Day 3 of fest sees many interactions, short films

NAGPUR: Cinema of Resistance, the three-day

film festival

held at Dhanwatey College, drew curtains on Sunday.

‘Cinema’s language and its vast world’ segment comprised screenings of short films like ‘The Cherry Tale’, ‘Neighbours’, ‘Glass’, ‘Ju’, ‘Printed Rainbow’, ‘The Accordion’, ‘2 and 2’, ‘Humare Ghar’, and ‘Dhinki’ among others. Most of these movies were followed by interactive sessions with the audience. The afternoon was dedicated to iconoclastic music videos on varied issues.

The evening saw screenings of documentary films. First of them was ‘Humara Shahar’, a 1985 movie directed by Anand Patwardhan. ‘Manju Ben Truck driver’, a

Gujarati film

directed by Sherna Dastur, showcases a woman who walks out of an arranged marriage, only to embrace the highways as a truck driver. The ‘Brief Life of Insects’ by Tarun Bhartiya looks at the lives of the community living on the Assam-Meghalaya border.

As part of the segment ‘New Voices’, filmmaker Saba Dewan, who had first called for ‘Not In My Name’ campaign through a Facebook post, spoke about the issue in an interaction with filmmaker Rahul Roy, who was also involved in the agitation.

“The campaign received tremendous response because it was not personality driven. We were clear of keeping political banners away from the campaign. We also refused to go on media channels, as all the issues are reduced to a television debate where panellists are howling at each other,” Roy told TOI, adding that through the campaign, people who support no political party were given a space to raise their voice.

He shared that on September 10, nearly 100 protests were carried out by various artistes, either in the form of a play, a dance performance, a qawwali, or other mediums, and said that the cases of lynchings had died down because of the campaign.

Diwan’s documentary, ‘The Other Song’, was the last screening of the festival. The movie journeys across Varanasi, Lucknow and Muzzafarpur to trace the culture of courtesans. Talking about the movie in an interaction with the audience, Dewan said, “It took eight years for me to make the film. Apart from funding issues, people were not willing to talk to me, even though the truth was known to everyone,” she said.

National convener of the festival Sanjay Joshi said that the organizers are planning to hold a workshop and several small screenings in the coming months.