Curated by Sunit Tandon and Samaresh Chatterji

Verdi: La Traviata | (132 min; 2005; dvd; English subtitles)

With Anna Netrebko (Violetta Valery); Rolando Villazón (Alfredo Germont); Thomas Hampson (Giorgio Germont)
Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus
Mozarteum Orchestra (Stage Music)
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Conductor: Carlo Rizzi

A stellar opera event of 2005, the Salzburg Festival’s production of Verdi’s classic in a dramatic modern staging by Willy Decker. This is the thrilling production that prompted riotous ovations at its first presentation. The opera tells the story of the tragic love between the courtesan Violetta and the romantic Alfredo Germont. Played out against the hypocrisy of upper-class fashionable society, Alfredo and Violetta's love threatens to shame his family.

Introduced by Samaresh Chatterji

Series director: Adrian Pennink
Recipient of the International Emmy 2008 for Best Documentary 

A six-part documentary presented by Niall Ferguson. Based on his book The Ascent of Money: The Financial History of the World, the film examines the long history of money, credit, and banking. Throughout the series, Niall Ferguson examines the origins of the pillars of the world’s financial systems, and how behind every great historical phenomenon – empires and republics, wars and revolutions – there lies a financial secret.

Episode 1: Dreams of Avarice (47 min)

From Shylock's pound of flesh to the loan sharks of Glasgow, from the "promises to pay" on Babylonian clay tablets to the Medici banking system. Niall Ferguson explains the origins of credit and debt and why credit networks are indispensable to any civilization.

She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry (USA)
(92 min; 2014; English)
Director: Mary Dore

The film resurrects the buried history of the outrageous, often brilliant women who founded the modern women’s movement from 1966 to 1971.  She’s Beautiful takes us from the founding of NOW, with ladies in hats and gloves, to the emergence of more radical factions of women’s liberation; from intellectuals like Kate Millett to the street theatrics of W.I.T.C.H. (Women’s International Conspiracy from Hell!).  Artfully combining dramatizations, performance and archival imagery, the film recounts the stories of women who fought for their own equality, and in the process created a world-wide revolution. 
Without romanticizing the early movement, dramatizing it in its exhilarating, quarrelsome, sometimes heart-wrenching glory.  That story still resonates today for women who are facing new challenges…

An eight-part BBC series in which British art historian Dr Gus Casely-Hayford explores the pre-colonial history of some of Africa's most important kingdoms.

Episode 4: West Africa (50 min) | Click here to watch
Directors: Ross Harper, Michael Simkin 

When magnificent 16th-century bronze casts were discovered in the kingdom of Benin in 1897, many could not believe they had been made by Africans. It was thought West Africa lacked the technical development required to make them. Dr Casely-Hayford travels to present-day Nigeria and Mali in search of the truth, exploring what the bronzes mean, how the technology to make them developed, and what it reveals about the lost kingdoms of West Africa.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xqnv5y

Vivaldi Unmasked (UK)
(58 min; 2002; English)
Director: Jill Marshall

Little is known about the composer of The Four Seasons—one of the most recorded pieces of music ever written. Charles Hazlewood explores Venice in search of the story behind Vivaldi's life and his most famous composition. Vivaldi's own life falls into four seasons. Spring sees him in Venice and a violin child prodigy, at 15 ordained a priest, and at 25 landing the job of teaching at an all-girls orphanage. Summer finds Vivaldi a star composer at the height of his creativity, but dangerously entering into a scandalous relationship with a singer young enough to be his daughter. In Autumn, he branches out into the role of opera impresario, extravagantly spending way beyond his means, and threatened with excommunication for his disreputable relationship. By Winter, he is penniless, far from home, and buried in an unmarked pauper's grave. This documentary includes interviews, dramatic reconstructions, and musical performances by Music of Venice Group and the Red Megaphones.

Oscar Wilde, Spendthrift of Genius (Ireland)
(58 min; 1986; English)
Director: Sean O’Mordha

This portrait of the multi-talented and self-destructive fin de siècle genius follows Oscar Wilde’s meteoric rise and fall. Portraying the many circles—academic, social, theatrical, literary—in Dublin, Oxford, London, and Paris—in which Wilde circulated, and generously sprinkled with Wilde’s infamous bons mots, the programme also includes the only known recording by Wilde (of "The Ballad of Reading Gaol"). 

The Music of Life  by Kamal Kumar

English translation by Chander Kanta Gariyali 

 The poems in the Music of Life penned by celebrated poet Dr Kamal Kumar demonstrate deep connection with the contemporary sensitivities. She writes poems that encompasses every thing from nature to universe. Superbly translated by Dr Chander Kanta Gariyali diverse dimensions of the poems impress all. She writes on various problems faced by women but ultimately she shuns the material and turns spiritual .

Panelists: Dr. Chander Kanta Gariyali, IAS (Retd.) ; Former Secretary to Governor, Tamil Nadu and translator of the book ; Prof. Kuhu Sharma Chanana, Professor, Department of English, University of Delhi ; Dr. Kamal Kumar,  Former Associate Professor, DU and Author of the book    

Moderator: Ms. Mandira Ghosh, Poet , Author & Researcher

Chair: Sh. K. Jayakumar, Former Chief Secretary, Govt. of Kerala

[Collaboration: The Poetry Society (India)]