MANY RIVERS HOME
Directed by Baljit Sangra
Run time: 47 min
Language: English
Country: Canada
Year: 2014
Synopsis
Mixing reflections on aging, mortality and love, Baljit Sangra’s documentary, Many Rivers Home, examines the ties that bind South Asian families in a Lower Mainland seniors’ residence. There is rich human portraiture here, and a depiction of a vibrant ethnic community, but the core of the film is the director’s love for her mother.
DIRECTOR’S BIO
Baljit Sangra is a Vancouver based filmmaker who has been working in documentary and factual entertainment. Her passion is exploring social and cross-cultural issues. Most recently she directed/produced“ Many Rivers Home” a personal story that focuses on Seniors in Assisted care and looks at the end journey of life for Omni TV. She’s directed /produced the documentary “ Warrior Boyz’ in association with NFB/Canwest that examines the long running gang scene unique to the Indo-Canadian enclave in the Lower Mainland. Warrior Boyz premiered at Doxa and was nominated for three Leos. She also directed an A&E series for CityTV and Channel M called VIVA! for several seasons.
Baljit Sangra is planning to attend the screening.
IN HER WORDS: THE JOURNEY OF INDIAN WOMEN
Directed by Annie Zaidi
Run time: 42 min
Language: English
Country: India
Year: 2015
Synopsis
The Film traces the historical and social journeys of Indian women’s lives as revealed through the literature they created in every era. The story of how women lived, and their march towards freedom and self-definition was not officially documented. However, through the verses of nuns, bhakti devotee rebels, folk songs, verses written by courtesans, amateur anthropologists, the memoirs of activists, and modern literature, we witness the oppression and aspirations of Indian womanhood over two millenia. The film traces these changes through the translators, publishers, historians, and contemporary writers and readers who are pushing towards a more gender equal society.
DIRECTOR’S BIO
Annie Zaidi writes across various genres – journalism, poetry, fiction, drama. Her books include ‘Gulab’, ‘Love Stories # 1 to 14’, ‘Known Turf: Bantering with Bandits and other True Tales’, which was shortlisted for the Crossword Book Awards (Non-fiction), and she is the co-author of a series of inter-linked coming-of-age narratives called ‘The Bad Boy’s Guide to the Good Indian Girl’. Her play ‘So Many Socks’ was short-listed for the prestigious META awards. Ovr the years, she has written for a range of newspapers and magazines including Mid-Day, Frontline, Tehelka, Caravan, Mint, Elle, Femina, DNA, Forbes.
RECITATIONS NOT FROM MEMORY
Directed by Sunita Prasad
Run time: 18 min
Language: English
Country: US/India
Year: 2014
For Mature Audiences Only
Synopsis
Recitations not from memory is an experiment in recounting gendered experience, and particularly gender discrimination, within the urban Indian context. The video features non-actor men reciting true experiences of gender discrimination that where imparted to me by women in anonymous interviews. The slippage that occurs when the men recount these stories as their own, unrehearsed and via a teleprompter, registers subtle reactions and interpretations within their performances and de-centers assumptions about which experiences belong to which bodies.
DIRECTOR’S BIO
Sunita Prasad is a New York-based artist and filmmaker whose work uses techniques of hybridization between documentary, fiction, and performance to address issues of gender, public space, and the history of social movements. Her work has been exhibited internationally at venues and institutions including the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, Homesession in Barcelona, Torino Performance Art in Turin, Momenta Art in New York City, and Vox Populi Gallery in Philadelphia. She has received awards from the Art Matters Foundation, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Warner Bros. Production Fund, as well as residencies at TAJ & SKE Projects in Bangalore, the Contemporary Artists Center in Troy NY, and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.