Living Stories: Storytelling Traditions of India | (26 min; 2011; English and with subtitles)
Director: Neela Venkataraman

The film takes us on a journey to different parts of India, to explore the different kinds of storytelling arts in India – from Pandvani, a storytelling art in Chhattisgarh to Kathakali in Kerala

https://youtu.be/QgcCsh_8f50

Unfolding the Pata Story | (54 min; 2014; Bengali with English subtitles)
Director: Supriyo Sen

The film celebrates the unique life and dynamic spirit of the Patua community - of Rupban, Rani, Dukhushyam and other traditional scroll painter, who have fought all odds to redefine their position as social commentators in the global world.

https://youtu.be/m9yUY0sRa50

Janambhumi Charaoli (Leaving my Motherland) | (12 min; 2021; English subtitles)
Director: Parasher Baruah

A short documentary on the songs of the Adivasi community working in the tea gardens of Assam. The film explores the history of migration and displacement through their songs. The film examines popular songs like Choi Mini Assam Jabo and how they identify themselves in a home where they are forever outsiders
                

https://youtu.be/ZPHvZgVCoQA

Divinity Cloth – Mata ni Pachedi ( 7 min)
Director: Partha Protim Baruah

This short film is an introduction to the making of Mata ni Pachedi, an impressive form of textile art that serves the purpose of a shrine for the marginalized and excluded.

https://youtu.be/9icNrvcejcI

Of Bards and Beggars (30 min; 2003; English subtitles)
Directors: Shweta Kishore, Yask Desai 

Of Bards and Beggars documents in detail a musical ritual called Pabuji Jaagran, an all-night epic recitation by Rajasthani folk musicians. This story centres around a folk deity called Pabuji, a protector of livestock. The Pabuji legend is widely popular in Western Rajasthan among a shepherd community from the Rebari (Raika) caste. An oral tradition passed from generation to generation by word of mouth, the entire Pabuji epic would take 36 hours to recite.

The film will be accessible from 10 am on 12th August 2021 until 7 pm on 14th August 2021 

https://youtu.be/DHwyVFlkMwA

Illustrated lecture by Ms Sentila Tsukjem Yanger, culture conservationist, textile specialist, and art and craft curator

Moderator: Kishalay Bhattacharjee

In the absence of a script and before the written word, the Nagas relayed the orality of verbal expressions through songs, folklores and in the language of cloth. The transmission of oral traditions conveyed in these practices have been passed down from generation to generation. Sentila Yanger will examine the woven narratives on the Tsüngko Tep Sü painted on cloth, the suggestive emblematic symbolisms in relation to representation of form in the figurative motifs on the shawl and variants of the mantle

The Intriguing tale of the Patta Chitra Patuas of Bengal and other Concerns
Illustrated lecture by Ms Ritu Sethi, Founder-Trustee, Craft Revival Trust and Editor, Global InCH, the international journal of intangible cultural heritage

Moderator: Kishalay Bhattacharjee

Providing a background to the great lineage of pictorial story-telling in India, Ritu Sethi tracks the transformation of the evolving nature of this form by tracking the Patuas of Bengal

An Evening of Poetry
With poets - Malay (Jabalpur); Teji Grover (Hoshangabad); Natasha (Patna); and Krishna Mohan Jha (Silchar) who will read their own work

Moderator: Ashok Vajpeyi

(Collaboration: The Raza Foundation)

The programme can be accessed on:
facebookLive@razafoundation
YouTube@The Raza Foundation

From 12th August 2021 from 12.00 midnight to 13th August 2021, 11.59 hours

(92 min; 2018; Hebrew & Yiddish with English subtitles)
Director: Eliran Malka

Recipient of the Award of the Israeli Academy for Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Editing & Best Make-up, Academy of Israeli Film Academy 2019; and Key to Discovery Award for Best Film, Moscow Jewish Film Festival 2019. An orthodox single father whose daughter was expelled from school for ethnic reasons, decides to run for the city elections and almost single-handedly established the first ethnic political group in Israel. The political party is today an empire with half a million voters and plays a significant role in society. Based on a true story. 

To watch the film, kindly please register on:
https://forms.gle/MLAAAvd9XUjZ7nCMA

(Collaboration: Embassy of Israel)

Is Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia Nazi propaganda – or the greatest film about sport ever made? The two-part documentary has been acclaimed as a masterpiece that revolutionised the way sport was depicted on screen.  This epic record of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games attempts to combine sporting reportage with a celebration of physical beauty and the spectacle involved in this uniquely unifying event. And what cinema historians still debate today is whether Riefenstahl was defying Goebbels and Hitler all those summers ago, or whether she was doing exactly what they wanted. 

Olympia Part Two: Festival of Beauty (Olympia 2. Teil-Fest der Schönheit) | ( Click here to watch )
(90 min; 1938; b/w/; German with English subtitles)
Director: Leni Reifenstahl     

Recipient of the Mussolini Cup for Best Foreign Film, Venice Film Festival 1939

Part Two features the track and field events. Riefenstahl captures the grace of athletes during field hockey, soccer, cycling, equestrian, aquatic and gymnastic events. Riefenstahl celebrates the human body by combining the poetry of bodies in motion with close-ups of athletes in the heat of competition. The production tends to glorify the young male body and, some say, expresses the Nazi attitude toward athletic prowess. Highlights are the Pentathlon and the Decathlon, which was won by American Glenn Morris; it ends with the triumphant conclusion of the games.

(54 min; 2010)
Director/Choreographer: Yannis Adoniou
Music: Minos Matsas
Vocalist: Catherine Clambaneva
Shadow Theatre Artist: Leonidas Kassapides

Yannis Adoniou, the artistic director of KUNST-STOFF, has become known for his unusual and highly visual theatrical dance works, which merge different art forms, often creating unexpected collisions and provocative beauty. Rebetiko explores the origins and evolution of Rembetiko, the “illegal” folk music of the underground hashish dens of Pireaus and Thessaloniki, frequently compared to the American blues as a form of musical expression for the desperate and despairing. The Greco-Turkish War uprooted some two million people, and Rembetiko gave voice to their extreme anguish. Using elements of Greek folk and post-modern dance, darkness and song, choreographer Yannis Adoniou, vocalist Catherine Clambaneva and shadow theatre artist Leonidas Kassapides excavate their homeland’s history to create a sensorially captivating work.

A virtual tour of the city conducted by Caterina Brazzi Castracane, historian, author and tour guide

Vicenza, known as the “city of Palladio”, was founded in the 2nd century B.C. in northern Italy. Vicenza prospered under Venetian rule from the early 15th to the end of the 18th century. The work of Andrea Palladio (1508–80), based on a detailed study of classical Roman architecture, gives the city its unique appearance. Palladio's urban buildings, as well as his villas, scattered throughout the Veneto region, had a decisive influence on the development of architecture. His work inspired a distinct architectural style known as Palladian, which spread to England and other European countries, and also to North America.

An initiative of the Italian Embassy Cultural Centre, New Delhi and Bell’Italia 88

(50 min)
Recording of Professor Mahmood Mamdani giving the Edward W Said London Lecture 2017 on 31 March 2017, at The British Museum, London. Prof. Mamdani is a Ugandan academic, author and political commentator, presently Chancellor, Kampala International University, Uganda; Director, Makerere Institute of Social Science Research; the Herbert Lehmann Professor of Government, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University; and Professor of Anthropology, Political Science and African Studies, Columbia University. In the lecture Mamdani examines the question of justice in the postcolonial period, in the writings of Aime Cesaire and Nelson Mandela. He looks at how South Africa's transition from apartheid presents a critique of the lessons drawn from the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals.

Of Bridges & Breaks- The Constitution at a Crossroads |  ( Click here to watch )

Electoral Democracy in India – From Spectacle to Substance

Speakers: Shri R. Venkataramani, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India and former Member, Law Commission of India; and Dr. Neelanjan Sircar, Assistant Professor, Ashoka University and Senior Visiting Fellow, Centre for Policy Research

Moderator: Ms Ritwika Sharma, Lead Charkha and Senior Resident Fellow, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy

A new year-long series of monthly conversations jointly curated and presented with Charkha, the Constitutional Law Research Centre, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy. The conversations have been envisaged to spark thoughtful, nuanced discussions on some of the most significant constitutional challenges of our times. The conversations will focus on three broad themes – understanding Indian democracy, unpacking Indian federalism, and unearthing civil liberties