India

Ormajeevikal (Memory Beings) is an impressionistic film that paints a picture of the town Kozhikode situated in North Kerala, a region in South India, and the spiritual immersion of ordinary town dwellers in music.The film is a reflective essay traversing sounds and spaces that build a portrait of a small town ( dominantly Muslim) with a music culture that is cosmopolitan, it’s hearing and performance cultures having strong local but equally global influences of Arabic, Western music cultures. This terrain exists in resilience to dominantly accepted cultural forms ( Carnatic classical music) in the region. The films travels through the music and memories of many a people- from a radio shop owner, to a small time singer to rare female singers who sang in all mehfils (a tradition of musicians gathering) in the past, a mehfil of singers who are labourers in the market below to connoiseurs of music, objects and memory.

10/6  14:30

“Rituals of Resistance” looks at the evolving generational responses by pacifist Tibetans under 65 years of Chinese occupation. Through first-hand oral accounts by three Tibetan exiles living in disparate parts of the world, the film traces the three paths of resistance from the active and the brutal, to the realm of the symbolic and sacrificial. The film creatively explores the history of resistance through each subject’s relation to the medium of their era.

After the Chinese invasion in 1950, a devout monk turns to violence and becomes a guerrilla leader, launching pinprick raids from his base in Nepal. An immigrant mother in California, who follows the Dalai Lama’s Middle Path of nonviolence, defies Chinese border restrictions to reunite with her family after 30 years of separation. A student-activist in India, who grew up under Chinese-controlled Tibet, turns to suicide protest.

Each individual grapples with his or her Buddhist beliefs at the face of national and political imperatives.

Interspersed between each portrait, the Tibetan American director reflects on each mode of resistance as he wanders the American frontier that resembles his lost homeland.

10/5  13:00

本片紀錄了2002年在印度西部Gujarat省因政治和宗教理念相左而引發的大屠殺事件，深入探討仇恨的政治；將之與1930年代德國納粹種族淨化的意識型態相比較，以點出種族仇恨歷史事件重演的盲點，進而申張反仇恨/暴力的理念。

The story begins inside an 8X10 feet partitioned room in central Kolkata. Almost nothing is visible inside. In fact, Bilal’s parents are blind. Bilal is just three years old and he has an infant brother. Both of them can see. Bilal is totally aware of the physical disabilities of his parents even he is at such an early age. He knows how to communicate with them through sounds and touch. He is always very occupied with the work of taking care of his blind parents and infant brother. Whenever Bilal gets naughty, his parents may become strict and cross at him. He would just simply run out to the streets, trying to escape from the bitter and harsh life. Very unusually for our times, Bilal’s upbringing and care seems to have become a collective responsibility of all the neighbors. Through the camera, we saw a story of sharing love, fun, cruelty and hope… the wonder world of Bilal.

Please Don’t Beat Me, Sir! is set in a ghetto in Western India. It’s about Budhan Theatre, a group of young Chhara Tribals who are considered “born criminals.” In 2003 Dakxin, a director and playwright, was arrested on false charges. We were concerned because the Chharas face are regularly brutalized by the Police. The documentary evolved from that initiative. Dakxin and his friend Roxy became our guides into why the Chhara are so reviled. They told us how the Chhara were notified as “born criminals” by the British colonial government in 1871, and how entire families were incarcerated in “soft” concentration camps. The British are long gone but their legacy remains in the shape of social discrimination and prejudice. There is however, a ray of hope in the form of Budhan Theatre, which works to bring about change in this beleaguered community.