ISAFF 2005 – Experimenta India

Broadway Performance Hall, Thursday, Sept. 15, 2005, at 9:00 p.m.

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This original and ground-breaking program is curated by Shai Heredia, the director of EXPERIMENTA, India’s first independent festival for experimental film. From seminal archival classics from Films Division India to emerging moving image artists work, this is a showcase of Indian experimental films and videos that extend the boundaries of genre and form.

Film: And I Make Short Films
Directed By: S.N.S.Sastry
Origin: India, 1968
Description: 15 minutes

An impressionistic portrayal of short film making by a short film maker. The film explores the process, ideas and the context of documentary filmmaking in India at the time -art or documentation of reality. The views expressed in the film are sometimes bitter, often humorous, at times satirical but seldom complimentary.

Film: Claxplosion
Directed By: Pramod Pati
Origin: India, 1968
Description: 2 minutes

Using pixilation and electronic music, this is an experimental family planning film.

Film: Abid
Directed By: Pramod Pati
Origin: India, 1972
Description: 5 minutes

“Unlike a cartoon film, which is a rapidly moving series of photographed drawings, in pixilation, a moving object is shot frame by frame, and then through clever editing made to appear in motion. By its nature, this movement is agile, energetic and unpredictable just like the pop art movement.” [Pramod Pati]

Film: Trip
Directed By: Pramod Pati
Origin: India, 1970
Description: 4 minutes

A film on Bombay, which uses pixilation to depict the transitoriness of daily life in an urban context. This spectacular film with its abstract soundtrack of tweaked city sounds is the quintessential urban Indian experimental film.

Film: Passage
Directed By: Gurvinder Singh
Origin: India, 2004
Description: 8 minutes

As an ambient essay on time and drifting sounds within a domestic space, this personal and highly aestheticised video was made before the filmmaker moved house in Delhi.

Film: Kalighaat Fetish
Directed By: Ashish Avikunthak
Origin: India, 1999
Description: 22 minutes

The film attempts to negotiate with the duality that is associated with the ceremonial veneration of the Mother Goddess Kali. It ruminates on the nuanced transexuality that is prevalent in the ceremonial performance of male devotees cross dressing as Kali. (Please be advised that the film contains some scenes of animal sacrifice)

Film: Boond: In 6 tellings
Directed By: Anuradha Chandra
Origin: India, 2004
Description: 14 minutes

Boond tells a mythical fable of a drop of water that turns into a man. The story is told by four women from around the world. Their interpretation and retelling of this ancient tale reveals the multiple meanings of the story. In a time when communities are collapsing under the pressures of modern life, Boond explores the possibility of resurrecting lost oral traditions and finding spaces to communicate despite differences

Film: Kshya Tra Gya
Directed By: Amit Dutta
Origin: India, 2004
Description: 22 minutes

A boy (who is also an old man) tries to tell a story. This film is in two parts. The first part deals with the ritual of a boy going to school, and the second part deals with the story-book. With a rhythmic structure, this abstract narrative tale is told using in-camera special effects. Mythological references have been used as puns, some of the riddles are from Somdev’s book Katahsaritsagar, and some of the stories from Milord Pavic’s “Dictionary of the Khazars”.

Film: Tell me a Story
Directed By: Amit Saxena
Origin: India, 2005
Description: 8 minutes

This animation attempts to invoke, through the act of memory and story, the sustaining myths and symbols of the past and present: the joy and travail of a traveler.

Thursday, Sept. 15, 2005, at 9:00 p.m.