The Social Justice Film Festival is a collaboration between the student association Nous, the Department of English at St. Joseph’s University, Bengaluru, and the noted film-maker R. P. Amudhan. This year, the festival will be held on 30th and 31st January 2023.
While the first edition at SJU was held in 2022, Amudhan has perfected over the last five years the model of a travelling film festival that moves from city to city with documentaries and film-makers.
The films chosen do not offer easy ideological closures. Much in the spirit of that line from an Emily Dickinson poem–“Tell all the truth, but tell it slant/Success in circuit lies”. They invite a kind of working out of intent, and a process of thinking aloud. Each film offers a multiplicity of entry-points, and the possibility of an engaged conversation. A defining element in the festival is a curiosity about the audiences we are capable of becoming as we watch documentaries together and listen to each other after.
The 2023 films
In Search of Gold – a portrait of Kolar Gold Fields
Dir : Basav Biradar; 34.43 min; India; Documentary
Set in the once thriving colonial gold mining township of Kolar Gold Fields (KGF),
IN SEARCH OF GOLD attempts to understand the different lived and remembered
histories of people who built this highly profitable enterprise. Aided by the grim
imagery of now defunct mining operations, the film brings together narratives of
collective socio-political struggles of the past, nostalgia for lost privilege, and the
anxiety of an uncertain future, of a fragmented society.
The director, Basav Biradar, will interact with the audience after the screening.
City Girls
Dir : Priya Thuvassery; 28.14 min; India; Documentary
City Girls’ is an intimate portrayal of two young girls from small towns of India
now living in Delhi. The film attempts to deconstruct the image of ‘the city’ and
what it means for a young woman brought up in an ‘elsewhere’ she’s longed to
escape from all her life.
Ruuposh
Dir : Mohd Fehmeed, Zeeshan Amir Khan; 32.25 min; India; Documentary
Ruuposh is an idiosyncratic documentary that features Ruksana Begum- her late
father Mehboob Khan and her son- Mohd Fehmeed, who belong to a Muslim
minority family of India 2021. The documentary follows a personal narrative of
how Mehboob Khan stayed back in India at the time of partition while his entire
extended family moved to Pakistan.
Dews of the Storm
Dir : Akshit Sharma; 13.42 min; India; Documentary
The film explores the struggles faced by the farmers showing dissent on the newly
imposed law by the state. The challenges are amplified by the weather as camps
of buoyant farmers are disrupted and flooded by storms and heavy rains.
Longing
Dir : Bani Singh; 89.42 min
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.
The director, Bani Singh, will interact with the audience
Native Place
Dir: Andrew Francisco; 34.59 min; India; Documentary
‘Native Place’ is a film about movement and economic competition, told through
the stories of those who have come to Delhi to earn. From day laborers to a
stock broker, these characters are all compelled by the push and pull of the need
to make a living.
Ripples Under the Skin
Dir : Farha Khatun; 29 min; India; Documentary
‘Ripples of water’ tells the story of this man and this city – it tells the story of
the Calcutta that lurks behind the glitz and glamour of today’s Calcutta, it tells
the story of a community of migrant workers who had come to this city to make
a living, a city that never invited them yet somehow they made home, a city that
they built with their blood and sweat, yet ‘home’ remained elusive, a city that
nourishes, waters itself through the toils of people like Nazim kaka, yet
conveniently forgets, casts them away when it chooses to walk towards the future.
We Make Film
Dir : Shweta Ghosh; 80 min; India; Documentary
At a time of ever increasing media access, anyone who wants to make a film
should be able to make one. But what happens when you’re assumed as
incapable or ‘difficult’ to work with, or need adjustments to make the creative
process accessible?
Set across three cities in India, We Make Film explores the creative journeys of
d/Deaf and disabled filmmakers Debopriya, Mijo and Anuja.
White Slam – a documentary and Carrom
Dir Satish Ganapathy; 31.35 min; India; Documentary
While the game of carrom is global, the world champions of this game extraordinarily
come from one single slum community in North Madras! This small area North of Chennai holds the record for the most number of World Champions in carrom. White Slam explores this unique distinction of this community.
Footloose a story of belonging
Dir : Gulshan Singh; 93.38 min
Minorities from Pakistan & Myanmar came to India to save their lives. They had
heard that Indian is a secular country where there is no religious discrimination.
But, in the last few years, religious discrimination has increased leading to
communal riots which ultimately ended up being the sole agenda for contesting
elections.
Homage to KP Sasi
1) America America (music video)
2) Gaon Chhodab Nahin (music video)
3) Breath to Breath (Dir : Amudhan R.P.; 23 min)
Students of the University may register here.
The festival is open to the public: please register here if you are not from SJU.
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