CHILDREN OF THE PYRE (India, 2008)
Kashmiri director Rajesh S Jala’s stark filmic explorations of Indian life reach their apex in Children of the Pyre, an unforgettable documentary about North India’s most despised “untouchables”. (Feature) 74 minutes.
FANDRY (India, 2013)
Teenager Jabya and his family are “untouchables”, still the subjects of wholesale discrimination 60 years after the caste system was abolished. For Jabya this is concerning because it means he doesn’t have the confidence to talk to Shalu, a higher caste girl he has fallen for. Rebellion seems the only way out, but there are some who don’t take kindly to those who would rise above their station. (Feature) 103 minutes.
THE FORT (India, 2014)
After moving from the city to the countryside so his mother can find work and he can recover from his father’s recent death, young Chinu initially has trouble fitting in. He gradually falls in with a group of boys his age, but when it seems that they betray his offer of friendship, he must come to terms with loneliness, loss and the need to start afresh. (Feature) 106 minutes.
INVOKING JUSTICE (India, 2011)
In the Muslim-dominated communities of Southern India, civil disputes are settled by all-male Jamaats (councils) that frequently apply inconsistent and biased interpretations of Sharia law to divorce requests, family law grievances, domestic violence and murder. Women are not allowed to attend their own hearings, instead relying on male family members to present their cases. (Feature) 86 minutes.
JAI BHIM COMRADE (India, 2012)
Mumbai, 1997. A statue of Dr BR Ambedkar, champion of India’s Dalit, or “untouchables”, is defaced. This sparks riots that are murderously quashed by police, as well as a protest suicide by activist and poet Vilas Ghogre. This documentary traces the ongoing struggle through the poetry and music of Ghogre as it explores a centuries-old conflict drawn along caste lines. (Feature) 169 minutes.
JOHN & JANE (India, 2005)
Meet the people on the other side of the telemarketing boom: India’s industrious call centre operators. We call them John or Jane, but their names are as false as the hopes they are peddled. Extensive training grooms them to pitch products into US homes, taking abuse and responding to rudeness as part of the job; however behind every call is an ambitious worker coveting the lifestyle at the end of the line. (Feature) 83 minutes
MY NAME IS SALT (India, Switzerland, 2013)
Year after year, Sanabhai brings his family to a seasonal, saline desert, where they harvest what they proudly proclaim to be the world’s whitest salt. Knee-deep in brine, in the glare of the blinding sun, they toil ritualistically for eight months, only to have their Sisyphean stone roll back down the mountain when the monsoon floods the desert and all traces of their work. (Feature)92 minutes.
QUARTER NUMBER 4/11 (India, 2012)
In 1993, a large factory in Kolkata was shut down, leaving its workers (many of whom lived on-site for years) unemployed. With his livelihood gone and a protracted case against the company ongoing, one of the workers has refused to leave; his tiny domicile gradually dwarfed by the apartment blocks and shopping complexes being constructed on the factory remains. (Feature)69 minutes.
TITLI (India, 2014)
Titli is the youngest member in a family of car-jackers, desperate to escape the criminal life he was born into. When his frustrated brothers attempt to marry him off, Titli discovers an ally in his equally unwilling bride Neelu, and the two strike a bargain to help one another escape their worlds. (Feature) 125 minutes.
TOMORROW WE DISAPPEAR (India, USA, 2014)
For half a century, New Delhi’s Kathputli Colony has been home to thousands of the city’s magicians, acrobats, singers and puppeteers. More than simply a community of like-minded souls, Kathputli is an incubator and preserver of artistic traditions that go back thousands of years. But now the government wants to bulldoze the entire slum to make room for a skyscraper and the residents of Kathputli must decide whether to fight or fade away. (Feature)84 minutes.
VERTICAL CITY (India, 2011)
A new place has been built for some of Mumbai’s many slum-dwellers: a high-rise building in the city’s outer suburbs. Is this an act of kindness, or erasure? And what effect does such a relocation have on a community and on the individual? (Short) 34 minutes.
Source: miff.com.au (All details of timings, venues, dates, synopsis and tickets also in this site)
– SAT News Service
