Thursday 14 September 2017

Film Fest @ Goethe-Institut, Chennai

GOETHE-INSTITUT / MAX MUELLER BHAVAN Chennai
and MARUPAKKAM
present
SOCIAL JUSTICE FILM FESTIVAL
curated by Amudhan RP

14-16, September| 10.00 a.m. – 8.00 p.m. | Goethe-Institut Auditorium

Day 3 Saturday, 16 September 2017

The Schedule

10.00 a.m. Accsex
Dir: Shweta Ghosh | 52 min. | Hindi and English
Within stifling dichotomies of normal and abnormal, lie millions of women, negotiating with their identities, Accsex explores notions of beauty, the 'ideal body' and sexuality through four storytellers.

Four women who happen to be people with disability, through the lives of Natasha, Sonali, Kanti and Abha, this film brings to fore questions of acceptance, confidence and resistance to the normative. As it turns out, these questions are not too removed from everyday realities of several others, deemed 'imperfect' and 'monstrous' for not fitting in.

Accsex traces the journey of the storytellers as they reclaim agency and the right to unapologetic confidence, sexual expression and happiness.

11.00 a.m. Interaction with Aiswarya Rao-Activist

11.20 a.m. Our Family
Dir: Anjali Monteiro and KP Jayasankar | 56 min. | Tamil with English subtitles
What does it mean to cross that line which sharply divides us on the basis of gender? To free oneself of the socially constructed onus of being male? Is there life beyond a hetero-normative family?
Set in Tamil Nadu, India, ‘Our Family’ brings together excerpts from Nirvanam, a one person performance, by Pritham K. Chakravarthy and a family of three generations of trans-gendered female subjects.

12.20 p.m. Interaction with Ranjani Murthy, Researcher / Activist
12.45 p.m. Short films by Jeyachandra Hashmi
To Let (2:40 min): To-Let is a short film on house hunting which shows plight of people from different sorts of life, through which a long standing discrimination is explained.

Kalavu (1:47 min): A boy is accused by his friends for an act of theft. He denies it and asks the other two boys to come with him to the ground to prove his innocence. Parallely, a father brings his daughter to a photo studio. The two parallel stories connect at one point revealing the shocking social scenario. The connection between them forms the crux and climax of the film.

12.50 p.m. Interaction with Hashmi
2.00 p.m. Death of a River
Dir: RR Srinivasan | 60 min. | Tamil with English subtitles

Death of a River is a documentary about the Manjolai massacre, which took place when Tamil Nadu police attacked a procession of striking tea estate workers, their families and supporters on July 23. The demonstrating workers were demanding that they be paid the half-day wages illegally deducted from their pay packets since February and the release of 652 fellow workers previously arrested by police.

Seventeen people, including two women and a two-year-old boy, were killed and 500 injured during the police attack. The documentary exposes the provocative nature of the police attack, which involved the Rapid Action Force, a special police unit, and shows police throwing bricks and stones at the demonstrators. It also includes footage of police firing tear gas, rubber bullets and rifles at the terror-stricken and unarmed men, women and children. The demonstrators were subjected to a baton-charge and forced into the river; a waiting column of police beat those able to make their way to the other side
of the river.

3.00 p.m. Interaction with RR Srinivasan-Filmmaker and Yazhan Aathi-Poet 3.20 p.m. Kakkoos
Dir: Divya Bharathi | 108 min. | Tamil with English subtitles
The documentary, shot in 25 districts for over a year, conveys the message that even though manual scavenging was banned in India in 2013 it continues to exist and conservancy workers are involved in removing human waste. The film is dedicated to those who maintain a “false silence on manual scavenging”.

5.10 p.m. Interaction with Divya Bharathi-Filmmaker, Suseela Anand-Activist

5.30 p.m. The Unbearable Being of Lightness
Dir: Ramachandra PN | 45 min.| English
A documentary film on a suicide note, a few gazes and a shopping complex.

6.15 p.m. Interaction with Amshan Kumar-Filmmaker

6.30 p.m. Closing Ceremony Special lecture by Venkatesh Chakravarthy, Filmmaker/Teacher,
Dean - Media Studies, SRM University. 
Felicitation by Bava Chelladurai-Writer and Aloor Shanavas-Filmmaker/Activist

Celebrating Poramboke – Music, Films and Talk with Nityanand Jayaraman, Activist/Researcher

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