IAWRT Schedule

The 19th IAWRT Asian Women’s Film Festival: 7 to 9 March 2024

The 19th edition of the festival brings together a collection of over 60 films from across 20 countries, directed by women filmmakers of Asian origin. The festival showcases feature films, documentaries, short fiction, animation, student films and experimental work and a focus on short fiction films from Iran. The festival includes a homage to Chandita Mukherjee with a screening of her film “Totanama” (32 min/1991). 

Organised in collaboration with International Association of Women in Radio &Television, Chapter India; Embassy of France; Alliance Française, New Delhi; Institute Français; Breakthrough; Delhi Tourism; Max Mueller Bhavan-Goethe Institut; INKO Centre, Chennai; Kerala Travels; and Sher-Gil Sundaram Arts Foundation

Screenings will be held in the Auditorium on 7, 8 and 9 March 2024 from 09:30 onwards. Some of the filmmakers will be present for post-screening discussions 

Highlights of the festival include:

On 7 March 2024 at 18:00
Opening Ceremony
Followed by screening of the film
 

The Siren (France/Germany/Luxembourg/Belgium)
(100 min; 2023; Farsi with English subtitles) 
Director: Sepideh Farsi

Multiple award winning animated feature, celebrated all over the world. The film examines the human cost of war and how it scars generations

Exhibitions:
Daastaan-e-rafoo
Stories in stiches -an exhibition of embroidered works created by women of Rafooghar – The House that mends. The works on display are based on the themes of Mapping Mobility-Zindagi ka Naksha – maps of the domestic lives and daily routine of the women; and Expressive Portraits –Meri Pehchaan – embroidered portraits of women, centred around their identities

On view in the Foyer outside the Auditorium

The Love Lihaaf Baithak
A collective stitching experience – join the women of Rafooghar – The House that mends to add stitches to the work-in-process quilt
On display are process photographs, embroidered hoops, bags and story cloths

Learn Through Stories
An exhibition of illustrated books and stories by Alka Hingorani 

Both exhibitions are on view in the Quadrangle Garden from 7 to 9 March 2024

7 to 9 March 2024 in Conference Room I
Workshop from 10:00 to 17:30: Balancing Acts

A three-day workshop on balancing messaging and storytelling in films. Participants will be trained in writing scripts and making films which are both entertaining and gender sensitive

The Devourer (74 min; 2023; English)
Directed by Lavrenty Repin, journalist and filmmaker, who will introduce the film

Screening will be followed by a discussion

Following the journey of a young traditional healer from South Africa, on a visit to an ailing elder shaman and his family, The Devourer reveals a misrepresented and endangered indigenous (!Xoon) community, living precariously on the border of Namibia and Botswana.

ONLINE WEBINAR 

Speaker: Barbara Harriss-White, Emeritus Professor of Development Studies, Oxford University and Emeritus Fellow, Wolfson College

Chair: Muchkund Dubey, President, Council for Social Development

This lecture explores what a particular product – gold- tells us about Indian society. India is an emerging global gold hub, yet gold is strangely neglected by researchers. Using a systematic political economy approach encompassing import, refining, craft and mechanized production, re-export, retail and gendered deployment in the largely informal rural economy. This lecture examines the centrality of gold to India’s social and economic life. It further suggest reasons for its significant black flows, the decades of unstable regulative efforts to rein in ‘unproductive’ social stockpiling vastly in excess of official reserves, and other policies beset by problems and conflicts of enforcement.

The 6th Social Change Annual Lecture

(Collaboration: Council for Social Development; and Sage India)

Registration link: https://bit.ly/SocialChangeLecture24
 

Aviation and Foreign Policy: Convergence

By Sanat Kaul (KW Publishers)

Discussants: Amb. Nalin Surie, former Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs; and Dr. Sanat Kaul, Chairman, International Foundation for Aviation Aerospace and Drones, and author of the book

Chiar :Shri K.N. Shrivastava, Director, IIC

An exhibition of paintings, acrylic on canvas
By Christina Dipa Patowary from Assam

Inauguration by Shri Naresh Kapuria, senior artist and Shri Rajat Gupta, art promoter on Tuesday, 5 March 2024 at 18:30

By Pt. Satish Vyas

In memory of Shri Vasant Sathe

(Collaboration: Sarvajanik Utsav Samiti, New Delhi; and Shri Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Memorial National Committee)
 

Kavita ka kaam aansoo ponchna nahi
Edited by Purwa Bhardwaj (Jild Books; 2024)

A collection of 84 poems translated into Hindi featuring works by 32 Palestinian poets. The carefully selected anthology has been drawn from all walks of life and by poets from different time periods/generations and based in different countries. Poets included in the volume are Mahmoud Darwish, Zakaria Mohammad, Hosam Marouf, Fadwa Tuqan, Ahlam Bsharat, Rauda Morcos, Dareen Tatour, Kamal Nasser to name a few.

A discussion and readings by Ashok Vajpeyi, poet, critic, translator; Apoorvanand, critic, Professor; Nidheesh Tyagi, poet, critic, journalist; and others
 

Illustrated lecture by Prof. Himanshu Prabha Ray, author and historian, currently Research Fellow, Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, Oxford and Routledge Series Editor, Archaeology and Religion in South Asia

The search for relics of the Buddha is a fascinating story of irretrievable transformation of an ancient religious practice dating from the 3rd century BCE Mauryan period in the 19th and 20th centuries as brick mounds indicating ancient stupas yielded their treasures of gems, gold and coins to indiscriminate diggers and adventurers. The talk will provide a context and the background to the IIC photo exhibition in the Quadrangle Garden
 

A Passage to India

A Spanish diplomat in India, Guillermo Nadal Blanes (1954-1975)

Seven years after the establishment of diplomatic relations between India and Spain in 1956, Guillermo Nadal arrived in 1961 to serve as Chargé d’Affaires at the Spanish embassy and was later promoted as Ambassador, remaining in India continuously until 1975. His Indian epoch was extraordinarily intense, not only in how it influenced the forging of a relationship between the two countries, but also perhaps due to his profound dedication to various facets of Indian thought, its history, politics and culture.

Dr. Gonçal Artur López Nadal, nephew of Amb. Guillermo Nadal will present an illustrated lecture using footage from the original films made by his uncle to give a glimpse of this intimate communion, unusual between a diplomat and the country in which he carried out his mission

Remarks by H.E. Mr. Jose Maria Ridao Dominguez, Ambassador of Spain; and Dr. Òscar Pujol, Director, Cervantes Institute, New Delhi

(Collaboration: Cervantes Institute, New Delhi)

The Blessings of Maharishi: The Wonderful Story of My Life (An autobiography)

By Lothar Pric (Motilal Banarsidass: 2024)

Discussants: Shri Devendra Triguna, Indian Ayurveda Practitioner & former Honorary Physician to the President of India; Shri Lakshman Shrivastava, Director – Services, Maharishi Ayurveda Products Pvt. Ltd. & Executive Director, Maharishi Ayurveda Hospital, Delhi; and Prof. Lothar Pirc, CEO, Maharishi Ayurveda Health Centre and author of the book

Chair: Maj. Gen. (Retd.) G.D. Bakshi, Strategic expert and writer