Moving Images Talkies
The stream provides a varied and exciting exploration of cinema and visual storytelling and offers the opportunity to interact with filmmakers after viewing their compelling narratives.
Films by Lipika Singh Darai
Odisha’s lone woman filmmaker and four-time National Award winner.
Night and Fear
Duration: 28 mins, 2023
Language: Odia (with English subtitles)
🗓 26th January 2024
⏱11:30 am – 1:45 pm
Lipika Singh Darai salvages material from her private archive that, with the passing of time, has acquired new meaning. A range of experiences – from the searing story of a local witch hunt to a meeting with a stunning waterfall – complement each other perfectly. Night and Fear is a personal essay, but also a reflection on the impact of making films – on the filmmaker herself and our society.
Some Stories Around Witches 2015
Duration: 53 min
Language: Odia (with English subtitles)
🗓 26th January 2024
⏱11:30 am – 1:45 pm
Some Stories Around Witches (2015) is a hard-hitting, sensitive non-fiction film by Lipika Singh Darai on the issue of witch-hunts persisting in many parts of Odisha. Some Stories About Witches has a structure that offers ingeniously placed surprises at many a places and is edited by Lipika Singh Darai herself.
Occupied
Mirage Media (Pranav Pingle Reddy) 2023
Language: English
🗓 26th January 2024
⏱2:00 pm – 4:00 pm
Occupied – The Series is the story of young Palestinians debating the choices made and the path walked – while decoding a future that is equal parts promising and uncertain.
Our story chooses to focus on the young, disenfranchised, Palestinians who have chosen the path of creativity over conflict as a response to the world around them. The individuals featured and the experiences shared by them, speak to a collective re-imagining of what resistance in the face of aggression can look like. Resistance that has taken the shape of music serenading patrons at the local watering hole, art that adorns the walls lining pavements, and poetry gushing forth from the lips of brave women and men who know no other language. It is their celebration of life, love, and hope, set against the backdrop of persecution and marginalization, with a singular belief at its core – in the end, love always wins.
Rallalo Neeru (Hidden Waters, 2020)
Director: Kiranmayi Indraganti
Duration: 105 minutes
Language: Telugu (with English subtitles)
Cast: Shafi, Krishna Manjusha, Altaf, Bindu Chandramouli and Dr Prasad.
🗓 27th January 2024
⏱11:00 am – 12:45 pm
Neela finds herself in the middle of a fearful scenario of her husband finding out about a cherished secret of hers: the past is neither easy to explain nor appropriate to divulge, but her blackmailer has his own demands. She cannot fulfil them without crossing her overbearing yet loving husband. The stakes for marital security rise, as do questions about self, love, and marriage. Who decides the meaning of her actions even if they appear dubious to society, including her husband, for whom judgment is truth? An adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, Rallalo Neeru (‘Hidden Waters’), is set in the contemporary, semi-urban milieu of coastal Andhra.
Films by Lipika Singh Darai
Odisha’s lone woman filmmaker and four-time National Award winner.
Dragonfly and Snake
Duration: 16 minutes, 2022
Language: Odia (with English subtitles)
🗓 27th January 2024
⏱2:00 pm – 4:00 pm
Dragonfly and Snake is a visual essay written, directed, edited and recorded and sound designed by Lipika Singh Darai. It takes the shape of a personal exchange between Lipika and her Aai (her grandfather’s sister). The film, mostly, runs through a split screen with two different images running on each half of the screen, accompanied by the reflections of the filmmaker and conversations between her and her Aai.
Backstage
Duration: 85 minutes, 2021
Language: Odia (with English subtitles)
🗓 27th January 2024
⏱2:00 pm – 4:00 pm
This Odia film depicts different marionette art forms of Odisha and the work of master rod-puppeteer Maguni Charan Kuanr and Rabana Chhaya puppeteer Gouranga Charan Dash, and folk arts in the context of the caste system in India.
An Offering
Faraway Originals (Pankaj Singh & Naveed Mulki) 2019
Duration: 10 minutes
Language: English
🗓 27th January 2024
⏱3:00 pm – 4:00 pm
For over five decades, Viru and Girija’s life has been a tireless quest in the service of roses, rhododendrons, and the natural world. ‘Visit us again in August, you will see the garden in full bloom,’ they said before we left their home, having just finished a portion of our documentation. Little did we know that we wouldn’t set foot again in their wild and wondrous forest of roses nestled on a hill in Kodaikanal. The pandemic struck and Viru and Girija went into a total and indefinite lockdown. Three years on, we bring to you, An Offering, a film that is somewhat of a whole and a feeble yet earnest attempt to give you all a tiny glimpse of their incredible lives in conservation, preservation, in storytelling.
A Letter from India
Faraway Originals (Pankaj Singh & Naveed Mulki) 2019
Duration: 12 minutes
Language: English
🗓 27th January 2024
⏱3:00 pm – 4:00 pm
In Mattancherry, a place that is 5 square km give or take, a stone’s throw away from Fort Kochi in Kerala, there live 39 communities from all around the country, and a few from across the high seas, who have resided together, side by side, for over 500 years. They came here for different reasons, in different times, but they all stayed for the collective reality that was far better than any dream could convey. This is the story of Mattancherry, a place where the idea of India comes alive like no place else.
Biswaprakash (1999)
Director: Susant Misra
Duration: 148 minutes
Language: Odia (with English subtitles)
Cast: Sanjeev Samal, Nandita Das, Christina Ranck, Carman Cordwell.
🗓 28th January 2024
⏱10:00 am – 12:30 pm
On his journey to self-realization, Biswaparakash faces a changing value system in a new consumerist culture that conflicts with his beliefs, values, and traditions.
Faces of Climate Resilience
Director: Shawn Sebastian
16 short documentary series
🗓 28th January 2024
⏱2:00 am – 2:30 pm
‘Faces of Climate Resilience’ has given a voice to the ordinary people of India who are putting up a strong resistance against climate change through the art form of documentary. (For Little children)
A selection of animated documentaries for children from RoundGlass Sustain offers diverse perspectives on climate resilience and sustainability.
The Bombay Exit
Director: Omair Quadri
Duration: 14 minutes
Language: English
🗓 28th January 2024
⏱3:45 am – 4:15 pm
The Bombay Exit is a documentary that tells the story of the birth of a new Base Jump exit point, a historic event that pushed the Indian Base Jump/adventure sports community to new heights. Discovered by Sajid Chougle (a pioneer in the Indian base jump community) and opened by Sajid Chougle, Udit Thapar and Samar Farooqui. Watch their journey on how they explore, plan, and prepare for the first-ever leap taken from India’s latest exit point at Naneghat, Maharashtra, India.
Omair Quadri is a filmmaker and photographer from Hyderabad, and the Founder of EikaWorld, an Indian Underground magazine that focuses on art, adventure sports, and lifestyle. making visual stories and uncovering the underground sub-cultures one frame at a time.
