia’ ‘The Pearl’ ‘The Galapagos of Russia’ ‘The Lake Immortal’- it isn’t easy to put together the age, the isolation, the beauty, the vastness, the rapture of it all and the crystal blue of Lake Baikal in a single breath. One of the world’s foremost mountaineers and acclaimed documentarian Jean Afanassief captures a serene transcendental account of the largest reservoir of fresh water (20%of the world’s reserve) and the rare flora and fauna and the interesting human characters that inhabit the breathtaking scenery. With outstanding photographic images and gentle narration it slowly exposes the various political, social, environmental and even personal nuances associated with this magnificent creation of nature. Some believe Baikal is too vast to be affected by human interference… but given the recent developments (in 2006, after this film was shot, the proposal for a nuclear reactor was being considered), is that belief assuring enough?
Oil Spill in Lebanon (Murky Waters)
Lebanon/Italy
Dir: Hady Zaccak
Production: IUCN/Wescana (Switzerland) & DGCS-Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Italy)
Dur: 35min
The only available document that archives a major environmental catastrophe with far reaching and now after two whole years, still persisting effects, the acclaimed and award-winning Oil Spill in Lebanon chronicles the tensions that shook not only Lebanon but the entire Mediterranean when Israel bombed the Jiyyeh power plant on the 13th and 15th of July 2006. As continuous bombardment prevented immediate solutions, the country woke up the next day to major ‘collateral damage’: 15,000 tons of heavy fuel that blackened the beaches, several historical monuments and fragile ecological reserves like Palm Island- home to rare birds, flora and aquatic life. The movie examines how a country shell-shocked by war tries to come together to salvage the Mediterranean. Even after the cessation of hostilities, the war is far from over but hope persists- The Mediterranean and its people remain resilient.
Carpe Diem (Who owns the Water)
Italy
Dir: Sergio Cannella
Production: AMAP
Dur:1min
‘Turn the tap off when you don’t need it. Stop wasting water’. The fundamental basic earliest ground-zero lesson in water conservation that is every mother’s continuous rant and every child’s initiation, knowingly or otherwise, into caring for his environment. Director Cannela’s film-spot is a light-hearted, surreal take on it that while underlining the importance of water to the planet and all its beings also confirms the nagging suspicion that Mama knows best……
Mirror of Holland (Waterscapes) (Bert Haanstra)
The Netherlands
Dir: Bert Haanstra
Production: Piet Van Moock
Dur: 10min
It was an ‘everyday’ waterfront with its windmills and pastoral landscape. Millions must have taken in the quiet idyll in passing and millions more must have been just walked along without stopping to take the least notice. Until the great Bert Haanstra captured it on film with a perception that was painterly, poetic and sheer heightened cinema. Mirror of Holland didn’t just immortalize ‘a day in the peaceful country’ but was a meditation on the under-currents of life itself. Capturing the inverted reflections along the canals, even the mighty windmills seem liquid- dissolving as it comes together and etching surreal landscapes that are as ephemeral as they are enduring and as trancelike as they are real. Mirror of Holland was Haanstra’s breakthrough film that first got the world to notice the plucky Dutchman who could make you dream a vivid beautiful dream even as you lay awake.
Up The Yangtze (In memory of Rivers and Lands Lost)
China/Canada
Dir: Yung Chang
Production: Eyesteel Film
Dur: 93min
Two lonely humans against an epic landscape. Two melancholy figures among the massive Three Gorges Dam- the largest hydroelectric project in the world, the dream of the founder-fathers- Sun Yat-sen, Chaing Kai-shek and Mao Zedong, the greatest engineering feat since the Great Wall, the monument of Chinese progress. Underneath their feet flows the mighty river Yangtze now turned by the dam into a cold silent beast gradually swallowing up a valley once revered for its awe-inspiring scenery. Let alone the poor humans, even the mountains have been dwarfed. 16 year old Yu Shui, with her family’s livelihood and home being drowned in the ever rising river is now ironically employed on a luxury tourist boat guiding tourists on a ‘farewell to Three Gorges tour’. Her co-worker is the similarly resigned and disorientated Chen Bo-Yu. Among so much upheaval and apathy, our lost protagonists struggle to find themselves as they move ‘Up the Yangtze’, but what are two misplaced existences in a river of so much misery and paradoxically, ‘progress’. Like a postcard of lost memories, Director Yung Chang’s subtle poetic explorations of existences erased and lost, of progress and displacement, of history, the present and the future is under its epic scope, a heartbreakingly intimate and humane cinematic experience.
Home Work (Waterscapes)
Bosnia & Herzegovina/Italy
Dir: Ermin Hadzic
Production: Lucia Malorzo
Dur: 21min
The routine chore of yet another homework assignment becomes a fascinating experience for two classmates as they decide to explore the near-by river Neretva. One girl, Nina is the daughter of Bosnian fugitives while the other Alba is an Italian '©migr'©. Viewing and discussing their views on the river, they reveal to each other personal accounts of the different and even turbulent lives they have lived. Homework becomes a beautiful, enlightening experience…
Dessica (Waterscapes)
USA
Dir: David Madacsi
Dur: 3min20sec
Dessica is a short film that evokes thoughts of water as both origin and source of life. With one character and no dialogue, nearly all the movement and the only sounds in the film are those of water. Its natural image-forming properties are used to focus (literally) on thoughts of the inescapable intimacy of life’s interconnectedness with water.
The Edge of the World (Au Bord Du Monde) (Waterscapes)
Belgium/Scotland
Dir: Sylvestre Sbille
Dur: 52 min
Saint Kilda- a tiny idyllic archipelago off the Scottish Coast adrift in the North Atlantic with its strange and intriguing history and equally strange and intriguing present is the subject of director Sylvestre Sbille’s meditations on the passage of time and how a tiny island could bear so much of the imprints of human history. An island all but vacated by its original inhabitants and drained of a very unique indigenous culture during the upheaval of World War I now finds a strange and even bizarre crowd wandering about its medieval houses and unkempt wilderness- modern day scientists and their teams. ‘Saint Kilda’ according to Director Sbille, is all but lost and now remains only the destination of an inner journey of poets, philosophers and wanderers.
Nascent (Waterscapes)
Brazil
Dir: Helvecio Marins Jr
Production: TEIA
Dur: 16min
Life flows and renews itself like the water, where the destiny becomes nascent. A lyrical meditation of a man’s long voyage through the river and into his soul.
Drying Up Palestine (Who owns the water)
Palestine/UK
Dir: Rima Essa & Peter Snowdon
Production: Gourna Film/ House of Water & Environment (Ramallah)
Dur: 28min
Drying Up Palestine presents a horror scenario where civil and political tensions have spread to the water issue. These are stories of innocent by-standers caught up in a web of violence and intrigue where even basic survival is constantly on the edge and at stake. ‘Not even the rain that falls on Palestine belongs to us’ is the lament of the common Palestinian as the film explores the misery and choices of the victims and the intricate system of apathy and total control that Israel has constructed to deny its neighbors and long-standing foes with access to one of the most basic of everyday needs- water.
Strait Through the Ice (Un Detroit Surgi Des Glaces) (Considering Climate)
France/Arctic Zone
Dir: Yves Billy
Production: Auteurs Associes
Dur: 52 min
The Arctic Ice is melting. A previously frozen and inaccessible landscape has opened up into a passage and the international powers-that-be are locked in a bid to claim the passage as their own to exploit the commercial possibilities of a shipping highway. Acclaimed director of environmental and political documentaries Yves Billy chronicles the attempts by an international consortium bent on turning the melting strait into a profitable venture, the larger economic and geopolitical implications and among so much tug-of-war, the reckless endangerment of a fragile unique eco-system.
And There Was No More Sea (in memory of rivers and lands lost)
The Netherlands
Directed & Produced by Bert Haanstra
Dur: 24min
Brick by brick time moves on ahead, call it ‘inevitable’ or ‘zeitgeist’ or ‘progress’, and the ancient comes to an end at the foothills of the modern. Only so much water under the bridge until there is water no more. No more lakes, no ponds of childhoods past, no puddles of memory. The country of the fathers disappears under mortar and dust. Brick by brick, all you see from here to horizon and back is the sparkling brand new. Director Haanstra gently mourns the wheels of change that sweep across his country and its old way of life with the customs and colors and idiosyncrasies that are not just transformed but overawed and swallowed by the mysterious forces of the new. Chronicling a small fishing village and its very unique flavor that touches every aspect of life from clothes to religion to birth, livelihood and death, Haanstra reflects on a way of life nearing its end as the pillars of modernity rise from beneath the sea, reclaiming land where once there was a wide blue liquid expanse and soon, before you even know it, there was no more sea.
Liquid City (who owns the water)
India/UK
Directed & Produced by: Matthew Gandy
Dur: 30min
A city of teeming millions; and millions more arriving on its shores every single day. By some strange equation, a city already bustling at the brims continues to expand like a universe of its own. A city of raging flash floods and sweltering heat, a city where 60% of the population lives in the slums, a city surrounded by and reclaimed from the sea, a city of sheer velocity. Matthew Gandy’s Liquid City is a one of a kind exploration of the complexities of the water politics of one of the biggest, most diverse cities in the country- Mumbai. He marvels at the engineering challenge of transferring nearly 3000 million litres of fresh water into the city every day, a feat that suspends disbelief. He also examines the inequities of the water distribution system and on how the system affects and shapes the over-all social structure of the city. With water as the focus and a metaphor, the film candidly presents and theorizes an often overlooked facade of the city.
Tirol- Land of Water (Waterscapes)
Austria
Dir: Johannes Koeck & Georg Riha
Production: Brains & Pictures Film
Dur: 7min 46sec
Set to the glorious orchestral sweep of arguably the greatest modern day composer Philip Glass, Johannes Koeck and Georg Riha’s Tirol- Land of Water is a graceful, free-wheeling portrayal of the magnificent snowcapped mountainous landscape of ‘The Heart of the Alps’ with its glaciers, waterfalls, lakes and rivers- all so pure crystal blue that the mountains themselves are reflected back.
The Voice of the Water (De Stem Van Het Water) (waterscapes)
The Netherlands
Directed & Produced by Bert Haanstra
Dur: 93min
Life along the waters might not be always as exotic or even as strange as we, the chronic landlubbers, might assume. It is an everyday life with everyday chores, everyday routines- early morning newspaper and tea, followed by work and back home in the evening to watch the latest episode on the TV. Of course, one has to be early and take into account the trouble of starting the boat engines or if you prefer the roadways, a wrong maneuver along a steep curve will mean a swim back to dry land. Director Bert Haanstra chronicles his native, The Netherlands, with an acute eye for everyman-everyday quirks and discovers a connection between the ubiquitous water and the rhythm of life on the land that lies ever so precariously in between. His unique lyrical sensibility and exuberant humane whimsy, even as it examines a local phenomenon, gives the proceedings a universality that transcends languages and boundaries and therein lies the film’s quirky humor, tender poignancies, surprising depth and timelessness. “Another film about water… Can’t we ever get away from that water?” famously laments the narrator but when so much of life and its quintessence comes for it, how else can the perceptive film-maker portray the everyman’s every-day?
Aquascope:
A space for streaming videos and experimental films that are a rare sensory trip.
North Sea: Low Tide (Ophelia)
Dir: Etta Safve
Dur: 5min28sec
He walks with a sack-full of flowers towards the sea like some beautiful bum, and having subsumed himself in the waters only the flowers return to the beach. A story of contentment, madness and pictures taken on the far side of the moon is narrated.
Jellies: The Art of NatureProduced by Ambiance Visuals
Dur: Loop
Exotic Jellyfish move, swing, rotate, open, collapse like smoke gone liquid or beautiful invaders from outer space or mushrooms come to life in the ultimate trip down the wild blue yonder.
HCR: ANTARTICA
Produced by Hub Culture
Dur: Loop
Pass through a porthole of shifting dimensions and time-lapse and explore through the melting soundscapes, the mysterious lost continent of ice.
WAVETIME
Dir: Michael Douglas Hawk
Dur: 14min53sec
Stop time. Stop all motion. Melt the clocks of the world. The liquid turns solid and the wave turns into a brick of sea. A liquid cliff, a tunnel of blue, the sea rolls trying to achieve a perfect circle before it breaks apart and becomes the sea.
W.A.T.E.R
Dir: Wittwulf Y malik
Dur: 9min18sec
Pass through the elements. Look in through their mysterious prisms. Sense the strange beauty of the scattered light- the ineffable, the always-out-of-grasp, the endless enchantment.
Keep Your Water safely
Dir: Grace Swe Zin Htaik
Dur: 1min30sec
The dengue mosquito is about to get your water and the jolly ol’ quartet of the well(Paul), the drum(Ringo), the vase(George) and the pot(John) give you a few basic lessons in sanitation and cleanliness to keep the meanies away.
The Hidden Hyacinths of the Yamuna
Dir: Rahel Hegnauer
Dur: Loop
One may wonder what it is that unfolds in a slow sludge-mist across the screens. Is it a color, is it a shade, is it a vision, is it a question, is it an answer, is it a thing of beauty or is it the ugly? The Horror, The Horror.
Washing Machine
Dir: Gruppo Sinestico
Dur: 10min30sec
The guys at Gruppo Sinestico who flummoxed audiences at last year’s fest with the beguiling Flux Vs Sound now present their latest bit of avant-garde madness titled Washing Machine. A performance piece set in the neighborhood laundry.
Wave (Part I & II)
Dir: Debashis Sinha
Dur: 8min31sec
Imagine sound. Imagine the pulse, the beat, the throb. Enter the world where the only element is of sound with its strange landscapes of mysterious halos, revolving orbs where every single beat explores the wonderland, making a world of its own wherever it goes.
Surfers
Dir: Henry Gwaizda
Dur: 1min30sec
Henry Gwaizda, virtual sound pioneer and creator of 3D sound simulations makes a strange deadbeat film that counts its way from 1 up to ‘Surf’s Up’ and just as the Big One is set to wash in and clean up the shore and rattle the hell outta the surfboards…….
The Categories:-
Murky Waters
Who Owns the Water
Considering Climate
Waterscapes
In Memory of Rivers and Lands Lost
People Speak Out
Aquascope
Highlights:
Indian Premiere of UP THE YANGTZE, award-winning and controversial, more work-of-art than film by Yung Chang set in the THREE GORGES DAM in China that drew comparisons with Wong Kar Wai and Tsai Ming Liang.
Bangalore Premiere of FLOW: FOR LOVE OF WATER- one of the most powerful contemporary film on water, currently slated for art-house release in the US
BERT HAANSTRA HOMAGE: 4 Rare Films of Dutch Maestro Bert Haanstra, Cannes and Oscar winning director and artist who documented with a rare eye the great human tragic-comedy that unfolds every day.
Bangalore Premiere of WATERS OF DESPAIR, the acclaimed film set in the dire floods of Bihar
Indian Premiere of THE RETURN OF CUYAHOGA, the multiple award-winning film that documents the birth of Environmental Activism
Bangalore Premiere of THE RAGA OF RIVER NARMADA, one of the best and most powerful and poetic short films to made in the country in recent times.
Indian Premiere of THE RISING WAVE, a film of great power and subtle eloquence as it traces our relationship with water through the ages.
Indian Premiere of THE WOMAN FROM THE RIVER AND LAND THIEF, which offers a first-hand account of the fascinating daily life along the great Amazon River.
The Silver Conch winning- MAHUA MEMOIRS by Bangalore-based Director Vinod Raja inspired by writer-activist Mahasweta Devi
Indian Premiere of one of the most punk powerful and awarded films of recent years- SWITCH OFF•Directors and Activists present for post-screening discussion
Water Voices- Grass-root Water Activists who have spent a life working with water, across eco-systems, narrating in the great oral tradition, stories of their inspiring lives.
Photo and Painting Exhibition, Installations- Artists from Bangalore make their statements on water in enthralling, eloquent ways
Acknowledgement & Links:
Detailed Synopsis of all films
Bangalore Film Society
BFS Blog
Deep Focus
Siddharth Pillai
Detailed Festival Programme
Complete Film Schedule
Collaborators
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Tushar, these are some amazing stories. It’s a pity many of us won’t get to see them on screen.
@Arun, don’t worry brother. hum kis liye hain. I ll try and make sure you don’t miss on any action. Or come down to B’lore for the weekend. khulla invitation.
In any case, lots of cool stuff keeps happening all around the world everyday. And that’s why we have PFC to share all the fun. :-)
I didn’t know such a film fest existed on “Blue Gold”. I watched the trailer of “Flow” and was astonished, will try to watch when it releases here or will catch it on dvd.
Cool! On a side note, just read somewhere that there are over 2000 film festivals each year.
Wasn’t aware of such a film fest..and that too in Bangalore. This isn’t going to be one fests where “we came, we saw, we enjoyed” is going to hold true. It’d be more like “we came, we saw, Damn…what is this…Is this what we are going to our own world?!….”
Such films are not easy to digest for me.
Am not in Bangalore now (even though I come htere once in a while). Honestly, if I was there wonder how many films I’d be able to sit through. Tough. Thanks for this Tushar.
Arthi, I agree with what you said about this festival. Depression does settle in when you see 50 odd films from all around the world all pointing to the same problem, though in different forms and intensity. But I guess there are some uplifting experiences as well, that includes Water Voices. This one in particular was a great healer for me last year. Actually seeing people who are making a change and bringing about a revolution does make you feel good. And art is the greatest healer. This time we only have more exhaustive aspects of exploration – paintings, photography, music, forums, conferences etc. So let’s see how it goes. I am keeping my fingers crossed.
Hmmm. True. All the best Tushar.