Prithvi Konanur’s superb ‘Hadinelentu (Seventeeners)’ opened the Indian Panorama section at IFFI; it’s about a leaked sex tape, and is a scalpel-sharp dissection of caste
Prithvi Konanur’s superb ‘Hadinelentu (Seventeeners)’ opened the Indian Panorama section at IFFI; it’s about a leaked sex tape, and is a scalpel-sharp dissection of caste
Spoilers ahead…
I was riveted by this story about a Brahmin boy and a Dalit girl. It’s like watching a gut-churning Asghar Farhadi melodrama filmed in Michael Haneke’s detached CCTV- style.
Hari and Deepa (Neeraj Mathew and the excellent Sherlyn Bhosale) are Class XII students. They find an empty classroom, have sex, and record it on her phone. Boys being boys, Hari can’t help showing the video…
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Film on Uttarakhand ‘ghost village’ makes it to MAMI Mumbai Film Festival – The Indian Express
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Written by Tanushree Ghosh
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September 23, 2020 1:06:28 pm
Ek Tha Gaon has made it to the distinguished India Gold competitors class of the 22nd MAMI Mumbai Film Festival.
The digicam paints vignettes of white mist towards darkish partitions, black soot on kettles as fires burn and die, with indoors as barren and chilly as the surface. Derelict homes entwined in overgrown foliage, cracked partitions, damaged picket doorways, a stray cat about, garments strewn throughout a ground – converse of habitation as soon as. About 800 years in the past, a village settled by one form of migration – by 50 households comprising kings from Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal fleeing invasion and menace to life, and the Brahmins and Kshatriyas they introduced alongside – is at present empty due to one other form of palayan. If individuals make a village, what stays of it after they depart?
Srishti Lakhera’s Ek Tha Gaon (Once Upon A Village) is the story of Semla, one amongst 1,053 (the movie tells) ‘ghost villages’ in Uttarakhand. The Garhwali movie made it to the distinguished India Gold competitors class of the 22nd MAMI Mumbai Film Festival. Others on this class embrace Arun Karthick’s hair-elevating Tamil movie Nasir on spiritual bigotry uprooting an extraordinary life, Ivan Ayr’s Meel Patthar (Milestone), Farida Pacha’s Watch Over Me, and Prithvi Konanur’s Pinki Elli? (Where is Pinki?). While COVID-19 has pushed the pageant to subsequent 12 months, MAMI (Mumbai Academy of Moving Image) introduced the official choice earlier this month. Before this, the Visions du Reel Festival documentary pageant in Switzerland put Lakhera’s movie of their media library. The movie comes after one other comparable movie, Nirmal Chander’s Moti Bagh, on his farmer uncle in Pauri Garhwal, gained at IDSFFK (International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala) and was one among India’s entries to the Oscars final 12 months.
Director Srishti Lakhera’s Ek Tha Gaon is the story of Semla, Uttarakhand.
In 2019, Lakhera co-directed Ishq, Dosti and All That, a brief movie on queer friendship and love, with Bhamati Sivapalan and non-revenue Nazariya, however Ek Tha Gaon is her first full-size movie. Part-observatory, half-expository, it is poetic and private. For Lakhera, 34, who grew up in Rishikesh and graduated from Delhi, Semla is her father’s ancestral village, one she would go to to meet grandparents and kinfolk throughout holidays. Her father, like many others, migrated. He pursued medical research and a authorities job. Her mom’s facet, from Pauri Garhwal, had virtually totally migrated to Dehradun way back. “When I came here, our house was in ruins, amid overgrown bushes and grass. I saw the village road come up, but no public transport. There were seven locals, now just five remain, minus a couple who’ve returned owing to lockdown/joblessness,” she says in a telephone dialog from Semla, the place she and her mother and father are spending their days within the lockdown. Lakhera says that reverse migration is short-term. “Two men returned from South Africa and Taiwan, respectively, where they earned around Rs 50,000 per month working at hotels, that’s not the kind of money you’d make here,” she provides.
The movie’s two ladies – 80-year-outdated Leela Devi and 19-year-outdated Golu – really feel caught, however, ultimately, depart. Their personal lives additionally inform the story of the village’s misplaced previous, current limbo, and hazy future. “In 2014, I was going to my home in Semla, not really to make a film, but seeing the older woman go about her days, I saw a film there. Though she recalled my grandparents and parents, it took me more than two years to build a connection. Then, I met Golu, this young person who aspires for a job and a better life,” says Lakhera. In the movie, one sees Golu largely staring into nothingness, the pace with which she flips TV channels, iterates her restlessness and the fixed sense of feeling “unlucky”.
Leela Devi, 80, speaks of a time when “night never descended on the farms, brimming with people.”
Leela speaks of a time when “night never descended on the farms, brimming with people.” She as soon as grew ragi, jhangora, dal, 300 sorts of rajma (the vertical fields are rainfed, irrigation isn’t attainable regardless of shut proximity to India’s highest dam, Tehri), however now she uproots weeds and is spurned even by leopards. On trembling legs, one damaged, she has to stroll, to fetch water, and grocery 1 km away in Nyuli village, which has a health care provider-much less nursing unit. But the spunky Leela – who “refuses to take directions, or wear lapel mics” – equips herself with prepared repartee, to navigate life amid darkish ideas and “ghost-like humans.” Lakhera ensures the gaze and engagement aren’t distant. She forgoes handheld digicam for a heat, intimate and intuitive entry into the private house and worlds of the characters, Sivapalan’s succinct edits give the movie a felicitous medium tempo.
Another character, Dinesh Bhai, neither has a livelihood nor entry to deserted lands to until, which the out-migrated landowners would relatively let it waste than give to a Dalit. “People of our caste are landless,” he says within the movie. “If given a small plot, I’d have grown onion, potatoes, garlic, etc. Raja ke time hum logon ko dabake rakhte thhe, wohi abhi tak chal raha hai (We were oppressed under the kings, and remain so now).” Dalits, Lakhera says, have been within the state a lot earlier than the higher-caste individuals, and are way more indigenous to the land. The locals are dependent on the ration system and engaged in MGNREGA work – sustaining pagdandi (strolling trails), chopping grass/overgrown foliage. “Do your job today, get money later. That kind of delay is hard for the people,” provides Lakhera. Since April, the wages of all-India MNREGA staff, in accordance to the MNREGA web site, of round Rs 2,974 crore and counting, are but to be cleared.
The movie, nevertheless, isn’t populated with figures. For Lakhera, cinema is “emotion,” a glimmer of hope amid the gloom and despair. The ending exhibits Leela and Golu, sitting on the identical parapet the place the octogenarian had spent many a day in wistful sleep, fortunately sharing their city tales. Leela Devi, who now lives together with her daughter in Dehradun, is visiting the house she as soon as refused to depart, and Golu, who now stays with kinfolk in Rishikesh, coaching to be a yoga instructor, is visiting her mother and father, who’re among the many 5 villagers remaining in Semla.
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