Solaris Pictures presents
Saturday, December 14, 2013 | 11.00am
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REPORTERO
72 min / USA,
Mexico / 2012
English, Spanish
with English subtitles
Dir: Bernardo Ruiz
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Synopsis
In Mexico,
investigative journalism can be a life-threatening profession. A veteran
reporter and his colleagues at an independent newsweekly challenge the
powerful drug cartels and corrupt local officials to continue reporting the
news – at the risk of their lives.
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Festivals & Awards
World Premiere –
Ambulante Documentary Festival, 2012
Full Frame
Documentary Film Festival, 2012
Human Rights Watch
International Film Festival, New York, USA, 2012
Los Angeles Film
Festival, 2012
Documentary Edge
Festival, Auckland, 2013
A Matter of ACT -
Movies That Matter, Netherlands, 2013
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Director’s Statement
“What does it mean
to report on the activities of organized crime or corrupt politicians in this
context? What goes through a reporter’s mind when they are about to break a
story that, as Sergio says in the film, “is like a grenade before you remove
the pin?” Why persist when the risks are many, the benefits few? To borrow
from the title of Anna Politkovskaya’s final dispatches, is journalism worth
dying for? For me, Reportero is an act of remembrance. It is a wake for
Sergio’s colleagues who have paid for their work with their blood. It is also
an act of translation—but translation where fragments and testimonies from
one place are granted a new life, in an entirely new and different place. The
film is an act of celebration, for Sergio Haro and his colleagues, who
persist stubbornly.” - Bernardo Ruiz
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Director’s Bio
BERNARDO RUIZ is the director/producer of American
Experience: Roberto Clemente (PBS, 2008), winner of the ALMA Award for
Outstanding Made for Television Documentary. He is the co-producer of The Sixth Section (P.O.V.), winner of
the top short documentary prize at the 2003 Morelia International Film
Festival in Mexico. As a director/producer for hire he has directed programs
for PBS, MTV, the Discovery Networks, Travel Channel, Planet Green and the
National Geographic Channel. In 2007, he founded Quiet Pictures in order to
produce aesthetically innovative and socially relevant documentary films for
all platforms.
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Links
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FREE ENTRY. REGISTRATION AT VENUE
Seating
is on a first-come, first-served basis
Alliance Française de Bombay
40, Theosophy Hall, 1st
Cross Lane, New Marine Lines, Mumbai 400020
Ph: 022 2203 5993
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FLASHPOINT Human Rights Film Festival brings together human rights films from around the world to offer hope that change is possible and each one of us can be a flashpointer for change
REPORTERO
INSHALLAH, KASHMIR: LIVING TERROR
Solaris Pictures presents
Friday, December 13, 2013 | 6.00pm
Viewer's discretion is advised, as explicit nature of the content
may be disturbing.
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INSHALLAH,
KASHMIR: LIVING TERROR
83 min / India /
2012
Kashmiri, English,
Hindi, Urdu with English subtitles
Dir: Ashvin Kumar
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Synopsis
Winner of the
National Award 2012 for Best Investigating Film, this documentary is an
unflinching account of the conflict recounted as personal history, and that
of present-day Kashmir. With the series of counterpointed testimonies, the
heartbreaking coming-of-age of a people brutalized by two decades of
militancy and its terrible response, the film reflects many faces of the
troubled region of Kashmir. One of those rare
documentaries in which Kashmiris openly recount how their freedom is conceded
and replaced by fear and institutionalized oppression.
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Festivals & Awards
Winner – Silver
Lotus, National Award 2012 for Best Investigative Film
Citation:
"...for unflinchingly
and boldly stepping into unearthing the truth about Kashmir. A passionate
inquiry connecting with the people, discovering what is called ‘Kashmiriyat’
and at the same time exposing the role of the state, police and army in
alienating them from India."
Document 10 Intl
Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, Glasgow, Scotland, 2012
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Director’s Statement
“I made this film
to throw light on the deep distrust and misconception of the Kashmiri and his
aspirations for self-governance, as well as highlight the unacceptable,
institutional abuse of individual human rights in the valley. The film
questions the legitimacy and human cost of sustaining India’s occupation of
Kashmir for over two decades and it does so through the telling of stories of
terror and fear that haunt ordinary Kashmiri folk.
The testimonies in
this film are those that the mainstream media keeps away from its audiences
in India. Till we Indians understand and acknowledge the pain and suffering
of our Kashmiri brethren, and what is happening in the name of India in
Kashmir, no solution can ever be found. We need to evolve a new idiom based
on the reality of what has happened in the past twenty five years. I hope
Inshallah, Kashmir provides one such reference point.”
- Ashvin Kumar
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Director’s
Bio
One of the youngest Indian filmmakers to have an Academy Award, Oscar® nomination, Ashvin was also nominated by the European Film Academy for Little Terrorist (130 film festivals, won awards in 25 of them, including BAFTA/LA).
His feature documentary,
Inshallah Football was awarded the National Award, India’s highest award for cinematic
achievement, 2012; awardee of the Asian Cinema Fund grant, Pusan, special jury mention, Dubai; Silver Conch, Mumbai and several other awards and festival selections. Its sequel, feature documentary Inshallah, Kashmir won the National Award again in the next year, 2013
for best investigative film. Presently developing Noor, an international film about a little girl’s journey to locate her ‘disappeared’ father in Kashmir, a web series about Delhi University, Indian pop culture and aspirations of its middle classes. His other films include Road To Ladakh with Irrfan Khan, a children's drama Dazed in Doon and animal thriller, The Forest which was filmed in the jungles of India. Ashvin’s dream is to introduce filmmaking as a subject into high schools all over India. He lobbies the Indian government via www.change.org/saveindecinema to recognize cinema as an art and cultural form. He is
also a voting member of the European Film Academy. |
Links
|
FREE ENTRY. REGISTRATION AT VENUE
Seating
is on a first-come, first-served basis
Alliance Française de Bombay
40, Theosophy Hall, 1st
Cross Lane, New Marine Lines, Mumbai 400020
Ph: 022 2203 5993
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SALMA
Solaris Pictures presents
Friday, December 13, 2013 | 3.00pm
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SALMA
90 min / UK, India /
2013
Tamil with English
subtitles
Dir: Kim Longinotto
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Synopsis
Poignant portrait
of well-known Indian Tamil poet Salma. She spent twenty-five years of her
life behind closed doors, at first in her elderly home and later in that of
her parents-in-law. A fate that is common to many Muslim women around the
world. Salma fought back, however, and regained the freedom that had been
taken away from her at such a young age.
Master documentarian Kim Longinotto of PINK SARIS fame tells yet
another extraordinary story of a woman’s courage and resilience.
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Festivals & Awards
World Premiere -
Sundance Film Festival, 2013
Winner - Best Intl
Feature & Best Intl Director Documentary Edge Festival, New Zealand, 2013
Winner - Best
Documentary, Indian Film Festival Stuttgart, 2013
Nominated, Prix
Europa
Winner - Best Film
International Human Rights Films Festival, Tunis,
Grierson Award,
Nominated Best Documentary on a Contemporary Theme - International
Winner - Panorama
Audience Award, 2nd Place Berlinale, 2013
HotDocs
International Documentary Film Festival, Canada, 2013
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Director’s Statement
“I was in a seminar
at a Film Festival in Delhi and a woman, Urvashi Butalia, told a group of us about
Salma. It was such an inspiring and unusual story that I knew immediately
that I really wanted to make a film about her. What seemed amazing about the
story, and I still can’t quite believe we’ve actually done it, is that it
starts by describing the fate of millions of women all over the world and not
many women escape it and manage to tell the tale.
It’s a kind of
legend - this woman who is locked away in a tiny room for 9 years, then gets
married and still isn’t allowed out - who then becomes an activist, a
politician, trying to help other women in her community and also a famous
poet. It’s an amazing story.
With this one the
challenge is to do justice to the story and make it compelling to watch. You
have to invent ways of using images. You can’t just have the dialogue.
You have to find
the emotion and really take the audience into someone’s life. Take them back
there and help them re-live it. You have to think flexibly and follow the
strands that people offer you. You have to be open to the feelings that
people reveal that they don’t normally express.
The film must
embrace the complexities and contradictions. For instance, Salma’s mum was
her jailer, her betrayer but she still loves her daughter and wanted to save
her. She helped her escape. Salma calls it “The knots and ties of love” - Kim
Longinotto
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Director’s Bio
Master documentarian Kim Longinotto
is a British documentary maker, most famous for making films which highlight
the plight of female victims of oppression or discrimination around the
globe. Longinotto studied camera and directing at the National Film and
Television School in Beaconsfield, England, where she now tutors. After her
famous Pink Saris (screened at 2nd Flashpoint HRFF), Salma is her second
documentary film set in India. Currently she is shooting for latest feature
documentary, The Dreamcatchers which is her first film shot in USA.
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Links
|
FREE ENTRY. REGISTRATION AT VENUE
Seating
is on a first-come, first-served basis
Alliance Française de Bombay
40, Theosophy Hall, 1st
Cross Lane, New Marine Lines, Mumbai 400020
Ph: 022 2203 5993
|
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