Films by Pankaj Kumar
PATHER CHUJAERI / THE PLAY IS ON...
44 mts
SYNOPSIS
How does art survive in a regime of fear? I first encountered this question
in 1999, while taking photographs of Kashmir during that mindless war
with Pakistan. That summer, I established contact with the National Bhand
Theatre, Wathora, and the Bhagat Theatre, Akingam, two groups that were
still performing in the traditional Pather form of satire. I returned
twice in 2001, now armed with a camera. I was encouraged by what I found:
an illiterate community has sustained a centuries-old tradition in the
face of debilitating social and cultural changes. Although perenially
intimidated by the corruption, violence and intolerance that prevail in
Kashmir, the bhands are still affirming a commitment to their theatre,
to the critical potential of its form and the liberating joys of performance.
Faith in Sufism has tempered their enthusiam for satire and they identify
with the collective voices of Kashmir's freedom. The Play is on.... follows
the two groups as they prepare for public performances, a rare phenomenon
today. For the bhands, who daily witness the erosion of their way of life,
each performance represents both a change as well as a repetition of the
same brutal fact: that they are not free to share their revolutionary
spirit.
Previous screenings:
Berlin, Margreat Mead (New york), Busan, Mumbai, Nottam, Zanzibar, FSA
(Kathmandu), Amascultura (Lisbon), Berlin Ethnofilmfest, Lutton (UK),
Rai Film festival (UK), Docudays(Beirut), Karachi, International Three
Continentes Festival of Documentaries--Argentina, Asian social forum,
Crosssing Borders (Iowa city), Lussas (France) and Alamkara festival (Mumbai)
Awards
Bronze Remi at Houston International Film Festival
Best film---UNESCO MITIL Prize
Special jury award at Karachi film festival
Press
It's not on the folk for, but a look at culture in the regime of fear...Indian
Express, Mumbai It talks about living, the desire for normalcy and the
inadeqacy of the state to providse for the common man..... Hindustan Times,
Delhi
Credits
Director, Camera, and Editing -- Pankaj Rishi Kumar
MAT / THE VOTE
60 mts
SYNOPSIS
THE VOTE is a filmic deconstruction of the electoral process. It closely
examines the interests and issues that guide the performance of different
players-political parties, candidates, party workers and voters-in a competition
for power. The film follows Imtiaz Khan, BJP candidate who finally stood
third in the elections and Hemraj Saathi, a BJP worker. THE VOTE documents
the nitty-gritty of elections in Siyana, an assembly constituency. The
overall election process in Siyana forms the main structure, the matrix,
of the film. The crucial subjects here are the voters, divided and categorized
according to caste and community.
Several narrative strands are woven into the overall structure of the
film. One strand follows the history of the political process in Uttar
Pradesh, set against a background of national development. Local knowledge
of this history is articulated in the discourses provided by the BJP worker,
Hemraj Saathi. With his revolutionary ideas and a desire to eventually
achieve a position of power in order to affect change, Saathi aspires
to participation in the electoral process. It is his way of accessing
the socio-political ladder through which he can transcend his subaltern
status as a dalit. But Saathi has not been completely co-opted. He is
able to comment with incisive wit and logic on the corruption and lack
of vision that plagues Indian politics. He questions the basic tenets
that guide the behavior and ideology of politicians and the ways in which
the social worker, the backbone of the electoral process, is completely
ignored in order to misguide and manipulate the voter.
Voter identity is the crucial dimension in the film and it is reinforced
by the constant references to caste and community, a political 'language'
that rules the behavior of civil society. Dialogue between the filmmaker
and the public is marked by the homogeneity of the group being interviewed,
rather than the diverse 'public' that one expects to find in a modern
society. The vox pop reflects by default the caste-ist and communal composition
of he electorate. The common man is ubiquitous and mostly a silent spectator
in the film. Through interviews conducted in different villages, on the
roadside and inside homes, the film documents the voice of the people,
which is overwhelmed by the euphoria of different party campaigns and
numbed by the frequency of elections in UP. Issues of internal security,
war and communal violence are juxtaposed with unemployment and the rights
of the underprivileged. State-sponsored propaganda films promoting the
democratic ethic and the purpose of elections are contradicted by obvious
violations of the same. The electorate is at the mercy of corrupt politicians
who are motivated by the high stakes involved, and exploit the deep-rooted
socio-economic inequalities that have reduced Indian elections to a game
of numbers rather than issues. In this morbid and dispiriting scenario,
there are few individuals who manage to preserve a commitment to democratic
ideals and the professed goals of the Indian constitution, which promises
but has failed to deliver liberty, equality and fraternity to all.
For the last fifty-five years, India has had a democracy that operates
from above. Democracy in our country has functioned as a sop from the
elite to the masses, rather than a system of good decentralized governance
that the masses are able to create, sustain and exploit for the establishment
of a common weal. The production of THE VOTE has been motivated by a need
to bring the vital issues in Indian democracy to the fore, by revealing
in a comprehensive and articulate manner, the failure of our society to
meet even the most basic challenges of such a social and political system.
Competition Section--Fribourg-Mar'2003...
in this film, Pankaj Rishi Kumar tackles one of the most delicate problems:
how to show on screen the way the democratic ideal adapts itself to the
surrounding social, economic, political, and cultural context? What the
film director achieved with "MAT" is impressive inasmuch as
the material collected (electoral meetings, interviews of candidates and
conversations with the electorate ) was so subtly deconstructed and reconstructed
as to yield the portrait of a people in its full complexity. Through it
we are transported not only to India but to anywhere on the planet, where
so called intangible values are imperceptibly corrupted as soon as they
are applied: human all too human, as someone said......Fribourg Film Festival
BACKGROUND
The assembly elections for the north-Indian state of Uttar Pradesh (UP)
concluded on 24th February 2002 with a predictable result: a hung assembly.
The situation changed drastically after the Gujarat carnage, when the
BJP had to win a vote of confidence in Parliament. They managed to scrape
through with 23 votes thanks to support from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP),
which demanded as a bargain that its leader Mayawati be made Chief Minister
in UP. The BJP's political maneuver—an alliance with its traditional
rival, representing untouchables and other backward castes---was steeped
in cynicism and irony. It revealed the desperation with which the BJP,
traditionally representing upper caste Hindus, was trying to stay in power,
as well as the willingness of the BSP to compromise its adversarial politics.
Credits
Producer, Director, Camera, and Editing -- Pankaj Rishi Kumar
FILMOGRAPHY
Film
Producer, Director, Cameraman and Editor of Mat / The Vote
DV, 60 min, 2003 )
Producer, Director, Cameraman and Editor of THE PLAY IS ON
(DV, 44 min, 2001)
Producer, Director and Editor of KUMAR TALKIES
(16mm, 76min, 1999)
-- Best Film: L'Alternativa, Barcelona
-- Special Jury Citation: Zanzibar Film Festival
--National Award for Best Audiography, 1999
-- Screened at 36 international film festivals: Rotterdam,Visions Du Reel,
Sydney, St. Petersburg, Brisbane, Kathmandu, Pusan, Cork, Yamagata, AFI
Los Angeles, Hawaii, Nottam, Berlin, Mumbai, Munich, Berlin Ethno Filmfest,
Fribourg, Big Muddy, Singapore, Sao Paulo, North Carolina, Minneapolis,
Denver, Zanzibar, Palic-Yugoslavia, Nashville, Riga, and Calcutta.
--Produced with financial support from the Hubert Bals Fund, Rotterdam
and India Foundation for the Arts, Bangalore
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