Documentary Films on Kabir this week...
Documentary Film Festival at the Alliance Francaise this week.
1) film festival is open to all.
2) alliance auditorium is on 2nd floor (no lift).
3) abillioneyes.in/schedule08.html is the webpage.
4) a blurb on the films:
JOURNEYS WITH KABIR: 4 films by Shabnam Virmani
These films journey into contemporary spaces touched by the music and poetry of the 15th century mystic weaver-poet of north India, Kabir. We meet a diverse array of people - an urban folklorist, a street fruit seller, a social activist, a Dalit folk singer, a Zen Buddhist scholar, a neo-fascist cleric of a Kabir sect, a Muslim qawwal - each encounter offering a moment of insight into the poetry and its contemporary meanings. We glimpse not one but many Kabirs. Sometimes he beckons, sometimes he baffles, but always he pushes you to self-interrogate, to question the boundaries of your identity, nation, ideology, caste and
religion- making these journeys unrelentingly inward even as they venture outward.
The 4 films are interwoven in significant ways, but each can be viewed independently.
KOI SUNTA HAI: Journeys with Kumar & Kabir, 96 min 16 AUGUST 4:00 pm
This film interweaves the oral folk traditions of Kabir in central India with the intensely personal narrative of the late classical singer Pandit Kumar Gandharva, keeping the spiritual ideas of Kabir as the central binding thread. Journeying between folk and classical, between rural and urban expressions of Kabir, the film finds moments of both continuity and rupture between these disparate worlds.
CHALO HAMARA DES: Journeys with Kabir & Friends, 97 min 17 AUG 5:30 pm
A journey in search of Kabir's des (country) this film unfolds through the interwoven narratives of two people from two very different countries - Dalit folk singer Prahlad Tipanya and North American scholar Linda Hess.
We enter the world of Kabir, through the personal and public lives of these two individuals, brought together in an unlikely friendship by the amazing universality and cross-cultural resonance of Kabir.
HAD-ANHAD: Journeys with Ram & Kabir, 105 min 18 AUGUST 7:00 pm
Kabir defied the boundaries between Hindu and Muslim, refusing to be labeled himself and sharply criticizing sectarianism. His name and upbringing were Muslim but his poetry often uses Hindu concepts and Hindu names for God, especially Ram. This film journeys in search of the "Ram"
invoked in Kabir's poetry, delving into the heart of divisive Hindu-Muslim politics of religion and nationalism, encountering singers and lay people in India and Pakistan, probing the forces of history and politics that have created disputatiously diverse Rams, while also spawning many Kabirs.
KABIRA KHADA BAZAAR MEIN: Journeys with Sacred & Secular Kabir, 94 min 19 AUGUST 4:00 pm
This film investigates the ironies and tensions between sacred and secular Kabir, interweaving the sacralization of Kabir by the Kabir Panth (an organized sect of the followers of Kabir) with the secular appropriation of the same poet by the social activist group Eklavya. The story unfolds through the life of Prahlad Tipanya, a Dalit singer whose participation in the Panth and Eklavya begins to raise difficult questions for him about ritual and organized religion.
1) film festival is open to all.
2) alliance auditorium is on 2nd floor (no lift).
3) abillioneyes.in/schedule08.html is the webpage.
4) a blurb on the films:
JOURNEYS WITH KABIR: 4 films by Shabnam Virmani
These films journey into contemporary spaces touched by the music and poetry of the 15th century mystic weaver-poet of north India, Kabir. We meet a diverse array of people - an urban folklorist, a street fruit seller, a social activist, a Dalit folk singer, a Zen Buddhist scholar, a neo-fascist cleric of a Kabir sect, a Muslim qawwal - each encounter offering a moment of insight into the poetry and its contemporary meanings. We glimpse not one but many Kabirs. Sometimes he beckons, sometimes he baffles, but always he pushes you to self-interrogate, to question the boundaries of your identity, nation, ideology, caste and
religion- making these journeys unrelentingly inward even as they venture outward.
The 4 films are interwoven in significant ways, but each can be viewed independently.
KOI SUNTA HAI: Journeys with Kumar & Kabir, 96 min 16 AUGUST 4:00 pm
This film interweaves the oral folk traditions of Kabir in central India with the intensely personal narrative of the late classical singer Pandit Kumar Gandharva, keeping the spiritual ideas of Kabir as the central binding thread. Journeying between folk and classical, between rural and urban expressions of Kabir, the film finds moments of both continuity and rupture between these disparate worlds.
CHALO HAMARA DES: Journeys with Kabir & Friends, 97 min 17 AUG 5:30 pm
A journey in search of Kabir's des (country) this film unfolds through the interwoven narratives of two people from two very different countries - Dalit folk singer Prahlad Tipanya and North American scholar Linda Hess.
We enter the world of Kabir, through the personal and public lives of these two individuals, brought together in an unlikely friendship by the amazing universality and cross-cultural resonance of Kabir.
HAD-ANHAD: Journeys with Ram & Kabir, 105 min 18 AUGUST 7:00 pm
Kabir defied the boundaries between Hindu and Muslim, refusing to be labeled himself and sharply criticizing sectarianism. His name and upbringing were Muslim but his poetry often uses Hindu concepts and Hindu names for God, especially Ram. This film journeys in search of the "Ram"
invoked in Kabir's poetry, delving into the heart of divisive Hindu-Muslim politics of religion and nationalism, encountering singers and lay people in India and Pakistan, probing the forces of history and politics that have created disputatiously diverse Rams, while also spawning many Kabirs.
KABIRA KHADA BAZAAR MEIN: Journeys with Sacred & Secular Kabir, 94 min 19 AUGUST 4:00 pm
This film investigates the ironies and tensions between sacred and secular Kabir, interweaving the sacralization of Kabir by the Kabir Panth (an organized sect of the followers of Kabir) with the secular appropriation of the same poet by the social activist group Eklavya. The story unfolds through the life of Prahlad Tipanya, a Dalit singer whose participation in the Panth and Eklavya begins to raise difficult questions for him about ritual and organized religion.
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