FTII fest to screen 52 documentaries

PUNE: It offers an eclectic assortment of documentary films that highlight politics in different aspects of our day-to-day life. Persistence Resistance,' a festival of contemporary political films, organised by the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), in association with Delhi-based non-profit organisation, Magic Lantern Foundation, will feature 52 works made by Indian and foreign documentary filmmakers.
The festival will be held from September 15 to 17 at FTII's main theatre and preview theatre from 10 am to 10 pm.Prominent filmmakers such as Shyamal Karmakar, Paromita Vohra, Sherna Dastur, T Jayasree, Madhusree Dutta, Farjid Nabi, Reena Mohan, R V Ramani, Amar Kanwar, Meena Nanji, Shabani Hassanwalia, Samreen Farooqui, Mamta Murthy and Vipin Vijay will be present with their films during the festival.
A few films from foreign filmmakers like Simon Chambers and Roz Mortimer both from UK, Meena Nanji (USA), Nadia Kamel (Egypt), Kesang Tseten (Nepal), Yasmine Kabir (Bangladesh) Farjad Nabi (Pakistani) will also be screened during the festival.
"Documentary filmmaking as a new artistic language began to evolve in the mid-1970s. In the early 1990s, it began to led largely by Indian women filmmakers. They broke the traditional format of documentary filmmaking and brought in new themes, narratives and formats," said Gargi Sen, director of Magic Lantern Foundation, at a press conference on Monday.
Magic Lantern is a distributor of independent films and documentaries. It began Persistence Resistance' last year in Delhi, which later travelled to London. Explaining documentaries as aesthetically constructed texts, Sen said the festival began with an aim to show the public the kind of documentaries India makes and the way in which Indian women documentary filmmakers have broken certain barriers.
"The films in the festival are about politics in our day-to-day life: contemporary documentary films that show politics in our day-to-day life through a variety of themes like gender bias, property, marriage, relationships, patriarchy and citizenship status, to name a few," added Sen.
The festival will also include three seminars on topics Independent cinema in the globalised world: challenges and possibilities,' The cinematic subject: gaze, voyeurism and eco-political legitimacy' and Reality and re-presentation: responsibilities/ scripting for the real' or anticipating the future.'
Talking about the academic importance of this festival, Pankaj Rag, director, FTII, said, "I don't remember a documentary film festival happening in FTII in the last seven to eight years. This is a good thing, because I think documentary film-making by FTII students needs to improve. Hence, the emphasis on documentaries."
On making documentary films at FTII, he said documentary filmmaking requires a lot of research. "We've noticed a lot of students at FTII are more interested in making fiction films. But this festival will lend them aesthetic perspective towards documentary filmmaking," said Rag.