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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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Watch: ‘Outsider’, a play in Hindi

Today, ‘Outsider’ plays as part of NCPA’s Hindi play festival, at 7 pm. The festival concludes tomorrow. Don’t miss it.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Vacation time is ideal for movies and plays. If you’re free today, you might want to check out the Hindi play Outsider, as part of the NCPA’s Ananda Hindi Natya Utsav.

Based on L’Etranger by Albert Camus, the play is about M, a free man who gets involved in a violent murder. As his story unfolds, we see the journey of a man as he struggles against an indifferent world. A stranger on the beach picks up a stranded shell and hears in it the secrets of the ocean. He is returning home after 20 years, remembering along the way all the secrets he uncovered that were hidden away in those grains of sand. Two stories and two lives that flow in and out of each other to represent that one life is good as another, is the basis of this play.

Written and directed by Gouri Dutt, the play stars Kumud Mishra, Ujjawal Chopra, Narottam Bain, Dilshaad Edibum Khurana, Jaihind Kumar and Ghanshyam Lalsa.

In 2011, the NCPA created and hosted its first-ever Hindi theatre festival NCPA Ananda Hindi Natya Utsav. The festival, held in May every year, showcases original Hindi plays that have strong literary roots. Ananda means happiness or pleasure.

Further, Ananda Hindi Natya Utsav presents a small selection of Mumbai’s Hindi theatre at its most joyous and original best. Mumbai groups such as IPTA, Ank, Ekjute and Yatri have performed, along with new and budding companies, in previous editions.

For more information and booking, look up the NCPA Mumbai page.

(Picture courtesy ncpamumbai.com)

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Film screening: Gandhi’s Salt Satyagraha

Gandhi Film Foundation will screen the film, shot in 1930, till May 31. School students and historians are particularly invited.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

We’ve all read about Mahatma Gandhi’s famous Salt Satyagraha and the Dandi March that led to the breaking of the British monopoly over the first use of salt in India. Now, you’ve got the chance to see the actual journey.

Salt The Gandhi Film Foundation is screening a 15-minute film that shows rare footage from Gandhi’s historic 241 miles-long walk from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi. The film is being screened several times a day from April 22 and will be shown till May 31, 2014. The Foundation believes that students of schools, colleges and activity centres, as also historians, would like to see the footage that was recorded in 1930.

Says Nitin Potdar, Chairman of the Gandhi Film Foundation, “The audio-visual medium the best medium to keep students interested in history and since we have the footage of this great historic movement which occurred almost 85 years ago, we thought it would be good for students to see the manner in which the Salt Satyagraha was lead by Gandhiji rather than reading the same in text books.”

Subhash Jaykar, Director of Gandhi Film Foundation adds, “Gandhiji started a 241-mile-long walk from the Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi, a village on the sea-coast, along with his chosen band of seventy-eight Ashramites. After 24 days, on April 5, 1930, Sarojini Naidu received Gandhiji and his followers on the outskirts of the village. On April 6, after the dip into the sea, walking at a slow pace in solemnity, Gandhi picked up a lump of natural salt on the seashore and the nefarious monopoly was broken.  Nowhere had a law been more peacefully and yet more defiantly disobeyed. We have captured this very journey in the film.”

Head to Gandhi Films Exhibition Centre, at Mani Bhavan, Annex Building, at Laburnum Road, Mumbai 400007. Call Subhash Jaykar or Pratibha on 022 2380 4681 or write to info@gandhifilms.org for details.

(Pictures courtesy www.sumit4all.com, www.starsai.com)

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Of mothers, through dance

Dr Anita Ratnam performs ‘Circles of Love’ at the NCPA tomorrow, where she presents the mother in all her forms.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

A mother is a fascinating creature – she is everything and everywoman. Noted danseuse Dr Anita Ratnam will present the ‘mother’ in all her terrific and terrifying forms tomorrow at the NCPA, through her new work, Circles of Love.

Anita RatnamPart of the Mudra Dance Festival 2014, Circles of Love focusses on mothers usnig ancient and contemporary poetry, spoken word interludes and familiar references from cultural memory to trace the outlines of what it means to be a mother who is eternally fragile and part of a cycle. Anita will portray the woman as mother, giver of life, psychic gardener, caretaker of lives and terrifying protector.

The performance will weave story, diary, movement and life into a living tapestry. As daughter, wife, mother and grandmother, the various shades of maternal joy and grief will be shared in an interdisciplinary performance informed by myth, memory and humour. Known for her attention to visual design and new movement aesthetic, Anita Ratnam will illuminate her ideas with familiar maternal images from Indian myths. Yasodha and Krishna, Devi with Ganesh and Murugan and a specially composed spoken word poem about her grandmother, mother and daughter, will be presented during the performance.

Guest artiste Malavika Sangghvi, well known writer, columnist and poet, will  complement the kinetic template with her words and personal imagination to the evening. Poetry and prose that weave ruminations about motherhood and womanisms, Malavika will add texture and tone to the dance and spoken word production. Both Anita and Malavika will give a talk right after the show.

Head to The Experimental Theatre, NCPA, Nariman Point, at 7 pm on Saturday, April 26, 2014.

 

(Picture courtesy Dr Anita Ratnam, arangham.com)

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