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Celebrate the ‘Fall of the Wall’ in Mumbai

Six German documentary films to commemorate the pulling down of the Berlin Wall will be shown in Mumbai this week. Don’t miss.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

November 9, 1989 is one of the most crucial days in German history – on this day, the world watched in amazement as jubilant crowds gathered on both sides of the Berlin Wall to celebrate the totally unexpected opening of the border crossings between the Eastern and Western parts of the city. A peaceful revolution in East Germany had finally cracked this grim symbol of Cold War and political oppression.

25 years have passed since then. The Goethe Institut Mumbai is commemorating the milestone in Germany’s history with the screenings of six German films starting today, Sunday, November 9 to November 12, 2014. The films are documentaries and feature films. See the schedule as under:

Fall of the Wall schedule

(Picture courtesy thekidswindow.co.uk)

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Watch: Films by Satyajit Ray

Today and tomorrow, two Ray classics will be screened at the Max Mueller Bhavan. Don’t miss these films for anything.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

This evening and tomorrow, spend your time wisely – revisit Satyajit Ray’s iconic classics Charulata and Mahanagar. Max Mueller Bhavan is screening both these films in the evening hours.  (See directions and timings below).

Charulata is based on a story by Rabindranath Tagore ‘Nastanirh’ (The broken nest), Satyajit Ray’s exquisite story of a woman’s artistic and romantic yearning takes place in late 19th century, pre-independence India, in the gracious home of a liberal-minded, workaholic newspaper editor and his lonely wife, Charulata (Madhabi Mukherjee). When her husband’s poet cousin (Soumitra Chatterjee) comes to stay with them, Charulata finds herself both creatively inspired and dangerously drawn to him. Charulata is a work of subtle textures, a delicate tale of a marriage in jeopardy and a woman taking the first steps toward establishing her own voice. The film was shown at the 1965 Berlin Film Festival and is considered one of Ray’s finest works.

MahanagarMahanagar (in pic on left) is based on Calcutta in the mid 1950s. The film opens with a vignette of a lower middle-class family. Based on a novel by Narbenda Nath Mitra, Satyajit Ray takes a rare foray into social satire with 1963’s The Big City. Anil Chaterjee stars as the typically subjugated wife of an Indian bank official. When the banker loses his job, he orders Anil to find work to make ends meet. The wife subsequently runs the household finances so brilliantly that soon she is in the driver’s seat, in direct opposition to long-established Indian matrimonial custom. This film was seen by some critics as a subtle plea for improving the status of Indian womanhood.

Both films will screen at Bibliothek, Max Mueller Bhavan, Kala Ghoda, at 6.30 pm. Charulata will screen on Friday, October 10 and Mahanagar on Saturday, October 11. Entry is free.

(Pictures courtesy www.livemint.com, ibnlive.com)

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Watch: A miniseries over three days

Max Mueller Bhavan, Kala Ghoda, is showing the famous German miniseries ‘Berlin Alexanderplatz’ by RW Fassbinder, from today to Sunday.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Everybody loves watching a good miniseries. And if it’s a miniseries helmed by RW Fassbinder, about a man convicted for murder and his life after coming out of jail, it is definitely worth a dekko.

The Max Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai, is showing the 14-part miniseries Berlin Alexanderplatz, Fassbinder’s famous adaptation of Alfred Dobin’s novel by the same name. The complete series is 15½ hours long and was first aired in Germany in 1980. In 1983, it was released theatrically in the United States, where a theatre would show two or three parts per night. It garnered a cult following in the US and was eventually released on VHS and broadcast on PBS.

Max Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai will present the re-mastered version of the series from today, September 12, to Sunday, September 14, in 14 parts. Three parts will be aired today, five tomorrow and the rest on Sunday. Entry and seating on all three days is free and on a first-come-first-seated basis.

Head to Galerie Max Mueller, Max Mueller Bhavan, Kala Ghoda. Timings for the screenings are: Friday, September 12, 6.30 pm onward; Saturday, September 13, 5 pm onward; and Sunday, September 14, 11 am onward.

(Picture courtesy www.theguardian.com)

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Watch: ‘Siddharth’

Today, the powerful feature film ‘Siddharth’ will be screened at the Theosophy Hall; the film is directed by Richie Mehta.

For a sensitive, well-made film on the travails of parents looking for lost or abducted children and the menace of child trafficking, you have to watch Siddharth this evening at the Theosophy Hall.

The film is named after its protagonist,12-year-old Siddharth, who is sent away for work by his father, Mahendra. Mahendra is a chainwallah, who fixes broken zippers on the streets and is relieved as he hopes Siddharth will help in allevating his financial burdens at home. But when Siddharth fails to return home, Mahendra learns he may have been taken by child-traffickers. With little resources and no connections, he travels across India in pursuit, with the hope that whatever force arbitrarily took his child away will return him unharmed.

The film takes a powerful look at the brutal exploitation of children on the streets, the most vulnerable people and the wide net cast by child-traffickers. Poignant and bitter-sweet, the film is a must watch.

Siddharth is presented by the Root Reel in association with Dharamshala International Film Festival.

Entry for the screening is free, however seating is limited and hence on a First Come First Serve basis.

Head to the Theosophy Hall, Alliance Française de Bombay, on Wednesday, July 30, at 6.30 pm.

(Picture courtesy www.anokhimedia.com)

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Watch: ‘Waiting for a storm’

The Films Division of India will premiere Prachi Mokashi’s debut film that documents the lives of people farming on ‘chars’.
by Medha Kulkarni | @VeryMedha on Twitter

This Saturday, July 26, 2014, the Films Division of India is hosting the premiere of a film by Prachi Mokashi, titled Waiting For a Storm. Made this year, This film was made possible with an Early Career Fellowship awarded by the School of Media and Cultural Studies, TISS and is Mokashi’s first film.

A young, independent India believed in the panacea of technology to address the crisis that nature often imposed on the nation. The Films Division archives has painstakingly documented that vision by making films on the building of dams, on the production and use of fertilisers and pesticides, on modern farming techniques and use of high yielding seeds. The 1957 film, Defence Of Dibrugarh, produced by Films Division, documents the taming of the river Brahmaputra – therein lies the solution to the crisis of this tempestuous river.

Prachi Mokashi sets out to the document the lives of the people who live and farm on chars, the temporary islands formed by the ever shifting Brahmaputra. The river is not the adversary, not for the filmmaker and nor for the subjects of her film. Waiting For A Storm tries to inhabit life alongside the river through breathtaking visuals and a rhythm that draws from the ebb and flow of the river. Within this world, the filmmaker’s gaze rests on embattled lives of those who live on chars and the issues of citizenship and ownership that marks their existence.

The 14 minute film, Defence Of Dibrugarh, will be screened first, followed by Prachi’s film.

Head to RR II Theatre, 6th floor, Phase II building, Films Division, Peddar Road. The films will be screened on July 26, 2014 at 4 pm. Entry is free and on a first-come-first-seated basis.

 

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Watch: ‘Three women’, at the NCPA

Lavish costumes, live electronica and folk pop music and three fascinating characters make this production a must watch this weekend.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Avid Learning, in partnership with NCPA, Neerupama Properties and Godrej Properties will present Isheeta Ganguly’s, Three Women,  a musical theatre production based on three iconic women that represent Rabindranath Tagore’s Bengali Renaissance, two of whom are fictional and one who is from his own life. ‘Bimala’, the female protagonist of Tagore’s novella The Home and the World and ‘Charu’, her counterpart from his work The Broken Nest, are seen from the perspective of ‘Kadambari Devi’, Tagore’s sister-in-law and lifetime muse, as they instigate change from patriarchy towards  progression and freedom.

Set to electronika and folk-pop beats and laced with pathos and edgy humour, MeherAcharia Dar, AvantikaAkerker and IsheetaGanguly play urban, educated women of the 21st century, who are negotiating their notion of identity and self-worth in relation to the times that they live in, voicing issues relevant to the global gender empowerment discussion. With customised costumes by TarunTahiliani and live accompaniment by Sunita Bhuyan on the violin and Suchet Malhotra on percussion, this production, written, directed and musically composed by Isheeta Ganguly is a sensorial treat with gravitas.

After drawing a crowd of over a thousand people at the Kala Ghoda Festival in February 2014, this show’s national tour kicks off from the NCPA on Saturday, May 10, 2014, in Mumbai. 

(Pictures courtesy NCPA)

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