Open Space Activities in August 2007

SHORT FILM FESTIVAL

Thursday, August 2, 2007, 10.30am - 1.00pm, at the Chaitanya Mental Health Care Centre, Pune

As part of the monthly HIV Information Helpline in collaboration with Sahyog Trust, field visit (counselling session) to the Chaitanya Mental Health Care Centre, Pune to address the trainers and counsellors working at the Centre.

Saturday, August 25, 2007, 4.00pm – 7.00pm, at SOUL, ABC Farms, Koregaon Park, Pune 411 001
Open Space in collaboration with Two Plus Productions, Mumbai invites you to theSHAMIANAshortfilm festival which will showcase 13 short films comprising of documentary films, animations and shorts. These films are from among some of the finest Indian short films made by film-makers over the last one year.

SHAMIANA is a totally free & independent festival that belongs to you, the movie lover.  So be there to show that you care for good short cinema and prove that this is here to stay and get bigger!!

Cyrus Dastur of Two Plus Productions will introduce the festival. The screenings will be followed by an informal interaction with some of the filmmakers who will be present.

Two Plus Productions started in 2001 with the objective of bringing to the fore live entertainment media like theatre and the visual medium of film.

FILM FESTIVAL SCHEDULE 

In the Pink (Dir: Ashima Narain)
Dur: 24 mins, documentary
A very telling documentary on the phenomenon of the flamingo bird that has become a part of Bombay’s life every rainy season. Brilliantly made, the film has in fact been acquired by National Geographic and Discovery channels as a documentary on the migrant bird’s phenomenon.

Bhaichaara (Dir: Karan Anshuman)
Dur: 2 mins, documentary
A very funny, silent tale of two estranged brothers who meet at a café. What happens next? Watch the one-and-a-half minutes to know more!!

5 & a ½ (Dir: Sandeep Modi)
Dur: 21 mins
Five and a half stories but one ending. Brilliantly captured, the film is testimony of the short film quality that India is capable of.
 
Reflections (Dir: Bijoy Nambiar)
Dur: 8 mins
A film about nameless drifters pondering over what is happening in their lives. Brilliantly shot, winner of Best Cinematography award at the New York Film Festival.

Rehguzar (Dir: Subhadra)
Dur: 4 mins
This XIC student’s film is a sweet and touching tale about the relationship between an old beggar and a street singer.

Dare to Answer (Dir: Tariq Mohd)
Dur: 4 mins
A school girl who dares to speak her mind. Who says school children don’t understand what the grown ups have been doing to their world!

Turtles in a Soup (Dir: Kalpana Subramanian)
Dur: 13 mins, documentary
This film brings to light for the first time, the thriving illegal trade of freshwater turtles in India. The rich diversity of freshwater species are being vacuumed from the wild, at an astonishing scale, to feed the markets of South East Asia. Time is running out, for India’s turtles.

Bhookh (Dir: Dedipya Bhanu)
Dur: 17 mins
Hunger and poverty can be the biggest villains in a human’s life leading you to do things you otherwise wouldn’t. A poignant tale about a father and his 3 children.

Naxalism (Dir: Taher Mithaiwala)
Dur: 21 mins, documentary
A film about the Naxal movement which began in the 60's in a small district called Naxalbari in West Bengal and later spread to many states. It gives an insight on the main elements affected by the movement namely the police, the government, the media, the people and Naxals themselves.

Bilori (Dir: Sandeep Modi)
Dur: 12 mins
An FTII student film about the gender discrimination prevalent in rural India when it comes to simple things in life. A very touching story about a small boy, his sister and their family. Very, very cute. Highly recommended.
   
Mochi (Dir: Praveen Bhamre)
Dur: 11 mins
Mochi is the story of a young boy of a shoemaker, well educated and striving for a better living but has to opt for his family occupation.
 
Aids (Dir: Rutwij Vaidya)
Dur: 3 mins, animation
An animated take on a HIV/AIDS… Very beautifully explained.

The Last Dance (Dir: Ashima Narain)
Dur: 11 mins, documentary
This is the premiere of Ashima Narain’s documentary on the life of bears… a film that documents the crime and cruelty that is blatantly committed upon the sloth bear across India.
 
Total programme duration: 154 mins (approx 3 hours including introductions (to Open Space and the film festival (Cyrus)).

ENTRY FREE ON A FIRST-COME-FIRST-SERVED-BASIS ONLY

Day & Date: Saturday, August 25, 2007
Time: 4.00pm – 7.00pm
Venue: SOUL, ABC Farms, Koregaon Park, Pune 411 001

Friday, August 31, 2007, 6.00pm – 8.00pm, at Landmark Bookstore, Moledina Road, Near West End Theatre, Camp, Pune

Open Space – Talking Poetry and Landmark, Pune invite you to a poetry reading by Bombay-based poet, fiction-writer and translator, Sampurna Chattarji.

Sampurna Chattarji will read from her first book of poems Sight May Strike You Blind published by the Sahitya Akademi (Academy of Indian Literature), New Delhi, 2007. The reading will be followed by an informal interaction.

Sampurna Chattarji was born in Dessie, Ethiopia in November 1970, grew up in Darjeeling, graduated from New Delhi, and worked in advertising for seven years before becoming a full-time writer. Her poetry has featured on RTHK Radio 4 Hong Kong; in the international documentary Voices in Wartime; in First Proof: The Penguin Book of New Writing from India 2; Fulcrum Four: Fifty-six Indian Poets (1951-2005) and Imagining Ourselves, an anthology released by the International Museum of Women (IMOW) in San Francisco; as well as in Stand Magazine (forthcoming), Wasafiri (UK), The Little Magazine, Chandrabhaga (India)and Wespennest 144 2006 (Germany).

Sampurna is an Executive Committee Member of the PEN All-India Centre, Mumbai, and on the Editorial Board of its Journal Penumbra. She was the recipient of the Charles Wallace India Trust Creative Writing Scholarship 2005, which took her to Edinburgh.

Sight May Strike You Blind
“Mothers, daughters, sight and seeing, mythology, photography – these are some of the tropes that find their way into the first book of poetry by Sampurna Chattarji. Her poems are characteristically skeletal, spare, shorn of excess…‘Mother and Daughter: A Duet’ rings with authenticity and a display of technical ease in handling the changes in voice…Just as Chattarji flirts with language, she toys with the surreal. The author attempts in her own words to make ‘language reflect the derangement of everyday events, ostensibly normal, but with an undercurrent of abnormality.’”
- Sonia Nazareth, DNA, Sunday June 10, 2007

Entry free on a first come first served basis only