In 1976, Satyajit Ray published Our Films, Their Films, an anthology of critical writing where he makes a compelling case for the role of cinema in shaping contemporary culture. Cinema, he argues, brings to life a universe that is informed by the reality we inhabit and, in turn, shapes our collective understanding of the world around us. 

With this idea in mind, Asia Society India Centre presents Parda Faash, a two-day festival of films from and about South Asia, to be showcased together in Mumbai for the first time. Developed in collaboration with Film Southasia and the Goethe Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Mumbai, the festival will feature contemporary, non-fiction films from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka that focus on gender, sexuality and the rights of marginalised communities in the region. The festival aims to spotlight and celebrate the work of independent filmmakers and artists from around the subcontinent - the unique voices of young storytellers who believe in the transformative power of cinema in South Asia.  

The selection has been curated from Film Southasia ’22, the silver jubilee edition of the premier subcontinental biennial non-fiction film festival held in Kathmandu, Nepal. In between festivals, the best and most representative films travel the globe in an attempt to promote and popularise non-fiction films from the region.  

Dates: 27-28 April 2024 

Venue: Coomaraswamy Hall, CSMVS, Mumbai

Parda Faash is free and open to the public. To attend the screenings, we request you to register your interest by filling out this form.

SCREENING SCHEDULE

DAY 1 | 27.04.24 | SATURDAY

11AM

Taangh (Longing), dir. Bani Singh | 75 mins | India

Against the backdrop of Partition, newly independent India’s first hockey team defeats England, their erstwhile coloniser, to win the Gold at the 1948 London Olympics. Six decades later, when Nandy Singh, a member of this iconic team suffers a stroke at the age of 84, his tenacious will to recover inspires his daughter to go on a journey to discover the champion he was before she was born.

This screening will be followed by a QnA session with Abhro Banerjee (Editor, Taangh) and Mitu Varma (Film South Asia).

About the Filmmaker

Bani Singh studied at the National Institute of Design, and after working in the area of furniture and space design for a few years, specialised in Museum Studies.  She worked at the Virasat-e-Khalsa museum in Anandpur Sahib, Punjab, as a gallery visualiser and content interpreter. For the last couple of years she was senior faculty at Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology. Taangh (Longing) is her first film.

2PM

This Stained Dawn, dir. Anam Abbas | 89 mins | Pakistan

Karachi’s feminists organise a woman’s march, coming up against Pakistan’s state, media and radical religious right. Filmmaker Anam Abbas follows the march’s organisers as they negotiate a deeply surveilled, paranoia-inducing, and often physically violent space in the hopes of spurring a revolution for women’s rights. A philosophical work, This Stained Dawn is not just about the “Aurat March”, but about the act of political organising itself.

This screening will be followed by a virtual QnA session with Moneeza Ahmed (Founding Member, Aurat March) and Aastha Tiku (Screenwriter and Co-Founder of Critical Mass Films).

About the Filmmaker

Anam Abbas is a Pakistan based Pakistani/ Canadian filmmaker. She runs Other Memory Media in Pakistan, and is also one of the founding members of the Documentary Association of Pakistan (DAP). As a producer and DP her first feature Showgirls of Pakistan, winner of the Best Pitch Award at the 2016 Hotdocs Forum, premiered in competition at IDFA in 2020. Her latest fiction short Saya, co-directed with Fawzia Mirza, was selected to play in competition at the Chicago International Film Festival in 2019. Anam was among the organisers of the Aurat Marches in Karachi in 2018 and in Islamabad in 2019.

4:15PM 

Decoding Gender, dir. Rawyan Shayema | 50 mins | Bangladesh

A woman fighting for women’s rights from men, a trans-woman who is seeking validation for trans women’s identity and rights from both men and women, a non-binary person who just want to express themself freely – this film is a quest  for the ultimate representation of a gender role through the personal journey of the filmmaker.

This screening will be followed by a virtual QnA between Rawyan Shayema (Filmmaker, Decoding Gender) and the Film South Asia team.

About the Filmmaker

Rawyan Shayema is a Bangladesh based filmmaker, bookworm and art aficionado. They studied Film and Media at Stamford University Bangladesh and worked as a cinematographer in more than twenty documentaries & short fiction films. In addition, they have directed several experimental shorts, and won the Best Cinematographer Award at Stamford University Short Film Festivals in 2014. Rawyan also won awards from the Docedge_Kolkata, Dhaka_doclab, Docskool_Nepal and attended a number of prestigious labs including IFFR’s Rotterdam Lab and Global Media Makers Program by Film Independent. Rawyan also founded Art Haaat, an experimental, independent production company.

5:45PM

Gay India Matrimony, dir. Debalina Majumdar | 67 mins | India

Gay India Matrimony is a film that revolves around three characters exploring their marriage prospects, with one of them documenting their travails. While Sayan and Gourab are assigned male at birth, Debalina, the director of the film, is assigned female. All three of them are looking for a same- gender partner, and the very suggestion of them wanting to marry one drives everybody around into a tizzy.

This screening will be followed by a QnA session with Debalina Majumdar (Filmmaker, Gay India Matrimony), Gourab Ghosh (Protagonist, Gay India Matrimony), Abhro Banerjee (Editor, Gay India Matrimony) and Parmesh Shahani (Head - Godrej DEI Lab and author, Queeristan).

About the Filmmaker 

Debalina Majumder, an alumni of the Berlinale Talent Campus, studied Comparative Literature, and worked in television before branching off on her own to produce documentaries, short films, travelogues, music videos, telefilms and mixed genre audio-visual works. Her fiction film, If You Dare Desire (2017), was given  the Diversity Award at the 18th Barcelona International LGTB Film Festival and Best Film Award, Gender at the 6th Woodpecker Festival, New Delhi (2018).

DAY 2 | 28.04.24 | SUNDAY

11AM

Before You Were My Mother, dir. Prasuna Dongol | 73 mins | Nepal

Born and brought up in Manipur and currently living in New York, Ibemhal (59) left her childhood home in Manipur and moved to Nepal after her marriage. Ibemhal’s whole life has been dedicated to raising her two daughters while trying to find her own identity in new places. Who is Ibemhal beyond her identity as a mother and a wife? What was her life like in Manipur and Nepal- both conflict zones when she lived there? Prasuna, her elder daughter, seeks to find out.

This screening will be followed by a discussion with Prasuna Dongol (Filmmaker, Before You Were My Mother), Shilpa Phadke (Feminist Scholar) and Veerangana Solanki (Curator and Writer).

About the Filmmaker

Prasuna Dongol is a documentary filmmaker from Kathmandu. She works as a DocLab Coordinator at KIMFF and is one of the Filmmaker Mentors for the Camera Sika project run by The British Council Nepal. She was also one of the Filmmaker Fellows of One World Media’s Global Short Doc Forum 2021. Her documentary Dolpa Diary (2019) was screened at many film festivals in and outside of Nepal. The documentary was awarded in the category of Best Adventure Film at KIMFF 2018 and Best Woman Filmmaker at Human Rights International Film Festival (HRIFF) 2019.

2PM

Amid the Villus, dir. Sumathy Sivamohan | 47 mins | Sri Lanka

When the civil war in Sri Lanka ended in 2009, the displaced people of Palaikuli in Musali South (northern Sri Lanka) returned to their homeland. Their homecoming was beset by a number of problems and challenges, including stone posts being driven into their land. Amid the Villus is the story of Palaikuli as the people tell it. It is about place, work and survival; understanding place as history, memory, joy, adversity and struggle.

This screening will be followed by a QnA session with Sumathy Sivamohan (Filmmaker, Amid the Villus) and Anuradha Tiwari (Screenwriter).

About the Filmmaker

Sumathy Sivamohan is an award- winning film maker, dramatist/performer, poet and academic. Her features, Ingirunthu, Sons and Fathers and Single Tumbler have won international acclaim. She has performed widely internationally and nationally. Her work is in the areas of gender, class and nation. She works with communities in intimate and critical engagements with issues that concern localities and with communities affected by war and conflict. She teaches literature and critical theory  at the Department of English, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka.

3:45PM

Gurkha Girl (Lahureni), dir. Bishal Roka Magar | 35 mins | Nepal

As news surfaces that Britain is recruiting Nepali girls in its British Gurkha regiments, Dilmaya, a young girl from a mountain village, sees it as a life changing opportunity and devotes all her time in preparation. The film captures a young woman's quest for recruitment in the British Gurkha Regiment. 

About the Filmmaker 

Bishal Magar is a trainer in a pre-Gurkha training centre. In 2016 he had the opportunity to learn the fundamentals of cinema through a short-term filmmaking course organized in Kathmandu. He participated in and holds a diploma of Dov Simons’s ‘Cinema Director and Film Production’ program 2017. Lahureni (2021) is his first documentary short. Born and raised in in a remote village in Rolpa in the western hills of Nepal, Magar seeks to bring the stories of the region and its people to the world.

5PM

Moon on the Man, dir. Prince Shah | 75 mins | India

Moon on the Man is an observational and exploratory feature length documentary that questions the most basic assumptions of reality, perception and choices. As such, it is synonymous with every individual’s struggle to find direction, some that bear fruit in the ever-evolving landscape of human perspectives and others that segue into mental illness, old age and broken dreams.

This screening will be followed by a QnA session with Prince Shah (Filmmaker, Moon on the Man), Vaibhav Sorte (Cinematographer, Moon on the Man), and Raja Sen (Film Critic and Columnist).

About the Filmmaker 

Prince Shah has worked as assistant director in Tenet, Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol (India Schedule), Gandhi Of The Month, Talaash, Sense8 (India Schedule), Gully Boy, The Best Is Yet To Come (India Schedule) and Desert Dolphin.  He made his first short film A Better Bargain and a music video for the 48 Hour Film Project, with the latter winning an  award. For another short film 2733 See You On The Other Side, he won the Audience Choice Award at the prestigious Mumbai Academy of Moving Images Festival (MAMI Festival 2011). He has also been directing digital films and music videos besides TV commercials.

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