REPORTERO


Solaris Pictures presents


Saturday, December 14, 2013 | 11.00am


REPORTERO

72 min / USA, Mexico / 2012
English, Spanish with English subtitles

Dir: Bernardo Ruiz



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.
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
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


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.

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




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.


INSHALLAH, KASHMIR: LIVING TERROR

83 min / India / 2012
Kashmiri, English, Hindi, Urdu with English subtitles

Dir: Ashvin Kumar


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.
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
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
                                                            

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, Indias 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 nexyear, 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 weseries 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 animathriller, The Forest which was filmed in the jungles of India. Ashvins 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




SALMA


Solaris Pictures presents
 

Friday, December 13, 2013 | 3.00pm


SALMA

90 min / UK, India / 2013
Tamil with English subtitles

Dir: Kim Longinotto


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.
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
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

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.
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