Festival Diary. Day One-Jan 20, 2023

The 9th Kolkata People’s Film Festival opened with “A Night of Knowing Nothing”, directed by Payal Kapadia. The film is narrated by L, a university student who writes letters to her lover during a period of forced separation. Through these letters, we glimpse waves of mobilization occurring on campuses across the country as students protested a fascist regime. The narrative links the protests at the Film and Television Institute of India, University of Hyderabad, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and Jamia Milia among others, through raw footage from the protests and suppression by the state. L’s notebook takes us through the haunting contradictions of fights for azaadi in the public sphere and casteism in the domestic sphere. As a student leader notes in the film, everyone who is oppressed wants an alternative. The film asks, what is the role of filmmakers in this current fascist regime? This is Payal Kapadia’s first feature. The film premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight stream at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival and won the Best Documentary Film.  

“Sanam”, a short fiction directed by Md Reza Keshvari, is set against the backdrop of the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan. Across the world, we watched images of the desperation of thousands leaving Afghanistan, falling off planes and huddled on aircraft wings. What happened to those who could not get on those flights? Sanam follows the story of the eponymous protagonist, whose parents urge her to leave. Amidst the rising violence and human rights violations, particularly directed at women, this young rapper flees the country to Iran, undertaking arduous, threatening journeys even as she dreams of freedom. Sanam laments how Afghanistan has become synonymous with misery, pain, and suffering: “bewatan (no motherland), no dreams, not even a star in the sky.” The film reminds us that even amidst the worst conditions of oppression, women resist, assert themselves as thinking and dream of another future.

How do we experience a fascist regime in India? Sometimes through events and staged spectacles – demonetization, bulldozer evictions, sudden lockdowns, censorship. Sometimes as witnesses to brutalities and widening inequalities. And then there is the realm of the intimate; within families. “Lakshmi”, directed by Harold Antony Paulson, gives us a glimpse of the everyday trials and struggles of a working-class family in Kerala in the present socio-political scenario. Lakshmi works to make ends meet while caring for her daughter and searching for her missing husband, a migrant worker from Assam. The film was followed by a conversation with the film director. A member of the audience was intrigued by the casting for the film. Harold shared how his personal life and loss intersected with the casting decisions, shaping the film in unplanned ways. Harold shared his continued work with the migrant communities in Kerala, who live in settlements, but also inter-marry with local communities. Harold’s account provided a necessary perspective on the otherwise obscured migrant politics in Kerala.  

The director deploys class relations in the contemporary context of economic liberalism and political and social illiberalism. Machan, meaning a temporary structure used by workers as scaffolding during construction work, is symbolic of the fleeting nature of migrant labourers who keep moving from one region to another for work. Machan shows us how economic and physical hardships faced by poor parents can often shape their efforts to support their children’s schooling. Or, how the decisions concerning children’s education can be influenced solely by the family’s perceptions of its importance as a substitute for paid labour. 

The conversations from the first session continued through the quick lunch break. The afternoon session opened with Nangi Bheet (Naked Wall), directed by Anant Dass Sahni. The opening montages of the film with the phone calls, nervousness, and stolen glances across the road, portray young romance. A crush. This perceived innocence is played out against a tapestry of caste, religion, masculinities, patriarchy and ultimately violence and death. A young man in love with a woman from a different religion, his older relative in love with a woman of a different caste. Intense patriarchy, and fleeting tenderness. Shot on location at the border of Haryana and Rajasthan, the film shows the space, using both language and music effectively. The cinematographer, Debjit Samanta, mentioned in the conversation that followed that it was a conscious decision to depict the violence as subtly as possible.  

From Kerala, we moved further South to Pulaikuli, Musali region in Sri Lanka with “Amid the Villus, The Story of Palaikuli”, directed by Sumathy Sivamohan. The Musali South region faced the 30-year civil war in Sri Lanka. The film traces the hardships of the people, particularly Tamil Muslims, who have been dispossessed several times. On their return, they are locked in a battle with the state, over documentation, bureaucratic jargon, and land papers. The film documents everyday trials including the struggle for food as families are denied compensation. Taken together, the first half of the first day provided some insights into some convergent tectonic shifts in the Indian sub-continent. As much as there have been repressive regimes resorting to violence, people have persistently resisted and protested, sometimes in everyday quotidian ways, like Lakshmi, and at other times on the frontlines, as A Night of Knowing Nothing depicts.
 

The afternoon session concluded with another account of pain, loss, and a quest for identity. A haunting yet poetic tale of rootlessness, Ghar ka Pata (Home Address), directed by Madhulika Jalali, begins with an attempt to reconstruct the long lost home of her birth, a place and of a time that loosely exists in her memory. A memory that is essentially a shadow of her family’s collective memory. Madhulika Jalali is a Kashmiri Pandit. Today, in the wake of films like the ‘Kashmir Files’ when the pain and loss of an entire community have been co-opted and warped to serve various agendas, a telling of intimate stories that carefully weaves together fragments of reality is of utmost importance. Jalali was forced to leave her home as a child. Twenty-four years later, when her father took the family to Srinagar she found herself in a land barely known, where loss and longing manifest at every turn, yet, hope lingers on as a spirited companion. These experiences and their documentation unfurl a truth starkly different from what the RSS-BJP led saffron camp propagates to achieve their agenda of divisive faultlines, bloodshed and enmity. Jalali mentions that as an artist, she is interested in how memories and forgetting shape our perceptions. Changing landscapes and a lack of preservation of history make organized forgetting easier. Thus, from the vacuum emerges the possibility of reconstruction of fragmented and warped reality which fascist forces actively use for their nefarious purposes.  

After a break for lunch, the screenings resumed with “Tortoise Under the Earth” (Dharti Latar Re Horo), directed by Shishir Jha. Set in Jharkhand, the film took me back to Rayalaseema—the people, their struggles against indiscriminate development, the harsh environmental conditions and the dependence of the people on this environment. Tortoise Under the Earth takes us to the Santhals of Jharkhand, the largest tribal population in the State. It is their story, told by them. The film begs the question of what does development mean? Whose development, is it? Uranium mining—done in a destructive, complete way, takes away the connection between the Santhals and the environment they have a deep-rooted connection and understanding of. It is their land. It is their soil. It is the complex cycle of seasons and sustenance that those who commit land for destruction have no understanding of.

A couple who has lost their young daughter grapples with the destruction that opencast mining has caused. Memories they have of her are connected with the environment that is fast being changed.

‘The story was of Santhals, told from their perspective and by them. The music is theirs; the story is theirs. It does away with the stereotypes that we see in mainstream films, even in “Aranyer Din Ratri”. I also liked the use of Slow Cinema- as a critique of the fast-paced modern city life.’ -Shreyatama

What does it mean to be away from the place we identify as home? What are the images and moments that trigger memories of a place so dear and yet, so far? Being away is something that we encounter daily. The State imposed a lockdown that took away homes and even the possibility of returning home from so many, those incarcerated on false charges for years, some losing their lives as they knew it. Homes being bulldozed to the ground. “Here is Where we Meet Again”, directed by Obaid Mustafa, shows his reflections on what it means to be far away from a place and the people he holds close.

A winter that continues, a life that is a constant battle for survival. On 5th August 2019, Article 370 was abrogated. Rumours, will they, won’t they. Overnight-a communication lockdown was declared. Curfew. The people of the valley yet again had to draw curtains over the semblance of normality that is life in the most highly militarized zone in the world. “Siege in the Air” weaves together narratives of women living in Indian Administered Kashmir, voices that take us through the intense tribulations and mental pressure faced by those who have had their right to communicate taken away from them, repeatedly. Women writing letters to their partners, the joy in receiving letters in turn. Women walking miles in hope that they would be able to locate their friends and find her. Sending message after message without hope of delivery. There is a scene in the film, where one of the women is drawing a thick curtain across the windows in her house. Watching it, maybe for the second time, I found myself drawn to that scene—opening curtains being so symbolic of letting the outside world, in. And how, in this case—there simply was no outside world.

The audience milled in the foyer, discussions spilling over—frames that spoke to them, dialogue that impacted. Dr Binayak Sen and senior journalist Niranjan Haldar spent time conversing.

Sayantani kicked off the inaugural session of the 9th Kolkata People’s Film Festival (KPFF 2023) with a few words about the festival and the People’s Film Collective. Dwaipayan took it on from there—for the Welcome Note—speaking about the objectives of the festival—to not only screen impactful films, but also to create a community and space where these films—away from the mainstream, can find a place. He spoke of the role of the audience in building that community as a crucial one. The festival is now in its ninth year, having missed a year because of the pandemic. Dwaipayan mentioned the need for the festival and the space that it creates to push forward, perhaps reaching larger audiences in creative ways.

Dwaipayan spoke of the politics of filmmaking, the corporatization of mainstream festivals and films and how films are a mirror to society. Bollywood has begun to identify itself with propagandist films—that further the Right-Wing cause. He also spoke of how if the Right-Wing has begun appropriating the film space, then why cannot those fighting against Fascism do the same? Come together, and create works that speak up, document, and bear witness to.

He concluded by introducing Meghnath, filmmaker, and activist and welcoming him on stage for the Keynote Tribute ‘A People’s Filmmaker: Remembering K.P Sasi’.

Meghnath da shared his memories of working with K.P Sasi for over three decades—as comrades, activists and filmmakers. K.P Sasi had been successful in carving out his own path as a filmmaker, sometimes even going against his own family. He spoke of Sasi’s creativity in different fields, as a satirical cartoonist, filmmaker, and organizer. Beautifully anecdotal, Meghnath da’s tribute was peppered with humour and even music —as he shared his memories of working on “Gaon Chodab Nahi” together.

“Mahsa (Zhini): the story of a legal murder” is a short documentary directed by Iranian Director Arash Mansour Gorgani. The documentary focuses on the murder of a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman, Mahsa, also known as Jhina Amini, by the Iranian morality police on 13th September 2022. Mahsa’s death triggered a series of protests in Iran, eventually spilling across country boundaries. Female demonstrators removed their hijab and publicly cut their hair as acts of protest, triggering brutal suppression of protestors and human rights violations by Iranian security forces. Some of the repercussions are ongoing, as people are arrested, incarcerated and punished. The film tells the story of this historic mobilization by courageous women in Iran against a misogynistic political dispensation, against all odds. KPFF’s venue, Uttam Mancha, resounded with the sounds of zan zendegi azadi (jin, jiyan, azadi-women, life, freedom), the slogan that symbolized the protests.

“Jab Tak Raat Baki Hai” (Until the Darkness Lasts), directed by Rajkumari Gurdayal Asthana, takes us into camps set up during the Farmers’ Protests. These camps provided shelter and comforts to the thousands of farmers—both men and women—from states like Haryana, Punjab, U P and Rajasthan, who took up the onus of taking the fight to Delhi. At a time when the pandemic and state-sponsored lockdowns were still creating havoc in daily lives. The incredible mobilisation and unity is, however, offset by the caste-class atrocities in many of these states. As Asthana says, it cannot be ignored.

‘Politics is being used in a bad way. The farmers did not realise that Modi would do this to them. Many voted for him, but saw that he was just looting them. I liked seeing that the farmers were living together and protesting together.’ -Narayan Mondal.

Kashmir has been at the epicentre of conflict ever since the state was carved out. Kashmiris have been losing lives and livelihoods for decades in their demand for freedom. Though this has garnered national and international eyeballs it has had little effect as the State is continuing to oppress the people in the name of development and curbing terrorism. In this majoritarian tussle, it’s the little voices that are missed, poignant tales get lost and don’t live long enough to reach our ears.

“Trans Kashmir” by Surbhi Dewan and S.A. Hanan puts light on the little-heard transgender community of Kashmir. Facing repressions from various segments of society right from a young age to adulthood, they find happiness and derive solace primarily from performing in weddings or matchmaking where they act as the ‘messenger of love’ between two strangers. As the camera follows the protagonist’s trail, we hear their stories. How they have been habituated to take care of and make space for themselves, and how they maintain their position in society despite hurdles. How they are fighting for their recognition. The discomfort and mistrust in the voices of Nissar, Simran, Babloo and Shabnum among many others – however resilient – are palpable. At one point the filmmakers even thought of switching to an all-women crew given the kind of comfort the community finds in the company of women rather than men. The trans community in Kashmir finds itself in flux. While their ‘worth’ to live alongside ‘the normal’ is judged, they often find themselves in a state of immobility – not being able to transcend the border of gender.

For some unstated reason, they are not made a part of the ‘mainstream movement’ – the call for ‘Azaadi’. Is it because they don’t carry guns but instruments and sing paeans of love?

There are other growing concerns in the present day as confirmed by the Hanan. Large-scale weddings are not that frequent now since the pandemic. And the respect that the hijras enjoyed in ancient times is dwindling away.

As they sing and dance in ceremonies while fighting for their basic rights and waiting for solitary deaths in old age, the lines recited by Shabnum keep on revisiting me.

‘When they applied mehndi on her…
My body was being wrapped in shroud
Everyone attended my funeral…
Alas, the one who mattered was not there.’

Report by Devi, Kunal and Paroma