Ibn Battuta: The Man who Walked Across the World (UK)
A three-part BBC Four travelogue with Tim Mackintosh-Smith, British Arabist, writer, traveller and lecturer.  In an effort to break the west's monolithic view of Islam, Tim Mackintosh-Smith follows in the footsteps of 14th century Moroccan scholar Ibn Battuta, regarded by many to be one of the greatest travellers and explorers the world has ever seen, who covered 75,000 miles, 40 countries and three continents in a 30-year odyssey.  

Episode 1: Wanderlust
(60 min; 2008; English)
Beginning in North Africa, Tim Mackintosh-Smith visits Battuta's birthplace of Tangier in Morocco, and stumbles on a performance of medieval trance music. In Egypt, he goes to a remote village where Battuta had an astonishing prophetic dream and visits the world's oldest university in Cairo.

https://vimeo.com/38091671
 

Jiro Dreams of Sushi (USA)
(81 min; 2011; Japanese with English subtitles)
Director: David Gelb

Recipient of the Audience Award for Best International Feature Film, Monterrey International Film Festival 2011; DFCS Award for Best Documentary Film, Denver Film Critics Society 2013; and DFCS Award for Best Documentary, Detroit Film Critics Society Awards 2012

In the basement of a Tokyo office building, 85 year old sushi master Jiro Ono works tirelessly in his world renowned restaurant, Sukiyabashi Jiro. As his son Yoshikazu faces the pressures of stepping into his father's shoes and taking over the legendary restaurant, Jiro relentlessly pursues his lifelong quest to create the perfect piece of sushi.

The Secret History of Writing (UK)
The Secret History of Writing, a three-part BBC 4 documentary series presented by Lydia Wilson.
Wilson, an academic and journalist who is also the editor of the Cambridge Literary Review, started off by looking at the moment when writing with pictures transformed into writing with words, a quest that centred on the Rebus, a puzzle or pun in which pictures are used to represent words.

So who did create writing as we know it? As Wilson discovered, this was an entertainingly fraught topic that continues to be debated passionately by Egyptologists and specialists in Mesopotamian culture. The fascinating story that finally unfolded revealed that while some things stay the same (a hieroglyph on an Egyptian sapphire mine turned out to be a series of complaints about weather and working conditions), the smallest moment can change the world.

Series 3: Changing the Script
(59 min; 2020; English)
Director: David Sington

For more than a century, the world has seemed to be moving to a single universal script - the Latin alphabet. But that means more than changing words. It means changing identity.

https://www.documentarymania.com/player.php?title=Changing+the+Script

FOCUS ON WESTERN CLASSICAL MUSIC COMPOSERS

The Genius of Verdi with Rolando Villazón (UK)
(60 min; 2013; English)
Director: Dominic Best
A BBC Four production

Superstar opera tenor Rolando Villazón reveals an insider's view on performing music by one of the greatest opera composers, Giuseppe Verdi, who celebrates his bicentenary in 2013. By looking at some of Verdi's most well-known works including the operas Macbeth, Rigoletto, La Traviata, as well as his Requiem, Villazón shares his unique and passionate insight on Verdi's consummate skill - how he constructed dramatic episodes of searing reality, as well as the historical context in which the operas are set. Along with interviews with some of the world's leading Verdi singers, conductors and theatre directors, Villazón tells us why he thinks Verdi is a genius.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xzuf2z
 

Life, Animated (USA)
(92 min; 2016; English)
Director: Roger Ross Williams

Multiple award winner including Audience Award for Documentary Feature, Berkshire International Film Festival 2016; Student Jury Award, Budapest International Documentary Festival 2016; Critics’ Choice Documentary Award for Most Compelling Living Subject of a Documentary, Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards 2016; Emmy for Outstanding Arts & Culture Documentary, News & Documentary Emmy Awards 2018; among others

The inspirational story of Owen Suskind, a boy of considerable promise, until he developed autism at the age of 3. He was unable to speak until he and his family discovered a unique way to communicate by immersing themselves in the world of classic Disney animated films. This emotional coming-of-age story follows Owen as he graduates to adulthood and takes his first steps toward independence.

https://www.documentarymania.com/player.php?title=LIfe+Animated

PHYSICAL / HYBRID PROGRAMME

Release of the book India-Japan @70: Building Beyond the Bilateral
Edited by Srabani Roychoudhury, Sahana Thankachan and Parul Bakshi
 
Chief Guest: H.E. Mr. Satoshi Suzuki, Ambassador of Japan to India
Guest of Honour: Prof. Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit, Vice Chancellor, Jawaharlal Nehru University
Chair: Shri Shyam Saran, former Foreign Secretary and Life Trustee, IIC
Welcome Address: Mr. Koji Sato, Director General, The Japan Foundation
Special Remarks: Amb. Deepa Gopalan Wadhwa, former Ambassador to Japan
Remarks: Prof. Srabani RoyChoudhury, Centre for East Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University

Vote of Thanks: Dr. Sudhakar Vaddi, Centre for East Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University
 
As India and Japan celebrate 70 years of cultural and civilizational bedrock of their diplomatic relations, this volume delineates the past to the present, and offers a vision for the future. Commemorating the traditional areas of cooperation, it redefines the contours and components of bilateralism, and it offers a glimpse of existing and emerging areas of cooperation, enabling them to “Build Beyond the Bilateral”

This programme will be conducted in hybrid mode. 

Homi J Bhabha: A Renaissance Man among Scientists
by Biman Nath

About the book : This compelling monograph brings to light the life and times of Homi Jehangir Bhabha. It outlines the story of his life, his early work on cosmic rays which remained a lifelong obsession, his struggles to translate theories into experiments, and his achievements. This deeply evocative work portrays Bhabha’s visionary foresight in anticipating the urgent need for high-quality facilities in India to pursue research on nuclear energy. It also speaks of his passionate interest in art and architecture, drawing and painting, and his love for classical music, which made him stand out as a renaissance man among scientists.

Chair : Dr. Krishan Lal,  Co Chair IAP, Global Network of Science Academics ; Visiting Professor, Cluster Innovation Centre, DU ; President, Association of Academics and Societies of Sciences in Asia

Speakers : Prof. R. Rajaraman, Emeritus Professor of Theoretical Physics School of Physical Sciences, JNU ; Dr. Anil Kumar Mishra, Director, Institute of Nuclear Medicine & Allied Sciences (INMAS) ; Dr. R. K. Vatsa, Scientist, DAE ; Head, Public Awareness Division, DAE, ;Senior Professor of Chemistry, Homi Bhabha National Institute ;President, Indian Society for Mass Spectrometry (ISMAS) & Hon. Secretary, Society for Materials Chemistry;  Dr. Biman Nath, Astrophysicist, Raman research Institute & Author of the book
 

Registration Link

Hampi-Vijayanagara: Its Life and Afterlives

Illustrated lecture by Dr. Anila Verghese, art historian and educationist, Chairperson and Trustee, Society for Higher Education of Women in India; Director, Sophia Polytechnic, Mumbai and former Principal of Sophia College for Women, Mumbai

Introduction: Dr. Himanshu Prabha Ray

Chair: Prof. Anna Dallapiccola

Hampi is today one of the most famous tourist destinations in peninsular India; it is also a UNESCO world heritage site. This lecture will touch briefly on the various stages in the life and afterlives of this site. The first half of the lecture focuses briefly on the pre-Vijayanagara existence of the site as a tirtha; then its development as a large urban complex between the mid-fourteenth and the mid-sixteenth centuries CE, especially the first half of the sixteenth when it served as the capital of the Vijayanagara empire. The first important phase in its ‘afterlife’ was that of Hampi as an archaeological site. The next phase is of Hampi as predominantly a ‘heritage site’ and the present phase is of it largely as a ‘tourist site’.