KARACHI, May 16: The Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture is holding a documentary film festival from May 21 to May 24, every day from 5pm to 8pm, says a press release.
The festival, organized by Himal, the South Asian magazine based in Katmandu, is part of an endeavour to promote non-fiction films from the South Asian region throughout the region. The films are on a “travelling tour”. Fifteen of the best documentaries from the region were hand-picked by a jury chaired by the film-maker Shyam Benegal at the Annual South Asian Film Festival 2001. The films are from India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
The collection of films comprises a vast canvas of themes and techniques. “The Bee, the Bear and the Kuruba” is about the Kuruba people who have been forcibly evicted from their ancestral home in India.
To add to this already varied and wondrous body of work, five silent documentaries have been added. These are short films, each not more than six minutes long.
On the first day, the following films will be screened: The Bee, the Bear and the Kuruba, 63 minutes, India, director: Vinod Raja; King for a Day, 33 minutes, Bangladesh, director: Alex Gabbay; Born at Home, 60 minutes, India, director: Sameera Jain; Naheed’s story, 22 minutes, Pakistan, director: Beena Sarwar.
On the second day, the following films will be screened: Between the Devil and the Deep River, 65 minutes, India, director: Arvind Sinha; A sun sets in, 45 minutes, Pakistan, director: Shahid Nadeem; My Migrant Soul, 35 minutes, Bangladesh, director: Yasmine Kabir; Ramila, 28 minutes, India, directors: Ananta Sridhar, Sanjay Pande, Subhash Kapoor.
On the third day, the following films will be screened: Jari Mari: Of Cloth and Other Stories, 74 minutes, India, director: Surabhi Sharma; Colours Black, 30 minutes, India, director: Mamta Murthy; The Killing Terraces, 62 minutes, Nepal, director: Dhruba Basnet.
On the fourth day, the following films will be screened: The Loom, 49 minutes, India, J.P. Sankar; We Home Chaps, 70 minutes, India/Nepal, director: Kesang Tseten; A Rough Cut on the Life and Times of Lachuman Magar, 39 minutes, Nepal, director: Dinesh Deokota. On the same day the following silent films will be shown: Keyhole, 6 minutes, Pakistan, director: Abuzur Khan; I, Ranu Gayen, 6 minutes, India, director: Shaymal Karmakar; The Godfather IV, 3 minutes, Pakistan, director: Ahmad Ali Manganhar; Play...Stop...Rewind, 4 minutes, director: Sudesh Unni Raman; and Voice Vendor, 6 minutes, Pakistan, director: Sikandar Mufti.
