Ways of Seeing: Rhetoric and Reality - The 7^th IAWRT Asian Women's Film Festival

Screenings will be followed by discussions with directors present

Inauguration by Smt Justice Leila Seth

Followed by

Dhanwarlo O'Avva (A Grandma in Dharwar; 8 min; India; 2010)

Director: Masanagari Mayuri

Directed by an 8 year old girl from a Dalit farming family, the film is a portrait of her 80 year old grandmother who is engaged in ecological agriculture

Half Value Life (30 min; Afghanistan; 2007) - Director: Alka Sadat

Exploring the life and work of Marya Bashir, the first Afghani female public prosecutor

Journey to Nagaland (24 min; India; 2010) - Director: Aditi Chitre

Animation film about migration and inheritance

Winter Reminiscence (14 min; Thailand; 2010) - Director: Thanatphan Palakawong Na Ayutthay

Short fiction film about Term and Quang who had evacuated from Vietnam to Thailand

From 14:00

Focus on a Filmmaker - Sabiha Sumar

Presentation on the expanding content and aesthetics of her work, Sabiha Sumar from Pakistan

Followed by a discussion

Love Arranged (60 min; UAE; 2010) - Director: Soniya Kirpalani

Humorous and humbling journeys of Divya and Neha, educated Indian women, who take the arranged marriage route

Titli Udi (11 min; India; 2010) - Director: Payal Kapadia

A young woman digs into her past, both personal and political, in the hope of discovering her own voice

The Value of a Tree (4min;Thailand; 2008) - Director: Salisa Piencharoen

Animation film on the effects of natural disasters

Old Heart (8 min; Thailand; 2010) - Director: Anocha Suwichakornpong

People find refuge in old temples and ruins... relationships built on affection and feelings of comfort and solace

This Way (5 min; Thailand; 2010) - Director: Wasunan Hutawach

With rumors of a government crackdown against the red shirts, people in Silom district try to escape from the area

My Father (22 min; Thailand; 2010) - Director: Pimpaka Towira

Short fiction film on a father forced to quit his job as a train station janitor because of his protest letter to the authorities

At 18:30

The Two Horses of Genghis Khan (120 min; Mongolia/Germany; 2009) - Director: Byambasuren Davaa

A promise, an old destroyed horse head violin and a song believed lost

Film Festival â-  Conference Room - I, Foyer and Quadrangle Garden

Ways of Seeing: Rhetoric and Reality - The 7^th IAWRT Asian Women's Film Festival: 6^th, 7^th & 8^th March 2011

The festival will showcase a selection of films that articulate through multiple lenses the lives, events and concerns of our layered society and reflect how women (as filmmakers and/or as protagonists) go beyond manifestation to question and express through new forms and content. Apart from films the festival includes seminars and exhibitions. Organised in collaboration with International Association of Women in Radio and Television; Max Mueller Bhawan; Sangat South Asia; and with the support of Zubaan

Exhibitions:

Seven Sisters & The City

An exhibition of photographs that tries to encapsulate the experiences of North East women in the city. The photographs provide a glimpse into the spaces where they feel safe, free to be themselves and other spaces, where they feel threatened and trapped by their distinct looks

Photographs by Uzma Mohsin

On view in the Foyer, outside the Auditorium until 10^th March

Poster Women II - Painting Our World: Women's Messages Through Art

An exhibition that attempts to document and showcase traditional forms of expression that rural women use to engage with social issues. These include Madhubani, Patachitra, contemporary Phad paintings; appliqué embroidery from Orissa, Jogi art, Sujuni embroidery, Khovar paintings, Gond art and Khatwa from Bihar

On view in the Quadrangle garden until 10^th March

(Collaboration: Zubaan)

Seminars and Films in Conference Room - I from 09:30 to 13:30 and 14:30 to 19:00

Other Frames: Histories, Identities, Struggles

Welcome address by Ms Jai Chandiram, President, IAWRT India and Director, Asian Women's Film Festival 2011

Writing a Life

Speaker: Ms Urvashi Butalia, Director, Zubaan

A Quiet Little Entry (44 min; 2010) - Director:  Uma Chakravarty

A film based on Fragments of a Life: A Family Archive by Mythili Sivaraman

Followed by a discussion with Uma Chakravarti and Urvashi Butalia

12:00 noon

Now You See It, Now You Don't:: Identities, Bodies, Politics

Presentation by Prof. Nivedita Menon, Professor, School of International Relations, Jawaharlal Nehru University

Untitled (1.5min; 2007; Pakistan) - Director:  Ferwa Ibrahim

The artist tries unsuccessfully to fixate and pin down her shadow to the ground

Tapestry (7 min; 2009; Canada) - Director:  Sharlene Bamboat

Traces the challenges of cultural continuity for a small, dispersed Parsi community living in the diaspora

There is a Spider Living Between Us (6 min; 2008; India) - Director: Tejal Shah

Shah mixes animation styles with both poetic and diary-like narrations to explore queer female desire

In Search of Aseemun (work in progress, 50 min; 2010; India) - Director:  Taran Khan

Using old photographs, home video and extensive music, the film maker explores a way of life that assimilated the best of Hindu and Muslim cultures

Followed by a discussion with Nivedita Menon

At 14:30

Experience: Feminism & Documentary Cinema

Presentation by Ms Kumkum Sangari, William F.Vylas Research Professor of English Literature, University of

Wisconsin, Milwaukee

Who will Cast the First Stone? (30 min; 1997; Pakistan) - Director: Sabiha Sumar,

A film about three women in prison under the Islamic law. It led to the quashing of death-by stoning sentence for Shahida Parveen, accused of adultery

Followed by a discussion with Kumkum Sangari and Sabiha Sumar

At 16:00

Films: A celebration of work by IAWRT Members

Six IAWRT members from India and the Philippines present their work which is part of their larger ongoing projects with training students, working in conflict areas and with rural communities

Ye Dilli Hai Mere Yaar (This is Delhi, My Love; 5 min; India; 2010) - Director: Vani Subramaniam

The film maps the various kinds of vulnerabilities and violence that women face on the streets of Delhi

Where Have You Hidden My New Crescent Moon? (28 min; India; 2009) - Director:  Iffat Fatima

About a mother's grief as she copes with the Enforced Disappearance of her only son

Why? (workshop film,17 min; India; 2008) - Workshop coordinator:  Anupama Srinivasan

Why do you get angry? This is the question the filmmakers asked the people around them and also themselves. The responses and reactions are sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, and often both

Click

Colours of Ability

Hope in the Wall (workshop films India, 2010)

Workshop coordinator: Mahuya Bandyopadhyay

Delhi University students look at lives of underprivileged children in their neighbourhoods

P.O. 418 Siyasat Kanpur (34 min; India; 2010) - Director:  Shazia Ilmi

A glimpse of Urdu as it disappears. A language struggles to outlast itself. A daily Urdu newspaper survives

six decades to serve a dying readership

Agpayso a Balitok (The Real Gold; 30 min; Philippines; 2009) - Director: Jola Diones-Mamangun

Chronicles the struggle of the indigenous Ifugao community against an Australian mining company to whom they have sold their agricultural lands

(80 min; dvd; 2010; English)

A film by Ranjan Palit who will introduce the film

A film that explores rock and blues music in North East India - its connection with traditional folk music, the politics of the region and cultural identities through music. The film incorporates established masters like Rewben Mashangva and Soulmate as well as celebrated new acts like Boomerang to present an intimate account of the region through its music

Screening will be followed by a discussion

Panelists: Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan, MP; Dr. B.L. Mungekar, MP; Shri H.K. Dua, MP; and Shri Vijay Naik, Consulting Editor Sakal Group

Moderator: Shri Suhas Borker

By Rashmi Aggarwal from Delhi, disciple of Smt Saroja Vaidyanathan

Speaker: Prof. William S. Sax, Head, Department of Ethnology and Executive Director, South Asia Institute, Heidelberg

Chair: Ms Neeru Nanda, IAS (Retd)

The lecture focuses on a remote valley, the Upper Tons River in the Rawain region of the Western Himalayas, where an archaic political form exists in which the local gods, Karna and Duryodhana, "rule" their tiny kingdom through oracles.  and how this system is rapidly changing and adapting to mainstream Indian society today

Discussion on Tibet and Sino Indian Relations

Speakers:Jacob Jabin and Bhavna Singh 

57 min; 1989; dvd; English)

Director: Lars Brydesen

The disappearance of an African rain forest - and how it is being recreated- is a story of hope for our planet, and also a lesson of sound economics for every country

Film courtesy: Centre for Science and Environment

East and West in Hungarian Literature

Speakers: Dr. Margit Köves and Shri Girdhar Rathi