Screening Room, Bothell, Wednesday, Nov 5th, 4:00pm
Candles in the Wind
Punjab – the food bowl of India – is in the news for policy induced non-remunerative agriculture and escalating farm-suicides. Women of rural Punjab have long forgotten to sing the songs of harvest. ‘Candles in the wind’ witnesses the march of widows of the ‘Green Revolution’ as they re-negotiate the rules of engagement and the politics of domination in their bid to survive. Their struggle gives us a window into the social-economic flux in rural India – a nuanced understanding of the silent under-currents of a gender-specific struggle in the larger narrative of surviving as a farmer in these times.
India/2014/52mins
Hindi & Punjabi with subtitles
Directors:Nandan Saxena & Kavita Bahl:
They are National Award-winning independent film-makers. Their film ‘Cotton for my shroud’ was awarded the Rajat Kamal (Silver Lotus) for Best Investigative Film at National Film Awards, 2011. It is a film on the escalating suicides of cotton farmers in the Vidarbha region in Maharashtra. Their oeuvre spans the domains of ecology, livelihoods, development and human rights.
Links
- http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-metroplus/the-price-of-prosperity/article6112745.ece
- http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/bangalore/candles-in-the-wind-to-be-screened-today/article5948
- http://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/hyderabad/Sowing-Debt-and-Harvesting-Misery/2014/03/24/article2126276.ece1
- http://indian-reflections.blogspot.in/2014/05/watched-candles-in-wind-this-evening.html
Accolades
- Special Mention, 61st National Film Awards, 2013
- Best Documentary, Signs Film Festival, Kochi, Kerala, 2014
- Special Mention, International Documentary and Short Film Festival, Kerala, 2014
- Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, Athens, 2014
- Ladakh International Film Festival, 2014
- Documentarist Film, Festival, Istanbul, 2014
- Men and Boys for Gender Justice Film Festival, New Delhi, 2014