(87 min; 2008; English)
Director: Astra Taylor
Featuring Cornel West, Avital Ronell, Peter Singer, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Martha Nussbaum, Michael Hardt, Slavoj Zizek, Judith Butler and Sunaura Taylor.

In Examined Life, filmmaker Astra Taylor accompanies some of today's most influential thinkers on a series of unique excursions through places and spaces that hold particular resonance for them and their ideas.

Peter Singer’s thoughts on the ethics of consumption are amplified against the backdrop of Fifth Avenue’s posh boutiques. Slavoj Zizek questions current beliefs about the environment while sifting through a garbage dump. Michael Hardt ponders the nature of revolution while surrounded by symbols of wealth and leisure. Judith Butler and a friend stroll through San Francisco’s Mission District questioning our culture’s fixation on individualism. And while driving through Manhattan, Cornel West—perhaps America’s best-known public intellectual—compares philosophy to jazz and blues, reminding us how intense and invigorating a life of the mind can be. Offering privileged moments with great thinkers from fields ranging from moral philosophy to cultural theory, Examined Life reveals philosophy’s power to transform the way we see the world around us and imagine our place in it.

(49 min; 2013; English)
Director: Nick Green

Narrated by Paul McGann

The Hanging Garden of Babylon is the only one of the seven wonders of the ancient world for which no archaeological evidence has ever been found. Centuries of digging have turned up nothing, and many people assume it never existed. But has everyone simply been looking in the wrong place? Oxford academic Stephanie Dalley has decoded an ancient, long-overlooked text in the British Museum and now believes that the gardens were built by another man, in another time, in another location. She travels to war-torn northern Iraq to gather evidence to support her controversial new theory and try to solve this ancient mystery.

Philip Larkin: Love and Death in Hull (UK) | Click here to watch
(60 min; 2003; English)
Directors: James Kent, Nicolas Kent & Ian MacMillan

With Martin Amis, Dave Hill, Philip Larkin (archival footage) 

This one hour single documentary looks at the life and work of Britain’s best loved poet, Philip Larkin. Larkin died in 1985 yet his words endure to this day. Like so many great poets, Larkin did not write for a living but worked a normal job so he was free to write what he wanted, when he wanted. He stopped writing poetry at 55– his poetry is still widely read and broadcast, and a variety of books and memoirs about the man have been published.

Screening to mark Philip Larkin’s Centenary Year 

https://vimeo.com/423992746

The Fear and Allure of Dissent

Speaker: Ashis Nandy

Welcome Remarks: Umakant Lakhera, President, Press Club of India (PCI)

Inauguration of the series: K.N. Shrivastava, Director, IIC

Closing Remarks: Vinay Kumar, Secretary General, PCI

Moderator: Suhas Borker

Venue: Conference Hall, Press Club of India, 1 Raisina Road, New Delhi 110001

First in a new series of Conversations with Media organised in collaboration with Press Club of India. The monthly programmes will be hosted by IIC and PCI alternatively every month
 

Speaker: Shri Ritesh Taksande, Faculty Member, Centre for Open Learning, Film & Television Institute of India, Pune

Chair: Suhas Borker, Convener, Jan Prasar and Editor, Citizens First TV (CFTV)

The rapidly changing technology poses serious challenges to the way we live our daily lives…The impact of the smartphone on how we consume news has been mind boggling. Not only can we receive instant updates, read news stories and articles, and watch video on the go – as a story unfolds in real time, mobile journalism has also ‘disrupted’ the way news is produced and reported. In the post smartphone scenario, with virtually all tools of newsgathering in their pockets, millions of reporters have popped up all over the world while fake news, misinformation and planted distortions are putting the basic journalistic standards of truth, ethics, integrity and accuracy under threat.

(Collaboration: Jan Prasar)

An exhibition of digital prints reproductions of Maria Prymachenko's paintings from the collection of National Museum of Ukrainian Folk Decorative Art. 

Maria Prymachenko (1908-1997) was a Ukrainian folk painter and a representative of naive art, who also painted on ceramics, drew and was known for her embroidery. The works painted in the period 1963 - 1988, present an incredibly colourful world full of fantasy, filled with strange creatures, animals, floral motifs, as well as scenes from fairy tales. 

Inauguration by H.E. Igor Poliha, Ambassador of Ukraine on Wednesday, 10 August 2022 at 18:30

(Collaboration: Embassy of Ukraine; and Polish Institute, New Delhi)

About the exhibition and the artist:

The Ukrainian World of Maria Pymachenko

The exhibition presents 11 reproductions of Maria Prymachenko's paintings from the collection of National Museum of Ukrainian Folk Decorative Art with text by Dorota Pietrzyk from PrestoPortal.pl
 
The exhibition includes digital prints of eleven paintings by Maria Prymachenko (1908-1997), a Ukrainian folk painter, and representative of naive art, who also worked on drawings, embroidery, and painting on ceramics. Selected works, painted in the years 1963 - 1988, present an incredibly colourful world full of fantasy, filled with strange creatures (e.g. black beast), animals (bull), floral motifs (peacock among hops), as well as scenes from fairy tales (a Ukrainian wedding). Maria Prymachenko’s works are full of folk ornamentations painted using rudimentary water-based paints, such as the so-called ‘tempera for beginners’. It was only towards the end of her life that she could afford to use more expensive and better quality tempera paints.
 
Maria Prymachenko did not receive any artistic education. She completed only 4 years of primary school and grew up in a family full of creative passions: her grandmother specialized in colouring Easter eggs, her father was an excellent carpenter, and her mother was a craftsman. She drew her ideas from the environment.

Manuscripts do not Burn: On the Track of the Manuscripts of the Syrian Christians of India

Speaker: István Perczel, Professor, Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Vienna

Chair: Kesavan Veluthat, formerly Professor of History, Delhi University

István Perczel has worked extensively on Late Antique and early Christian philosophy, and on Syriac Christianity. He initiated and directed the digitization and cataloguing of the manuscript collections of the Saint Thomas Christians of Kerala (the SRITE project)

Organised by IIC-International Research Division with the support of Ministry of External Affairs

Registration link  

An exhibition of photographs by Debalina Mazumder and Manobina Roy
Curated by Sabeena Gadihoke, Mallika Leuzinger and Tapati Guha-Thakurta
 
This exhibition delves into the photographic lives of twin sisters Debalina Mazumder (1919-2012) and Manobina Roy (1919-2001). Their practice encompassed a range of subjects and genres, joint experiments with light and shadow in 1930s Ramnagar (Benaras) giving way to striking portraits of family and friends in and around their homes in Calcutta and Bombay and distinctive glimpses of 1960s Europe.
 
Inauguration by Sharmila Tagore on Friday, 12 August 2022 at 18:30
 
 The Art Gallery will remain closed on 15 August 2022
 

Curators Walks
On 13 August 2022 at 12 noon - Curators Walk with Sabeena Gadihoke; and at 5 pm with Mallika Leuzinger
On 14 August 2022 at 12 noon and 5 pm – Curators Walk with Mallika Leuzinger
On 20, 21 and 27 August 2022 at 5 pm – Curators Walk with Sabeena Gadihoke
 

Thursday 18
 
Discussion ■ Seminar Rooms I to III, Kamaladevi Complex at 18:00
On the eve of World Photography Day
 
Panel discussion on The Home and Beyond: The World of the Amateur Photographer
Panelists: Sabeena Gadihoke, Professor, Video & TV Production, AJK Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia; Mallika Leuzinger, historian based at the German Historical Institute, London; Suryanandinin Narain, Assistant Professor, Visual Studies, School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University; and Uma Chakravarti, feminist historian, filmmaker and archivist
 
(Collaboration: CREA; Jadunath Bhavan, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata; and with the support of PhotoSouthAsia, MurthyNAYAK Foundation)

A tribute to well-known filmmaker and media professional, Pramod Mathur.

 13 August at 10 am    Are you with Me? (52 min; 2007; English)
An insight into the HIV & AIDS scenario in the state of Manipur in northeast India. The beginnings of injecting drug use, the subsequent spread of the HIV virus, later times, when awareness was higher but the task to combat drug use, HIV & AIDS and the status of widows was formidable. 

Discussion on Living with HIV
Introduction and Conversation led by Loon Gangte, HIV/AIDS activist

At 12:30     Sannate ka Chhand: Phrase of Silence (42 min; 1989; Hindi)
Sachchidananda Hirananda Vatsyayana 'Ajneya', a great modern Indian littérateur, who was proficient in English, but wrote in Hindi. He died before this film was completed, but an exclusive interview had been recorded. In the video film, Vatsyayan speaks his own biography against the backdrop of places where he has lived, though, created, loved and written.

Discussion on Ajneya’s Contribution to Hindi Literature
Introduction and Conversation led by Om Thanvi, writer, senior journalist, editor and critic, founding Vice-Chancellor, Haridev Joshi University of Journalism and Mass Communication, Jaipur

At 3 pm    Brainstorm: Morphing of the Documentary in the Era of Social Media
Thought sharing by Milin Kapoor, filmmaker, cinematographer, and editor; and Dr. Anandana Kapur, filmmaker and education, founder-Director, Cinemad India; Amudhan R.P., documentary filmmaker and media activist; Iikka Vehkalahti, former Commissioning Editor, Yle Television, Finland

Moderator: Aparna Sanyal, award-winning Director and Producer of nonfiction independent and television documentaries

At 4:45 pm    Krishna – The Divine Lover (28 min; 1985; English)
The charm of a God, more human than godly, donning various roles in different circumstances. Here, he is depicted in his romantic form. This depiction of a much-loved and worshipped God is contextualised with modern attitude towards love.

Discussion on Sensual Reality in Indian Culture
Introduction and Conversation led by Shovana Narayan, well-known Kathak artist and guru

At 5:30 pm    Look at My India (21 min; English)
A trailer segment of an unfinished project. Pramod Mathur had been thinking of people he befriended over 20 years ago in his film-making journey, wondering what happened to them. The aim was to talk with characters from his old films and see where they are between the past and present. Bimla in Koraput, Odisha, is one such character. 

Discussion on Western Hegemony in the Documentary Sector
Introduction and Conversation led by Neelima Mathur

At 7:15 pm    In Conversation: Growing and Living with a Filmmaker
Tanushree Sengupta with Neelima Mathur