Brand-new science fiction movie Transfinite found a venue at Kochi-Muziris Biennale when the art festival’s curator Anita Dube reeled out her package of Artist Cinema that began on Thursday evening.
The 70-minute film, directed by Neelu Bhuman, comprises seven standalone short-stories where supernatural trans and queer people from various cultures use their powers to protect love, teach, fight and thrive. The movie marked the start of the segment that focuses on subjects “ranging from politics and power to trans, queer, race, power, environment and freedom”, according to Dube. “Every film delves into some hard-hitting subjects. I believe that we must have a dialogue on each of the topics,” said the curator ahead of the screening at the biennale Pavilion in Fort Kochi’s Cabral Yard.
Vasundhara by Ashok Ahuja will be screened on Saturday. A part from Truth and Reconciliation Commission Recordings is to be shown on Sunday, following a talk on the post-apartheid restorative justice body by historian Dilip Menon, who teaches at the Centre for Indian Studies in Africa under the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
The last two evenings of the segment will screen documentary-maker Anand Patwardhan’s latest work about contemporary communal and caste violence that represents an assault on India’s pluralist fabric — in two parts. Post screening on Tuesday, Anand Patwardhan will discuss the film.
Dube said all these films were important to her, though not necessary to be put under a package. “Each film is showcased as a single film under my curation,” she said. “The biennale is a great platform for such a discourse. The idea is to put the spotlight on these subjects.”
Yeh Freedom Life, by Priya Sen, which was screened on Friday, is a 70-minute Hindi film capturing in a largely working-class area in South Delhi, moving between the two very different worlds of its protagonists who try to keep up with the currents and swings of their respective loves.
The award-winning 1998 Hindi film Vasundhara starring Neena Gupta, Naseeruddin Shah, Tom Alter, Benjamin Gilani and Raja Bundela, profiles a young woman ecologist, educated and brought up in Switzerland. She arrives in a remote Himalayan town for her research, accompanied by her European boyfriend, and meets with three other young men who are also drawn towards her. Each of her four suitors represents a different attitude towards the environment. From among them, she must make her choice.
