Monsoon Mania
War and Peace (2002)
Anand Patwardhan
Filmed over four years in India, Pakistan, Japan and the USA - War and Peace is documentary journey of peace activism at a time of global militarism and war. Triggered by macabre scenes of jubilation that greeted nuclear testing in the sub-continent, the film is framed by the murder of Mahatma Gandhi. Fifty years later memories of Gandhi seem like a mirage that never was, created by our thirst for peace and our very distance from it.
Bombs for peace. The ultimate oxymoron.What could be more twisted and warped than that? The nuclear test is successful. ‘The Buddha is smiling’. But Anand Patwardhan reminds us that this time the joke is on us."
Firaaq (2008)
Nandita Das
Hindi political thriller film set one month after the 2002 violence in Gujarat, and looks at the aftermath in terms of the effects on the lives of everyday people. It claims to be based on "a thousand true stories". Firaaq means both separation and quest in Urdu. The film is the directorial debut of Nandita Das. The film has largely been well received, both locally and internationally. It won three awards at the Asian Festival of First Films in Singapore in December 2008.
After the Deluge (2010)
Nizam Rawther
Kasaragod district has cashew plantations extending to 5600 acres, spreading through habitations, water bodies and hills in about 11 villages. The plantation corporation has been aerially spraying with the chemical pesticide Endosulfan since 1976, regularly till 2001. Following public out cry and intervention, Endosulfan spraying was stopped from 2003. Their battle began on December 26, 2000, when 43 activists of the Punchiri Muliyar marched to the PCK unit in Periya to block a helicopter from taking off for aerial spraying. A police cordon stopped them. They produced a documentary on the aftermath, After the deluge.
The Great Dictator (1940)
Charlie Chaplin
Like most Chaplin films, he wrote, produced, and directed, in addition to starring as the lead. Having been the only Hollywood film maker to continue to make silent films well into the period of sound films, this was Chaplin's first true talking picture as well as his most commercially successful film. More importantly, it was the first major feature film of its period to bitterly satirize Nazism and Adolf Hitler. At the time of its first release, the United States was still formally at peace with Nazi Germany. Chaplin's film advanced a stirring, controversial condemnation of Hitler, fascism, anti-Semitism, and the Nazis, the latter of whom he excoriates in the film as "machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts".
The film begins during a battle of World War I. The protagonist is an unnamed Jewish private (Charlie Chaplin), a barber by profession and is fighting for the Central Powers in the army of the fictional nation of Tomainia, comically blundering through the trenches in a tract of combat scenes.
Fire (1996)
Deepa Mehta
It is the first of Mehta's Elements trilogy. It is followed by Earth (1998) and Water (2005). Starring: Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das.
The film is loosely based on Ismat Chugtai's 1941 story Lihaf (The Quilt). It was one of the first mainstream films in India to explicitly show homosexual relations. After its 1998 release in India, certain groups staged several protests, setting off a flurry of public dialogue around issues such as homosexuality and freedom of speech.
At first glance, you see a happy middle-class family going through the normal paces of everyday life. However, as the layers are slowly peeled back, we find a simmering cauldron of discontent within the family, with almost every family member living a lie. Both marriages in the family turn out to be emotionally empty, without love or passion.
Monsoon Wedding (2001)
Mira Nair
Depicts romantic entanglements during a traditional Punjabi wedding in Delhi.
Although it is set entirely in New Delhi, the film was an international co-production between companies in India, the United States, Italy, France, and Germany. The film won the Golden Lion award and received a Golden Globe Award nomination. A musical based on the film is currently in development and is scheduled to premiere on Broadway in 2011.
The film's central story concerns a father, Lalit Verma (Naseeruddin Shah), who is trying to organize an enormous, chaotic, and expensive wedding for his daughter, for whom he has arranged a marriage with a man she has known for only a few weeks. As so often happens in the Punjabi culture, such a wedding means that, for one of the few times each generation, the whole family comes together from all corners of the globe including India, Australia, Oman and the United States.
Dreams (1990)
Akira Kurosawa
A collection of tales based upon the actual dreams of director Akira Kurosawa, Dreams is a series of eight short narratives that compose a complete movie. Each story could stand by itself, but these stories have a narrative thread which binds them together. There are commonalities that cement them together as one movie; it was put together in such a way that the stories somehow flow together.
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (2003)
Kim Ki-duk
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring is a 2003 South Korean film about a Buddhist monastery which floats on a lake in a pristine forest. The story is about the life of a Buddhist monk as he passes through the seasons of his life, from childhood to old age. The film is divided into five segments (the five seasons of the title), each segment depicting a different stage in the life of a Buddhist monk (each segment is roughly ten to twenty years apart, and is physically in the middle of its titular season).
Children of Heaven (1997)
Majid Majidi
Iranian film, deals with a brother and sister and their adventures over a lost pair of shoes. Some critics compared it to Vittorio de Sica's 1948 Bicycle Thieves. In 1998, it became the first Iranian film to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, losing to the Italian film Life Is Beautiful by Roberto Benigni. After the film had become well-known worldwide due to the Oscar nomination, it was shown in several European, South American, and Asian countries between 1999 and 2001. It was successfully shown in numerous film festivals and won awards. Bumm Bumm Bole, a 2010 Hindi film by Priyadarshan, is entirely based on Children of Heaven.
Harishchandrachi Factory (2009)
Paresh Mokashi
A Marati film depicting the struggle of Dadasaheb Phalke in making Raja Harishchandra in 1913, India's first feature film, thus the birth of Indian cinema, Harishchandrachi Factory is the directorial debut of Paresh Mokashi who won the Best Director award at Pune International Film Festival, where the film was shown. In September 2009, it was selected as India's official entry to Academy Award in the Best Foreign Language Film Category.
The film is the story about the beginning of the Indian film industry, set in 1913, when two business partners fall out resulting in one leaving the company. As the family struggle to survive Phalke (Nandu Madhav) decides to make his own silent motion picture along with the support of his family. He travels to England to learn about the new medium and after he returns brings together a team of actors and technicians to produce his first film about the story of Raja Harishchandra. Through all the hard work the movie becomes a hit thus marking the beginning of one of the world's biggest film industry.
Short Film Mania
Panthibhojanam (2010)
Sreebala K. Menon
Sreebala chose Santhosh Echikanam’s well-acclaimed short story for her 20-minute short film mainly to highlight a socially relevant issue. The story is a poignant reminder that despite all its cultural and social advancements, Kerala society still retains part of the age old caste system and that Dalits still face social stigma even in urban circles. The manners and food habits of those from the lower section of the social ladder are still laughed at by the so-called upper class that is unwilling to let them enter their world unless it is for their benefit.
