Indian Documentary Screening (Saturday)

The documentary form has been employed in myriad ways to record the ecology of the art field, offering endless potential to create new stories, complicate old ones, and circulate them to an expanded audience. This screening series looks at how documentaries can shape the way histories of art are constructed, remembered, mystified, and debated—within the context of India’s thriving contemporary art scene. Through different genres and traditions of film-making, this two-day program explores how Indian film-makers have looked at the field of contemporary art. At the end of each day of screenings, there will be a discussion with the directors in English.

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Figures of Thought (1990 / India / Dir. Arun Khopkar / 33 minutes/ English)
Registration 14:15; Screening 14:30

This film takes a large glass mural created by Bhupen Khakhar, Nalini Malani and Vivan Sundaram as its starting-point and a means of transition between the three sections devoted to the work of these individual artists. Through a cinematic language that draws upon the narrative and theatrical traditions of India, this film creatively interprets the practices of the three artists.

Director Arun Khopkar, a graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India (and before that a mathematician), is a documentary filmmaker who has produced numerous short films on educational and social welfare issues, including the award-winning short film Tobacco Habits and Oral Cancer (1977).

Get Tickets

Saturday, September 21, 2013

To Let the World In, Volume 1 (2012 / India / Dir. Avijit Mukul Kishore / 93 minutes/ English and Hindi with English subtitles)
Registration 15:15; Screening 15:30

To Let the World In, Volume 1 is the first part of a film project that looks at the history of contemporary Indian art from the early 1980s to the present day, and is produced as part of the exhibition “To Let the World in: Narrative And Beyond in Contemporary Indian Art” at Art Chennai in 2012. In 1981, the exhibition ‘Place for People’ brought together a group of practitioners who sought to explore locality, class and politics in their practice. Among the inheritors of their legacy were younger artists who continued this dialogue. The film’s featured artists include Atul Dodiya, Anita Dube, Ranbir Kaleka, Nalini Malani, Pushpamala N, Sudhir Patwardhan, Gulammohammed Sheikh, Nilima Sheikh, Arpita Singh, and Vivan Sundaram along with art critic and curator Geeta Kapur.
Avijit Mukul Kishore is a filmmaker and cinematographer based in Mumbai. He specializes in documentary film and collaborates with visual artists on video and film-based installations.

Discussion with Directors 17:15; Close 17:45

Get Tickets

More screenings on Sunday September 22. 

Asia Society Hong Kong Center is a Program Partner for ‘Sites of Construction’ Screening Programme presented by Asia Art Archive

‘Sites of Construction’ is financially supported by the Arts Capacity Development Funding Scheme of  the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

The content of these programs does not reflect the views of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.