Film Fest of Indian + Belgian Documentaries in Mumbai
Let it BE !
Vikalp Films for Freedom is happy to invite you to Let It BE ! a six-day festival of Indian and Belgian documentaries and shorts from March 20 to 25.
The festival will take place at the conference hall of the National
College in Bandra every evening from 6 pm onwards.
Let It BE ! brings a superb selection of Belgian independent cinema,
representing a wide spectrum of film making from the experimental to the humourous to the political. Alongside internationally acclaimed films like `Une Part Du Ciel’ (Cannes 2002), and the work of renowned film-makers like Pascal Baes and Boris Lehman, the festival will also showcase the work of Brussels’ famous film-making ateliers where master film-makers work in collaboration with other artists and students.
Every evening’s screening will be kicked off by a new Indian
documentary film from a package specially curated by Vikalp Films for Freedom for this festival.
The festival is also designed to create space for filmmakers from both sides to meet, talk, and discuss future collaborations.
In addition, the festival audience can look forward to exciting
discussions with eminent Belgian film makers Boris Lehman and Benedicte Lienard, who will accompany the festival and also take part in special interactions with film makers and students.
Off-venue sessions will be held in the afternoons on the 21st, 22nd and 23rd at the popular restaurant Seijo and the Soul Dish, a few minutes away from National College. These session are designed for more intensive interactions between Indian and Belgian film makers, students, and interested members of the audience.
Following is the schedule and synopses of films … do spread the word!
The schedule is also available at VIKALP web site www.freedomfilmsindia.org
March 20-25 6 pm onwards:
Conference Room, National College, Bandra West
Delegate registration and daily pass Rs. 25
Off venue sessions at Seijo and the Soul Dish
The films:
Tuesday, March 20
6:00 pm
Pee (Shit) – 26 min, Documentary
Dir: Amudhan R. P.
Madurai town, early in the morning. A lane beside a temple. Mariammal goes about her daily work routine – which is to scrape up the shit lying in lumps all over the place. But the humiliation of this job doesn’t mean she takes it all lying down… Shot with a hand-held camera that hardly ever cuts, this is documentary at its rivetting best.
Antaral (Endnote) – 18 min, fiction, experimental
Dir: Ashish Avikunthak
Three women reminisce about their times at school and rekindle and
affirm old friendships. They share a strange secret about each other
that is never made known to us. The film is a cinematic interpretation of Samuel Beckett’s 1967 dramaticule Come and Go
7:15 pm
Muet Comme Une Carpe (Silent as a Fish) – 35 min
Dir: Boris Lehman
The ‘Gefilte Fish’ is a traditional dish for the Ashkenazi Jews. From
the pond to the plate, we follow, accompanied by the rythme of a
folkloric song, a carp among many. Inspired from a childhood memory, the idea of the film is also to confront the ritual of prayer, the tradition of family gathering and the mass extermination issue.
Esprit de Bière (The Beer Spirit) – 52 min, Documentary-fiction
Dir: Claudio Pazienza
An X-ray of a glass of beer and the man drinking it. Barley changes in each of its meetings with water, heat, yeast… but what about the man? Does he, too, change in the course of his meetings, fortuitous or not? On the basis of some curious scientific experiments, Claudio Pazienza talks about beer, beer-making processes, and recipes, then gradually steers the topic towards what really interests him – authority and his own father. A strange, surrealistic stroll that reconciles science and art with delicate grace.
9:00 pm
Topic II – 7 min, experimental
Dir: Pascal Baes
Shot in the streets of Prague on Super 8 film and following the
experimental process of pixilation, our eyes follow figures sliding
close to the walls, as wandering souls. The unstated themes of this film are about censorship and imprisonment.
Sans titre (Untitled) – 15 min, fiction
Dir: Laurent Govaerts
The camera follows natural elements: the still water, the wind in the
trees… Nature is reclaiming its leadership of this post-industrial
area. In an abandoned place that we can’t localize, a man wakes up. Tinted with Lithuanian and Tarkovsky’s influences, this film
breathes out an obsessive and dreamlike quest for a link between the zone where you can once awake and the outer world.
Koro – 13 min, fiction
Dir: Guldem Durmaz
The filmmaker evokes a childhood memory of visits paid to her aunt, who was a political prisoner in Turkey. We see a visit into a no-man’s land, a place guarded by soldiers, through the eyes of a little girl. The film experiments with fluidity travelling shots, and creates an impression for us through the power of silent images.
Ysé – 15 min
Dir: Lionel Jadot
Ysé is a young woman working in a place we can’t exactly
localize. It seems a well-organized world… but she apparently sees
things that other people don’t. What is dream, what is reality? This
film has been made by a professional Belgian interior architect and set designer. It gives us a great atmospheric and pictorial movie, with a taste of SF.
Merci (Thank you) – 8 min
Dir: Christine Bobette
A city in the present time. A man gets on the tram and gives us a
refreshing vision of public transport.
Wednesday, March 21
6:00 pm
The Face – 5 min
Dir: Amar Kanwar
We know what Pinochet looks like, we know what Idi Amin looked like but do we know what General Than Shwe looks like?
Somewhere in May – 37 min, documentary
Dir: Amar Kanwar
On the 17th of May, 2004, Oslo celebrated the Norwegian National Day. This was also the day the Burmese military dictatorship began a sham National Convention for Democracy inside Burma. Through the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), a small radio station in Oslo, the Burmese resistance reports on this sham convention as it broadcasts news which is secretly heard by thousands within Burma. The film creates a sense of unease, and brings up questions about democracy, the holy missions of great national projects, and the individual’s relationship with the politics of today.
7:00 pm
Feu de Décembre (Fire of December) – 12 min, documentary
Dir: Françoise Installé
This is Françoises diploma film on the protests in Brussels, against
the European summit. The poetry and beauty of the film go far beyond the poor used means.
La Raison du Plus Fort (Might is Right) – 85 min, documentary
Dir: Patric Jean
Instead of fighting poverty, the system fights the poor. Following the American example, Europe polarizes itself between her rich areas and her poor suburbs. The poor in general and young immigrants in particular are fiercely feared. The film breaks the clichés and features them in their humaneness, in a cell in jail, in the dock or down in the basement with their emotions, desires, fears and despair. It shows that the European Democracy is far from being a society of equal rights for everybody.
8:45 pm
L’Argent des Pauvres (Poor Peoples’ Money) – 24 min, documentary
Dir: Charlotte Randour
The film is set in a socialist and post-industrial town, where the
closing of mines and factories has caused poverty and destitution. After being fired, the filmmaker’s mother decided to invest in a twin house which she could pay for entirely with her social fee. She lives there with her son and his teenage friends. We learn about their daily struggles for water and electricity, their communication with the neighbourhood… The film allows us to understand this exceptional woman, as well as the implications of her choices.
Do you Remember Revolution? – 60 min, documentary
Dir: Loredana Bianconi
In the mid ’70s, Adriana, Barbara Nadia and Suzanna left family,
friends and social life to join the Red Brigades, considered to be the
biggest Italian terrorist group post WWII. All of them became key
figures of the movement. After several years of involvement and after going underground, they were arrested and condemned to life
imprisonment. Years later, they speak about what brought them to make these radical choices that changed their lives and the country. They evoke the beginning of the ’70s in Italy, a period marked by strong social subversion and the will of a revolution. They tell us why they chose to use violence, while also daring to talk about mistakes, and problems with the group.
Thursday, March 22
6:00 pm
An Afternoon Amongst the Rocks – 15 min, fiction
Dir: Devendra Balsaraf
A couple snatches a few moments of tenderness out of their humdrum working class lives, on the rocks at the seashore. But bizzare circumstances overtake them. Adapted from a short story by Vilas Sarang, a tale that is hyper realistic and surreal at the same time.
Madsong – 18 min, fiction
Dir: Natasha Mendonca
Set in a nameless timeless place in India, the film centres on an
ordinary woman living an ordinary life wanting to plan an extraordinary party in celebration of her lover’s return. What happens when her lover comes home? The film looks at the fine balance of sanity, as we see it, perceive it and understand it. The time span could be a whole life, a day or a moment; the story could be a beginning or an end.
Zulmat – 21 min
Dir: Ishaan Ghosh
An brooding portrait of young people living on the streets – on the
edges of the city’s life. They are creatures of the night, and we
see them only by the sickening yellow of dim street lamps. A student
project from the Srishti School of Design, film-maker’s skill only
makes us feel more acutely the unsettling, edgy nature of the subject
matter.
7:15 pm
Yassin, d’un Trait (Yassin’s Scribbles) – 3 min
Dir: Anne Closset & Aline Moens
Yassin is a boy who lost his home in the Palestinian unrest. Starting
from a workshop with young children, the film is about how a video
portrait can be sketched in some seconds, evoking the here and now.
Sonate Blanche (White Sonata) – 27 min, documentary
Dir: Manon Coubia
The filmmaker follows her sister while she is preparing a piano
audition. She speaks with sensitively about this challenge, as Manon
Coubia’s sister is deaf. The insisting presence of light and the
close-ups become the touch of this intimate work. Going beyond the
frame, and the secrets told, it opens doors to inner feelings.
Roma Rushes – 10 min, documentary essay
Dir: Kika
Three days in Rome. Daily wanderings – I’m only passing by… The city gives itself away in sharp lights and rough images: the film is shot without editing. Visions of the city and its passengers.
Déjà Jadis (Already Gone) – 30 min, documentary-fiction
Dir: Christophe Van Collie
This poetic documentary is made of samples of life, in a video amateur style, to raise questions about the universal themes of family and the inheritance of generations. The beautiful images, mixing Super 8 and DV footage, the haiku-style rythms and the mise-en-scene invite us to enter into a personal feedback on family, mixed culture and paternal relationships
8:45 pm
Two Hands – 6 min, documentary
Dir: Fabio Wuytack
Palestine has only four cardiac surgeons and Mohammed Tamim is one of them. In 2003 he came to Belgium to specialise in paediatric surgery. But the second Intifada has made Mohammed a war surgeon, and every day he is fighting his own war. Despite it all, Mohammed has a dream that keeps him alive.
World Of Blue, Land of O – 52 min, documentary
Dir: Bram Van Paesschen
Brussels, Belgium. A hospital in the inner city. Three patients in the
infectious diseases ward. In this precarious and isolated existence, the ill are involved in a fight with their own mind and body. The filmmaker is a privileged witness to an utterly personal event, but he consciously avoids the customary human interest approach. Human confrontation turns into cinematographic confrontation: he denies himself, and the viewer, any release.
Friday, March 24
6:00 pm
Is Mod Pe Kuch Nahin Hota (Nothing Happens on This Turn) – 23 min,
fiction
Dir: Hitesh Kewalya
Uday runs. Not to escape from anything, but to catch the bus. He misses it by a whisker every day. He is now a reality show. The whole nation has advice to offer him, on how to get to that bus before it drives off leaving him panting on the footpath. Can he ever win? At the same time, in the same town, a middle-aged couple, Mr. and Mrs. Srivastava, are moving out of the house in which they have spent a lifetime. The film moves between the snappy style of contemporary TV, and a lyrical mood from another time and place.
6:45 pm
Tentatives de se Décrire (Trying to Describe Oneself) – 165 min,
Documentary-fiction
Dir: Boris Lehman
“To keep on and on going around oneself – clearly impossible but
what else to do? I come back to myself as in a nostalgic dream, each time filming what no longer exists, what has died in me… already the past and shadow of myself”.
After many films, master film-maker Boris Lehman comes back with the second part of a very singular project filmed in the manner of a
personal letter that includes travels, documentation about what he is doing, his social environment, the contemporary artist, anything that is close or rezoning upon his universe. Trying to Describe Oneself is a film about representation, exploring how it is possible, through film, to describe oneself and describe others, with the camera as mirror and third eye. Something between documentary and feature film, this is a portrait of Boris Lehman from 1989 to 1995.
Saturday, March 24
6:00 pm
Taaza Khabar – Hot off the Press – 31 min
Dir: Bishakha Dutta
Are free and fair elections being held in Nihi gram panchayat? How does the quarrying of a hill affect farmers in Bharatkup village? Why have eight people died of tuberculosis in Sukhrampur village? The film follows the all-woman team of journalists at Khabar Lahariya, an 8-page newspaper published from a small town in UP’s Chitrakoot district, on a breathless journey through police stations, polling booths, power cuts, printer failures, and sleepless nights… all part of a determined effort to ensure that Issue 62: Election Special reaches its rural readers right on time.
6:45 pm
Têtes aux Murs (Heads against the Wall) – 91 min, documentary
Dir: Bénédicte Liénard
We enter the lives of 4 youngsters in an institution and under legal
supervision from the summer of `95 till the winter of ‘97. As it
is legally prohibited to identify the underage delinquents on film, the
director transforms this hardship and creates an alternate, powerful
form of filming. The relationship between the visual/sound and the
making of a frame creates its own cinematic vision. Bénédicte
establishes a confident and trustful relationship with the teenagers,
who give her testimonies from their hearts.
8:30 pm
Une Part du Ciel (A Piece of Sky) – 90 min, fiction-documentary
Dir: Bénédicte Liénard
Joanna is in prison. It would seem that the illicit acts perpetrated by
Joanna were justified by her difficult work conditions at the factory
and pressure from the management. At the factory, the workers, her
former colleagues, regret not having supported her. In fact, this is
even more the case for the trade unionist, as we discover it. In prison, she revolts against the guardians, lives through conflicts with fellow prisoners and struggles to curb her violent and self-destructive impulses… In this film, Bénédicte Liénard describes two
mirror universes: the prison and the factory. In both cases, confinement and submission to an iniquitous hierarchy prevail, along with the exploitation of work.
Sunday, March 25
6:00 pm
I Am The Very Beautiful – 60 min, documentary
Dir: Shyamal Karmakar
If a human being is the best plot, then Ranu is one thick plot. Over the past 6 years of filming, she has moved from one relationship to another, from one home and even one country to another. After an extremely modest upbringing in a refugee family, an abduction, a child, suicide attempts and many failed relationships later, Ranu is a total contrast to Shyamal, the film-maker who is well educated, well to do and of course, well respected. Their relationship grows with the film as the two accept each other despite moral archetypes and the film ultimately, turns out to be a sign of their trust and respect for each other as human beings.
7:15 pm
La Cafetière (The Coffee Machine) – 3 min
Dir: Nadine Abril
The adventures of a coffee machine, or how can an object become
different through the point of view of its possessor. Satisfied, or do
you want your money back?
Pour Vivre J’ai laissé (To live, I left) – 29 min,
documentary-fiction
Dir: Bénédicte Liénard
Moustafa is number 44 632 on his entry pass to the asylum centre. This pass gives him the right to clothing, medical support and sanitary supplies. He questions the governmental procedures for asylum seekers, and feels that his identity revolves around it. His biggest dream is to marry and have children. One of the thousand stories in this no man’s land called `The Small Castle’ in Brussels.
Neglect – 9 min, Video-letter
Dir: Amir Najmi
A very personal insight on the mysteries of mankind and life, imagined by an Iranian member of the video collective PTTL.
Les Sociétaires (Screen) – 16 min
Dir: Vincent Meessen
This film mixes African fairytale and contemporary images to corrupt the standard documentary imagery and reveal multiple, related meanings. The images are filmed in African streets through the windows of a bus.
Les maîtres-chanteurs (The Blackmailers) – 50 min, documentary
Dir: Tristan Wibault / VOX
Migrants from Iran have gathered in a church in Brussels. Lying and
sitting on the ground covered with blankets, they are looking at the
wall paintings describing Christian scenes. These men have started a
hunger strike, which will last until they have received an answer from the Belgian government concerning their regularisation. The shooting takes place during the 9th and the 10th day of their strike, when they still have enough energy to speak and tell us their stories
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
Are any PFC-ians attending this festival? KK/Vasan/Chaitanya/Smriti/Manjit?
I might attend some of the films.
It’s a really good choice of films. I would request PFC-ians not to miss B