Kasturi kasturi.basu@gmail.com [docuwallahs2]
2018-06-15 03:42:26 UTC
â
*Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/170734563607436/
<https://www.facebook.com/events/170734563607436/>*
___
* People's Film Collective*
presents
* Monthly Film Screening & Conversations*
*EMERGENCY, THEN AND NOW*
*17th JUNE | 6 P.M. - 9 P.M. *
JOGESH MIME ACADEMY (KALIGHAT PARK)
* FILM SCREENING*
*"PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE"*
*Dir: Anand Patwardhan*
(1978, 45 mins, with English subtitles)
*"ENCOUNTERED ON SAFFRON AGENDA?"*
*Dir: Shubhradeep Chakravorty *
(2009, 90 mins, with English subtitles)
* FREE ENTRY*
*Synopses:*
*PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE*
An important historical record of a traumatic period in Indiaâs recent
political history, PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE focuses on the State of
Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi from June 1975 to March 1977.
During the Emergency the media was muzzled, over 100,000 people were
arrested without charge and imprisoned without trial. But political
prisoners existed before the Emergency, and they continue to exist even
after it is over.
*ENCOUNTERED ON SAFFRON AGENDA?*
An investigative documentation of four encounter killings in Gujarat â
Sameer Khan Pathan (22 October 2002), Sadik Jamal (13 January 2003), Ishrat
Jahan-Javed Seikh (16 June 2004) and Shorabuddin Seikh (26 November 2005) â
alleged by the Police to be on a mission to assassinate the then Gujarat
Chief Minister Narendra Modi (now India's Prime Minister), who had
allegedly abetted the 2002 genocide of Muslims in the state after the
Godhra train burning incident. The film tries to find out the truth behind
Police stories and the politics of encounters in Gujarat. Encountered on
Saffron Agenda? shows that these Gujarat encounters are not only a gross
violation of the fundamental rights of the victims, but that they were
exclusively used to demonise minorities and to strengthen the politics of
hate in the state.
___
Dear friends!
Just as continuous farmers' agitation, soaring petrol-diesel prices,
skyrocketing unemployment and massive civilian discontent following police
firing and encounter killings of India's own downtrodden people has the
country on the boil, it suddenly starts raining alleged assassination plots
against none other than the PM of the country! Even as the clampdown on
civil rights activists continues, a massive number of citizens and working
people's organisations of the country have downright condemned the
authoritarian machinations of the increasingly fascist State.
History is a great teacher. A thorough look at the past often offers great
clarity for the muddled present. In this month's film screening, we will
take a look at two episodes of history, none of which has seen closure, but
both of which have profound things to teach us at the present.
The deceased film maker Shubhradeep Chakravorty's courageous film
'Encountered on Saffron Agenda?' took on the Sangh brigade's sinister
series of fake encounter killings in Gujarat, after the then Chief Minister
Narendra Modi got cornered for allegedly abetting the genocide of Muslims
in Gujarat in 2002. One is bound to feel a sense of deja vu, because the
story put up by the Gujarat Police at that time was chillingly similar to
the unfolding story at the present - that those innocent Muslim citizens
like Ishrat Jahan killed in cold blooded encounters by the Police under the
Modi-Shah regime, were supposedly 'conspiring to assassinate Modi'!
When conscientious citizens use the term 'Undeclared Emergency' to describe
the present-day state of affairs in India as far as civil liberties and
democratic rights are concerned, it is not a hyperbole, but perhaps an
understatement. Standing at a juncture when fake encounters, incarceration
as punishment for rebellion against injustice, and demonising of muslims,
dalits, adivasis and communists has become a new normal using draconian
laws and violent state/non-state actors, it is useful to look back in the
month of June at the iconic film 'Prisoners of Conscience' made by Anand
Patwardhan in 1978, documenting the notorious period of 'national
Emergency' declared by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The gross
violations of civil liberties and democratic rights in this period, also
simultaneously marked a complete siege of the institutions of bureaucracy,
police, judiciary and press/media by the dictatorial rule.
It is a dark irony that the RSS-BJP which for the first time after 1947
(and killing of Gandhi) was able to rear its head in mainstream Indian
politics during the 'Emergency' of 1975-77 has since come a full circle to
occupy the authoritarian seat of power today to try and finish the
unfinished business of Fascism in our country.
Hence, Memory and History will be our tools of resistance!
People's Film Collective
*-- PEOPLE'S FILM COLLECTIVE Email: ***@gmail.com
<***@gmail.com> Phone: +91-9163736863 <091637%2036863>
(also WhatsApp) Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/KolkataPeoplesFilmFestival/
<http://www.facebook.com/KolkataPeoplesFilmFestival/> (page)
http://www.facebook.com/groups/PeoplesFilmCollective/
<http://www.facebook.com/groups/PeoplesFilmCollective/> (group) ABOUT
People's Film Collective is an independent, autonomous, people-funded
cultural-political collective based in West Bengal. Formed in 2013, it
believes in the power of films as a weapon of pedagogy as well as
alternative media for people. PFC organises monthly film screenings &
conversations in Kolkata and travels in Bengal with films & movemental
videos. PFC organises two annual film festivals - the 'Kolkata People's
Film Festival' (KPFF) and the 'Frames of Freedom' and publishes a magazine
(Pratirodher Cinema). PFC collaborates with like-minded collectives of the
working class and peopleâs movements.*
*Kolkata Monthly Documentary Screenings and Conversations*
*Kolkata People's Film Festival (KPFF)*
*Frames of Freedom Film Festival*
*Little Cinema*
*Travelling Cinema*
*People's Media *
*People's Study Circle*
*Pratirodher Cinema : film and counterculture magazine*
* -- *
*Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/170734563607436/
<https://www.facebook.com/events/170734563607436/>*
___
* People's Film Collective*
presents
* Monthly Film Screening & Conversations*
*EMERGENCY, THEN AND NOW*
*17th JUNE | 6 P.M. - 9 P.M. *
JOGESH MIME ACADEMY (KALIGHAT PARK)
* FILM SCREENING*
*"PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE"*
*Dir: Anand Patwardhan*
(1978, 45 mins, with English subtitles)
*"ENCOUNTERED ON SAFFRON AGENDA?"*
*Dir: Shubhradeep Chakravorty *
(2009, 90 mins, with English subtitles)
* FREE ENTRY*
*Synopses:*
*PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE*
An important historical record of a traumatic period in Indiaâs recent
political history, PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE focuses on the State of
Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi from June 1975 to March 1977.
During the Emergency the media was muzzled, over 100,000 people were
arrested without charge and imprisoned without trial. But political
prisoners existed before the Emergency, and they continue to exist even
after it is over.
*ENCOUNTERED ON SAFFRON AGENDA?*
An investigative documentation of four encounter killings in Gujarat â
Sameer Khan Pathan (22 October 2002), Sadik Jamal (13 January 2003), Ishrat
Jahan-Javed Seikh (16 June 2004) and Shorabuddin Seikh (26 November 2005) â
alleged by the Police to be on a mission to assassinate the then Gujarat
Chief Minister Narendra Modi (now India's Prime Minister), who had
allegedly abetted the 2002 genocide of Muslims in the state after the
Godhra train burning incident. The film tries to find out the truth behind
Police stories and the politics of encounters in Gujarat. Encountered on
Saffron Agenda? shows that these Gujarat encounters are not only a gross
violation of the fundamental rights of the victims, but that they were
exclusively used to demonise minorities and to strengthen the politics of
hate in the state.
___
Dear friends!
Just as continuous farmers' agitation, soaring petrol-diesel prices,
skyrocketing unemployment and massive civilian discontent following police
firing and encounter killings of India's own downtrodden people has the
country on the boil, it suddenly starts raining alleged assassination plots
against none other than the PM of the country! Even as the clampdown on
civil rights activists continues, a massive number of citizens and working
people's organisations of the country have downright condemned the
authoritarian machinations of the increasingly fascist State.
History is a great teacher. A thorough look at the past often offers great
clarity for the muddled present. In this month's film screening, we will
take a look at two episodes of history, none of which has seen closure, but
both of which have profound things to teach us at the present.
The deceased film maker Shubhradeep Chakravorty's courageous film
'Encountered on Saffron Agenda?' took on the Sangh brigade's sinister
series of fake encounter killings in Gujarat, after the then Chief Minister
Narendra Modi got cornered for allegedly abetting the genocide of Muslims
in Gujarat in 2002. One is bound to feel a sense of deja vu, because the
story put up by the Gujarat Police at that time was chillingly similar to
the unfolding story at the present - that those innocent Muslim citizens
like Ishrat Jahan killed in cold blooded encounters by the Police under the
Modi-Shah regime, were supposedly 'conspiring to assassinate Modi'!
When conscientious citizens use the term 'Undeclared Emergency' to describe
the present-day state of affairs in India as far as civil liberties and
democratic rights are concerned, it is not a hyperbole, but perhaps an
understatement. Standing at a juncture when fake encounters, incarceration
as punishment for rebellion against injustice, and demonising of muslims,
dalits, adivasis and communists has become a new normal using draconian
laws and violent state/non-state actors, it is useful to look back in the
month of June at the iconic film 'Prisoners of Conscience' made by Anand
Patwardhan in 1978, documenting the notorious period of 'national
Emergency' declared by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The gross
violations of civil liberties and democratic rights in this period, also
simultaneously marked a complete siege of the institutions of bureaucracy,
police, judiciary and press/media by the dictatorial rule.
It is a dark irony that the RSS-BJP which for the first time after 1947
(and killing of Gandhi) was able to rear its head in mainstream Indian
politics during the 'Emergency' of 1975-77 has since come a full circle to
occupy the authoritarian seat of power today to try and finish the
unfinished business of Fascism in our country.
Hence, Memory and History will be our tools of resistance!
People's Film Collective
*-- PEOPLE'S FILM COLLECTIVE Email: ***@gmail.com
<***@gmail.com> Phone: +91-9163736863 <091637%2036863>
(also WhatsApp) Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/KolkataPeoplesFilmFestival/
<http://www.facebook.com/KolkataPeoplesFilmFestival/> (page)
http://www.facebook.com/groups/PeoplesFilmCollective/
<http://www.facebook.com/groups/PeoplesFilmCollective/> (group) ABOUT
People's Film Collective is an independent, autonomous, people-funded
cultural-political collective based in West Bengal. Formed in 2013, it
believes in the power of films as a weapon of pedagogy as well as
alternative media for people. PFC organises monthly film screenings &
conversations in Kolkata and travels in Bengal with films & movemental
videos. PFC organises two annual film festivals - the 'Kolkata People's
Film Festival' (KPFF) and the 'Frames of Freedom' and publishes a magazine
(Pratirodher Cinema). PFC collaborates with like-minded collectives of the
working class and peopleâs movements.*
*Kolkata Monthly Documentary Screenings and Conversations*
*Kolkata People's Film Festival (KPFF)*
*Frames of Freedom Film Festival*
*Little Cinema*
*Travelling Cinema*
*People's Media *
*People's Study Circle*
*Pratirodher Cinema : film and counterculture magazine*
* -- *