Sunday 15 April 2012

10.30am for 11am, at the Renoir Cinema.

COME TO MY COUNTRY: JOURNEYS WITH KABIR AND FRIENDS  (Chalo Hamara Des)

Shabnam Virmani, India 2008 [Advised 12A], 98 mins, Hindi/Malwi with EST

Shabnam Virmani  illuminates the world of Kabir, the 15th century mystical poet of north India through the friendship between Indian folk singer Prahlad Tipanya, a ’low caste’ Dalit singer, and an American academic Linda Hess.  Using poetry and song the film juxtaposes familiar concepts of urban and rural, classical and folk music, and secular and fundamentalist thought in the weaving of the wisdom of the ancient world with a contemporary secular one.

THE LAST RITES

Yasmine Kabir, Bangladesh 2008 [Advised E], 17 mins

Yasmine Kabir, in this silent film takes us to the shipbuilding yards of Chittagong, Bangledesh, where thousands of men, driven by poverty, each year seek jobs.  She links the ‘last rites’ rituals of ship breaking with the survival of a community willing to work in an environmental wasteland of toxic waste and asbestos. The film won the top award at the Film South Asian Festival in 2009 where it was compared with Robert Flaherty’s Man of Aran.

Discussion led by Ayub Aulia, of the Pakistan Writers’ Guild, writer, poet, art critic and musicologist