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The Cover Why Does America Hate This Man? This is the question we are asking of this two-time Oscar award-winner, three of whose documentaries have made it to the all-time top five highest-grossers list in the United States. America’s best-known and most controversial documentarian Michael Moore is known for having the guts to give his opinion in public, which not many people are courageous enough to do, and for that he is respected by many…but hated by many more because they see him as someone trying to sully the honour of the American nation. But is that really so? We let you judge in our cover story.
12 Nobel CV’s Oscar Performance Former Newsreel Cameraman H.S.Advani reminisces about the time he met and photographed India’s first – and at that time, only – Nobel Laureate Dr C.V.Raman, who, surprisingly, turned out to be a very approachable gentleman underneath his gruff scientific demeanour.
15 Assignment In Tashkent He went to broker peace in a foreign land never to return again. Documentary filmmaker Prem Vaidya narrates the story of the Tashkent Pact of 1965 which ended in tragedy. A page from the history of our nation.
23 The Ardours of Film Scholarship Educationist and documentarian Vijaya Mulay, the 2002 winner of the V.Shantaram Lifetime Achievement Award, talks about the rigours of researching cinema. Excerpted from the foreword to her forthcoming book.
30 Social Documentaries dominate Oscar Race The Oscar shortlist of 15 documentaries competing for the 2009 Oscar for the Best Documentary Feature has been released. We give details of the 15 films which are in the Oscar Race as well as ‌.
39 The Ones That Did Not Make It! Ten films which are good but not good enough to make the Oscar list. See if you have any favourites among them.
44 NBA Proposes A Code of Ethics Does television news content have to be monitored? Or can the broadcasters regulate themselves? This is the debate that has arisen after the 26/11 terror attack in Mumbai and the Arushi murder case in Delhi.
Plus The latest news from the world of documentary films The latest documentaries on display Video Primer: Non-Linear Editing
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From The Editor’s Desk
As we move into the sparkling New Year let us spare a thought for our yesterday. In fact, all our yesterdays! Not only the year that has gone by but the many years that have gone by! Not to merely recollect the past and glory in it but to preserve it for the generations to come. I am specifically talking about archiving the documentary heritage. We at the Films Division have spent the past year doing exactly that. Early in the last year, as part of the 2008 Mumbai International Film Festival, we held a unique exhibition of old cameras and cine equipment called Behind The Frames. It was actually an expanded version of a smaller exhibit we had held as part of the international film festival of India at Goa in 2007. The small exhibit had proved to be so popular that we were compelled to enhance it. More recently in August 2008, Ms Sushama Singh, Secretary in the Ministry for Information and Broadcasting, inaugurated the International Digital Archive for Documentary, Short and Animation Films as well as the Research and Reference Centre. The Archive will not only preserve documentary films produced by the Films Division but most of the international work that has passed through the last ten Mumbai International Film Festivals. As a filmmaker you probably spend most of your time busily researching, shooting or editing your films – or seeking the funding that will enable you to do so in the first place. How often do you consider the question of what happens to documentaries – physically – after they have received their final broadcast, or after their initial distribution is completed? We, therefore, believe that the time is at hand to move over to the another phase of our production programme: that of preserving and disseminating our cinematic culture. We have already begun the work of establishing an extensive library of books on Indian non-fiction cinema as well as VCDs and DVDs of as many non-fiction films as we can put together. Of course, archiving is not a uniquely Indian problem. The divide between the developed and the developing countries is also evident in their cultural infrastructures, and more particularly film archiving. In most of the African and Asian countries with national film production, the film heritage is still endangered or already irreplaceably lost. This is all the
more true in the case of countries with a colonial past. Even in India we established an archive only as late as 1964 — a full 17 years after independence. And we are only now waking up to the need of a specialized documentary film archive. We realise that without the huge resources that the Government has access to it would be impossible to foster any sort of an archival movement. Indeed, at least in India, a regular archive with a collection of 35 mm films can only be the domain of the Government. As such, the private sector cannot do the job. Nor does it have the will to do so! But what every individual can do to help in this mammoth task is the work of databasing, documentation and dissemination. The advent of cheap (which does not mean technically inferior) CDs and DVDs has made it possible for ordinary people and cineastes to have access to our cinematic heritage. Smaller private libraries can act as mini archives which will spread the culture of preservation. I believe that there are three important questions that should prompt today’s documentary makers to take a keen interest in moving image archiving: ¾ Where, and in what form, is the documentary heritage held? ¾ What can today’s documentary filmmakers do to ensure the long-term preservation of their own work? ¾ How do today’s filmmakers go about accessing archives in order to reuse their content in their own productions? Ponder on these imponderables and write in to me so that we can collectively begin to put together the past that is now almost completely lost. While you think of answers to these questions let me wish you a HAPPY NEW YEAR.
Kuldeep Sinha Editor Kuldeep Sinha Executive Editor Sanjit Narwekar Production Co-ordinator Anil Kumar Photographer S. S. Chavan Printed at Work Center Offset Printers (I) Pvt Ltd. A2/32, Shah & Nahar Industrial Estate, S. J. Marg, Lower Parel, Mumbai 400013 Tel.: 24943227 / 24929261 Published by Films Division, 24, Dr.Gopalrao Deshmukh Marg, Mumbai 400026 Tel.: 23510461 / 23521421 DOCUMENTARY TODAY
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Three of his documentaries Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, and Sicko have the honour of being among the top five highest-grossing documentaries of all time. Two of his documentaries Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11 have made it to Vanity Fair’s list of 25 Top Documentaries of all time. In fact, Bowling for Columbine came second with 447 or 11% of the votes while Fahrenheit 9/11 stood fifth with 283 or 7% of the votes. Two of his documentaries Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11 have bagged the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature in 2001 and 2005. He himself has been named by Time magazine in 2005 as one of the world’s 100 most influential people. And yet...
Why Does America Hate This Man?
Michael Moore poses with the main actors of Sicko 6
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The man we are talking about is Michael Moore an Academy Awardwinning American filmmaker, author, and liberal political commentator. A self-described liberal he has explored globalization, large corporations, gun ownership, the Iraq War, U.S. President George W. Bush and the American health care system in his written and cinematic works. Take a look at the flip side: Reams of paper have been expended in criticising and, indeed, vilifying him. More than that no other person has had the dubious privilege of having so many documentary films made on him or her: Michael Moore Hates America, Celsius 41.11, Michael & Me, FahrenHYPE 9/11, and Manufacturing Dissent. He is also being satirized in the 2008 fictional film An American Carol. In fact, the filmmaker has joked that he will one day “sponsor a film festival of anti-Michael Moore films”, personally handing out a prize to the winner. In fact, he once told Associated Press, “I’m so used to listening to the stuff people say about me, it just becomes entertainment for me at this point. It’s a fictional character that’s been created with the name of Michael Moore.” So what does Michael Moore say and do that makes him the most vilified filmmaker in the United States? Let us look at his antecedents! Michael Francis Moore was born in Davison, a suburb of Flint, Michigan to parents Veronica, a secretary, and Frank Moore, an automotive assemblyline worker. At that time, the city of Flint was home to many General Motors factories, where his parents and grandfather worked. His uncle was one of the founders of the United Automobile Workers labour union and participated in the Flint Sit-Down Strike. Moore has described his parents as “Irish Catholic Democrats, basic liberal good people.” Moore was brought up Roman Catholic and attended St. John’s Elementary School for primary school He then
The “Roger” of Roger & Me is Roger B. Smith, former CEO and president of General Motors. Here he is seen inspecting one of the many General Motors’ factories.
attended Davison High School, where he was active in both drama and debate, graduating in 1972. At the age of 18, he was elected to the Davison school board After dropping out of the University of Michigan-Flint (where he wrote for the student newspaper The Michigan Times) and working for a day at the General Motors plant, at 22 he founded the alternative weekly magazine The Flint Voice, which soon changed its name to The Michigan Voice as it expanded to cover the entire state, which Moore later regretted. In 1986, when Moore became the editor of Mother Jones, a liberal political magazine, he moved to California and The Michigan Voice was shut down. After four months at Mother Jones, Moore was fired. Matt Labash claims this was for refusing to print an article by Paul Berman that was critical of the Sandinista human rights record in Nicaragua. Moore refused to run the article believing it to be inaccurate. “The article was flatly wrong and the worst kind of patronizing bullshit. You would scarcely know from it that the United States had been at war with Nicaragua for the last five years.” Berman described Moore as a “very ideological guy and not a very well-
educated guy” when asked about the incident. Moore also believes that Mother Jones fired him because of the publisher’s refusal to allow him to cover a story on the GM plant closings in his hometown of Flint, Michigan. He responded by putting laid-off GM worker Ben Hamper (who was also writing for the same magazine at the time) on the magazine’s cover, leading to his termination. Moore sued for wrongful dismissal, and settled out of court for $58,000, providing him with seed money for his first film, Roger & Me. Roger & Me is a documentary about what happened to Flint, Michigan after General Motors closed its factories and opened new ones in Mexico, where the workers were paid much less. “Roger” is Roger B. Smith, former CEO and president of General Motors. The film made Moore instantly famous all over America and since then he has been known as a critic of the neo-liberal view of globalization. On March 12, 2007, Canadian filmmakers Debbie Melnyk and Rick Caine appeared on MSNBC’s Tucker to talk about their documentary Manufacturing Dissent, which investigates Michael Moore. They reported to have found that Moore DOCUMENTARY TODAY
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talked with General Motors Chairman Roger Smith at a company shareholders’ meeting, and that this interview was cut from Roger & Me. Moore acknowledged having spoken with Smith after surprising him at a shareholders’ meeting in 1987, but said the encounter concerned a separate topic unrelated to the film. The filmmaker told the Associated Press that had Roger Smith agreed to be interviewed during production, only for him to ignore the footage, General Motors would have publicized the information to discredit him. Between 1994 and 1995, he directed and hosted the BBC television series TV Nation, which followed the format of news magazine shows but covered topics they avoid. The series aired on BBC2 in the UK. The series was also aired in the US on NBC in 1994 for 9 episodes and again for 8 episodes on FOX in 1995. But simultaneously he was working on Canadian Bacon, a satirical film which features a fictional US president (played by Alan Alda) engineering a fake war with Canada in order to boost his popularity. The film is noted for containing a number of Canadian and American stereotypes, and for being Moore’s only non-documentary film. The film is also one of the last featuring Canadianborn actor John Candy, and also
The actual CCTV footage of the Columbine School Massacre which inspired Michael’s film Bowling for Columbine.
by Rip Torn, quickly rebuffs this idea, saying that no one would care about “...a bunch of guys driving around blowing up rent-a-cars”. He still found the time to write a book Downsize This! Random Threats from an Unarmed American (1996), about politics and corporate crime in the United States. His next film The Big One (1997) actually documents the tour publicizing his book in which he criticizes mass layoffs despite record corporate profits. Among others, he
Bowling for Columbine struck the right chord with people who had begun to ask themselves exactly what Moore was questioning and went on to win three major honours. features a number of cameos by other Canadian actors. In the film, several potential enemies for America’s next great campaign are discussed by the president and his cabinet. In a scene which is strongly influenced by the Stanley Kubrick film Dr. Strangelove, the President comments that declaring war on Canada was as ridiculous as declaring war on international terrorism. His military adviser, played 8
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targets Nike for outsourcing shoe production to Indonesia. If Moore was making an impact but he was, as yet, not too well known. He scurried back to television and made The Awful Truth, which satirized actions by big corporations and politicians. It aired on Channel 4 in the UK, and the Bravo network in the US, in 1999 and 2000. In 1999 Moore won
the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award in Arts and Entertainment, for being the executive producer and host of The Awful Truth, where he was also described as “muckraker, author and documentary filmmaker”. Another 1999 series, Michael Moore Live, was aired in the UK only on Channel 4, though it was broadcast from New York. This show had a similar format to The Awful Truth, but also incorporated phone-ins and a live stunt each week. Another book followed: Stupid White Men (2001), ostensibly a critique of American domestic and foreign policy but, by Moore’s own admission, “a book of political humor. The book, like his previous one, did not make an impact but his next film was to do the trick and set him on his way to becoming the most talked about individual. Using the horrendous Columbine High School Massacre of 1999 as the starting point Moore probed the culture of guns and violence in the United States in his 2002 film Bowling for Columbine. The film struck the right chord with people who had begun to ask themselves exactly what Moore was questioning and went on to win three major honours: the Anniversary Prize
at the Cannes Film Festival and France’s Cesar Award as the Best Foreign Film. In the United States, it won the 2002 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. It also enjoyed great commercial and critical success for a film of its type and became, at the time, the highestgrossing mainstream-released
contrary to the film’s supposition that the bank kept hundreds of guns on their premises, the gun which was handed to Michael in the film was shipped overnight from a vault in their Upper Peninsula branch “300 miles away.” Moore emphatically denies that this sequence was staged but
If Bowling for Columbine made Moore an American personality his next film Fahrenheit 9/11 made him an international celebrity. documentary (a record now held by Moore’s better known film Fahrenheit 9/11). It was praised by some for illuminating a subject slighted by the mainstream media, but it was attacked by others who claim it is inaccurate and misleading in its presentations and suggested interpretations of events. The noted commentator Dave Kopel, writing in the conservative magazine National Review, accused Moore of deceptive editing, staging or scripting scenes, or altering the original intent of the speaker. Among other allegations, Kopel said that on-screen text was altered in a Bush-Quayle campaign ad, and footage edited into it from a non-campaign ad in order to make it seem racist. Moore denied that this was done in the film, but corrected the text for the DVD release, so that it mirrored actual events. In Michael Wilson’s refutative documentary Michael Moore Hates America, bank employees from the branch at which Moore is given a free hunting rifle assert that they were misled during the filming of this segment. They say that the bank’s policy was to conduct background checks on rifle recipients and mail the rifles to a licensed gun dealer, but Moore’s agents, under the pretext of “doing a story on unique businesses across America,” are accused of convincing bank employees to have his rifle presented to him on camera the morning after filming his account opening. Further, they counter that
acknowledges the timing was compressed for production reasons. He reminds his readers that North Country Bank is a licensed firearms dealer, and in addition to its ATF license number, he produces out-takes where bank employee Jan Jacobson appears to confirm on camera that rifles are secured locally on bank premises. Erik Möller argues that such criticisms
obscure the fundamental point: “The bank does exactly what it advertises,” he wrote, “It hands out guns from its vault to those who open an account.” He further notes that while Moore’s detractors subject his every word to critical examination, potentially damaging counter-criticisms are accepted at face value. If Bowling for Columbine made Moore an American personality his next film made him an international celebrity. Fahrenheit 9/11 examines America in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, particularly the record of the Bush administration and alleged links between the families of George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden. The title of the film alludes to the classic Ray Bradbury novel Fahrenheit 451 about a future totalitarian state in which books are banned; according to the book, paper
Two Oscars for Michael... or is he flashing the victory sign. DOCUMENTARY TODAY
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begins to burn at 451 degrees Fahrenheit. The pre-release subtitle of the film confirms the allusion: “The temperature at which freedom burns.” At the box office, Fahrenheit 9/11 remains the highest-grossing documentary of all time, taking in close to US$200 million worldwide, including United States box office revenue of US$120 million. Critically the film did even better. Fahrenheit 9/11 was awarded the Palme d’Or, the top honor at the Cannes Film Festival; it was the first documentary film to win the prize since 1956. Moore later announced that Fahrenheit 9/11 would not be in consideration for the 2005 Academy Award for Documentary Feature, but instead for the Academy Award for Best Picture. He stated he wanted the movie to be seen by a few million more
people, preferably on television, by election day. Since November 2 was less than nine months after the film’s release, it would have been disqualified for the Documentary Oscar. Moore also said he wanted to be supportive of his “teammates in non-fiction film.” However, Fahrenheit received no Oscar nomination for Best Picture but did bag the award for the Best Documentary Feature. Fahrenheit 9/11 attracted more than its share of controversies. Moore’s work has come under fire from those who assert that when making his films, he unfairly edits and re-sequences events in order to twist or misrepresent the words of his targets or interviewees. Author and attorney Dave Kopel catalogues Moore’s alleged use of such tactics in Fahrenheit 9/11, and includes the
More support for George Bush... Michael Moore dissenters.
official responses issued by Moore’s “war room”. Slate magazine’s Christopher Hitchens, a noted EnglishAmerican journalist and literary critic, also wrote a widely circulated critique of the same film. These criticisms drew several counter-criticisms as well as an eFilmCritic article and a Columbus Free Press editorial. Author Peter Holding wrote that one of Christopher Hitchens’ claims in particular, “is hysterical, unfair and offensive.” Moore has published both a list of facts and sources for Fahrenheit 9/11 and a document establishing agreements between the points made in his film and the findings of the 9/11 Commission (the independent, bipartisan panel directed by Congress and President Bush to investigate the facts and circumstances surrounding the September 11 attacks). Kopel and Hitchens make a number of criticisms of Moore regarding alleged factual accuracy and hypocrisy of the film that are not addressed in Moore’s official War Room response to the factual accuracy of his film. Joe Scarborough alleges that Moore has ducked criticism and dodged interviews from both himself and Hitchens Ray Bradbury was upset by what he considered the appropriation of his title. The Fahrenheit 451 reference is emphasized by the film’s tagline “The temperature where freedom burns” (compare with Fahrenheit 451’s tagline, “The temperature at which books burn”). Moore has stated that the title came from the subject of an email he received shortly after September 11. He reportedly asked for an apology from Moore and wanted the film renamed. Nothing much happened after that and Moore retained the title of his film. In May 2006, Moore was unsuccessfully sued by a veteran who lost both arms in the war in Iraq. Sergeant Peter Damon, of Middleborough, MA, alleged that Moore used snippets of a television interview without his permission to falsely portray him as anti-war. A U.S.
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Shooting for Fahrenheit 9/11
District Court Judge dismissed the suit on December 21, 2006, finding that no political beliefs were attributed to Damon in the film. On March 21, 2008 the First Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously affirmed the ruling in Moore’s favor. The Associated Press reported that, in reaction to the ruling, “Moore said years of failed lawsuits against his films show his movies are accurate.” Almost as a companion to the film Moore published his third book Dude, Where’s My Country? (2003), an examination of the Bush family’s relationships with Saudi royalty, the Bin Laden family, and the energy industry, and a call-to-action for liberals in the 2004 election. Soon after Moore began an all-out assault against Bush trying to ensure that he did not get elected. Despite having supported Ralph Nader in 2000, Moore urged Nader not to run in the 2004 election so as not to split the left vote. In fact, Moore did this quite dramatically by kneeling before Nader to plead with him to stay out of the race during Bill Maher’s television show in. In June 2004, Moore claimed he is not a member of the Democratic party.
Although Moore endorsed General Wesley Clark for the Democratic nomination on January 14, Clark withdrew from the primary race on February 11. Moore drew further attention by publicly charging that Bush was AWOL during his service in the National Guard. In spite of all this George Bush went on to win the election. Moore tasted success only recently when he backed Barrack Obama to win in the 2008 elections. All this made Moore a known figure – even if not a very popular one! Moore appeared in The Yes Men, a 2003 documentary about two men who pose as the World Trade Organization. He appears during a segment concerning working conditions in Mexico and Latin America. Moore was interviewed for the 2004 documentary, The Corporation. One of his highlighted quotes was: “The problem is the profit motive: for corporations, there’s no such thing as ‘enough’”. 2005 seems to have been a busy year for Moore who featured prominently in the documentary This Divided State, which followed the heated level of controversy surrounding his visit to a conservative city in the United States
two weeks before the 2004 election. Moore also appeared briefly in Alex Jones’s 2005 film Martial Law 9/11: Rise of the Police State. Jones asks Moore why he did not mention some of the information regarding the September 11 attacks in his film Fahrenheit 9/11, in particular, why he did not explain why NORAD stood down on that day. Moore replied, “Because it would be Un-American.” Probably the only non-political appearance seems to have been in the 2006 documentary I’m Going to Tell You a Secret, which chronicles Madonna during her 2004 ReInvention World Tour. Moore attended her show in New York City at Madison Square Garden. But the documentary which seems to have had the greatest impact on Moore was The Drugging of Our Children, a 2005 documentary about overprescription of psychiatric medication to children and teenagers, directed by Gary Null a proponent of Alternative Medicine. In the film Moore agrees with Gary Null that Ritalin and other similar drugs are over-prescribed, saying that they are seen as a “pacifier”. This was probably the appearance which inspired Moore to DOCUMENTARY TODAY
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make his next film Sicko about the American health care system, focusing particularly on the managed-care and pharmaceutical industries. At least four major pharmaceutical companies— Pfizer, Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca, and GlaxoSmithKline—ordered their employees not to grant any interviews to Moore. According to Moore on a letter at his website, “roads that often surprise us and lead us to new ideas – and challenge us to reconsider the ones we began with have caused some minor delays.” The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on 19 May 2007, receiving a lengthy standing ovation, and was released in the U.S. and Canada on 29 June 2007. But before it could be officially released in theatres, the film was leaked onto the Internet in June 2007. Moore, who previously
expressed his support for Internet downloading, denies leaking the video himself and an investigation has been held as to the source of the Internet leak. The film is currently ranked the third highest grossing documentary of all time and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature though Alex Gibney’s Taxi To The Dark Side was declared a winner (see Documentary Today October 2008).
trip to Cuba. In the letter to Moore, a Treasury official noted that the department had no record of Moore obtaining a license that authorized him to “engage in travel-related transactions involving Cuba,” alleging that Moore violated the United States embargo against Cuba. A duplicate master copy of the film is being held in Canada in case American authorities attempt to seize the film as part of the criminal investigation.
As is to be expected by now the film was the subject of some controversy when it became known that Moore went to Cuba with chronically ill September 11th rescue workers to shoot parts of the film. In a May 2, 2007 letter, the Office of Foreign Assets Control informed Moore that he was the subject of a civil investigation stemming from the filmmaker’s March
Moore was also criticized by John Stossel for allegedly painting a “utopian” picture of the Cuban government and its health care system. Appearing on the ABC News program Nightline in June 2007, Moore responded: “In my movie you see Cubans getting help whenever they get sick, and that is the truth. The U.N. supports that fact. They have an excellent health care system, probably the best in the Third World.”[28] Moore appeared several times on CNN in July 2007. On Wolf Blitzer’s The Situation Room, following a Sicko factchecking segment by CNN senior medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta, Moore chastised CNN, Gupta, and Blitzer for the coverage of his films Sicko and Fahrenheit 9/11. Moore alleged that Sanjay Gupta misrepresented aspects of his film, Sicko, in the fact-checking segment. “He said the facts were fudged,” said Moore, referring to Gupta, on CNN’s Larry King Live. “That’s a lie. None of the facts are fudged.” Gupta said that he agreed with Moore on his premise that the U.S. health care system is “broken”, but questioned Moore’s “cherry-picking” of facts.
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Moore responded to CNN by publishing the results on his homepage In the Blitzer interview, Moore said “I wish that CNN and the other mainstream media would just for once tell the truth about what’s going on in this country, whatever it is. You guys have such a poor track record.” Later in the interview, he criticized Blitzer and the mainstream media in general for “refusing to ask the hard questions
and demand the honest answers,” referencing the media’s lack of inquiry in the months before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Coming to the the other film which criticise Moore, the tagline for Michael Moore Hates America directed by Mike Wilson is “A documentary that tells the truth about a great nation”, and it purports to be more than merely a criticism of Moore but also a defense of American culture and values. In the film Wilson adopts other aspects of Moore’s style in his efforts at satirizing Moore. Michael & Me created by Los Angeles-based Libertarian radio and television talk show host Larry Elder attempts to disprove statements made by filmmaker Moore in Bowling for Columbine. about the relationship between American culture, gun ownership and increased violence. The documentary mirrors Moore’s landmark 1989 documentary, Roger & Me, in tone and interview style. FahrenHYPEt 9/11 and Celsius 41.11(both made in 2004) were both produced as a rebuttal to Michael Moore’s film Fahrenheit 9/11. Celsius 41.11 was chosen because, according to the makers of the movie, it is the temperature at which the brain begins to die. FahrenHYPE 9/11 examines and challenges Fahrenheit 9/11, from a conservative point of view. Manufacturing Dissent (2007) was made over the course of two years by Canadians Debbie Melnyk and Rick Caine after they viewed Fahrenheit 9/ 11, Moore’s controversial film attacking the Bush administration and its policies. It asserts that filmmaker and polemicist Michael Moore has used misleading tactics. The documentary exposes what the creators say are Moore’s misleading tactics and mimics Moore’s style of small documentary makers seeking and badgering their target for an interview to receive answers to their charges. Melnyk and Caine have stated that when they first sought to make a film about Moore, they held great
Michael Moore defends himself against his critics.
admiration for what he had done for the documentary genre and set out to make a biography of him. During the course of their research, they became disenchanted with Moore’s tactics. The title is a pun on the title of the book Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, and the film it inspired, Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media. Michael Moore’s own take on these criticisms is pretty cool. Writing on his own site he says, “One thing you get used to when you’re in what’s called “the public eye” is reading the humorous fiction that others like to write about you. For instance, I have read in quite respectable and trustworthy publications that a) I’m a college graduate (I’m not), b) I was a factory worker (I quit the first day), and c) I have two brothers (I have none). Newsweek wrote that I live in a penthouse on Central Park West (I live above a Baby Gap store, and not on any park), and the Internet Movie Database once listed me as the director of the Elvis movie, blue hawaii ( I was 6 at the time the film was made, but I was quite skilled in directing my sisters in building me a snowman). “I’ve enjoyed reading these inventions/
mistakes about this “Michael Moore.” I mean, who wouldn’t want to fantasize about living in penthouses roughhousing with brothers you never had. But lately I’ve begun to see so many things about me or my work that aren’t true. It’s become so easy to spread these fictions through the internet (thanks mostly to lazy reporters or web junkies who do all their research by typing in “key words” and then just repeat the same mistakes). And so I wonder that if I don’t correct the record, then all of the people who don’t know better may just end up being filled with a bunch of stuff that isn’t true. “Of course, it would take a lot of my time to contact all these sites and media outlets to correct their errors and I think it’s more important I spend my time on my next book or movie so I just let it ride. But is that fair to you, the reader, who has now been told something that isn’t true?” Which brings us to the question we asked at the beginning of the article: why does America hate this man? We asked an American friend of ours and he said, “That is because he speaks loudly what America does not want to hear.” We think that could be one way of looking at the facts. In any case we feel Michael Moore’s a digger for truth. DOCUMENTARY TODAY
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MEMOIRS
Nobel C V’s Oscar performance February 28 is India’s National Science day! This day, in the year 1928, C.V. Raman announced to the world his famous discovery, a discovery which would earn him a Nobel Prize. H.S.ADVANI, former newsreel cameraman with the Films Division, recalls the day he met and photographed the great scientist. January 1968. In those days I was based in Bangalore as News Cameraman of the Indian News Review. My boss Mr. N V K Murthy, Producer (Newsreel), was to join me in Bangalore and we were to proceed further South India on a major documentary assignment. I received
orders from Films Division to try and arrange exclusive interview coverage on Sir. C V Raman during Mr. Murthy’s stay in Bangalore. It did not take me long to find a source who was very close to Sir C V Raman: Coffee Board Balu. Mr. Balu was Chief
Publicity Director of Coffee Board and was popularly known as “Coffee Board Balu” by the Bangalore Press. Mr. Balu was thrilled at the idea of devoting a special Indian News Review bulletin to Prof. Raman. The INR being the only visual medium then, he assured me of all help but warned me that if we messed up our approach we would certainly be thrown out of the Professor’s laboratory. He added, “We should be fast and please do not bring too much equipment.” We started planning our strategy: how to film the personality known for his short temper, with the least resistance and maximum success. Our planning was similar to the planning done in war for ambushing the enemy. This planning reminded me of my training as a war correspondent after I had been assigned to cover the 1965 war with Pakistan. The entire operation had to be carried out as planned in detail with war-like precision on the day of shooting. Our team with well equipped shooting amour headed by the team leader and our liaison Coffee Board Balu reached the target area – Sir C V Raman’s Institute on the morning of 25th February 1969 around 10.30 a.m. Parking our car outside the gate, we quietly unloaded all our equipment with the least noise. We had brought along only the minimum required gear, making it as portable as we could and hid ourselves near the bush close to the gate. Coffee Board Balu gave us a last minute briefing before he slowly sneaked into the big sprawling building where Sir C V Raman was supposed to
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be working in one of the rooms. After about ten minutes – which seemed like a few hours – had gone by, we heard a low hissing sound coming from the direction of the building. We focused our eyes to discover our leader of operation signaling to us. From the distant bush we could see ‘Coffee Board Balu signaling us to bring the equipment to the western side of the building. With our equipment, we moved crouching quietly towards the building and reached the western side. Another hiss from Balu gave us the clue to run in immediately and fix the cameras in Professor C.V.Raman’s room. First Mr. N V K Murthy slowly went up to the room but didn’t enter. Instead, he gave us the signal to sneak in quietly. I was the first to rush in with the Arriflex Film camera mounted on tripod. Soon I was joined by the other two members of our team with the rest of the gear like recording equipments. By then Mr. Murthy who had joined Balu signaled me to start the camera. Just then, we heard Professor Raman shouting, “What’s all this? Who are you? Who has asked you to barge in here like this? All of you are not wanted here.” Right at that moment Mr. Balu started introducing Mr. N V K Murthy.
He told us, “Let’s go to the garden. I will show you flowers with different colours.” As he got up and started walking out of the room, I noticed that the Professor was wearing horse-riding brown colour boots to match his medium brown colour coat. He was wearing his favorite turban tied in the Mysore Petha-style. As he walked, leading us to the garden I kept my camera running, concentrating on his boots and his
I made Professor C. V. Raman sit on the high bench and showed him through several angles with an emphasis on his contemplation and his thoughts. Mr. Murthy asked Professor Raman, “Sir the colours of the flowers on the table are fascinating. Can you tell us something about the colours?” We could see the smile on Professors face. Mr Murthy realized that the situation was now under control. After that opening the Professor just wouldn’t stop talking. And nor would I stop filming. He kept on talking and looking though his Pocket Spectroscope at the multi-coloured flowers that were on the table. My camera went on capturing the Professor’s extraordinary expressions.
style of walking. Professor Raman turned around slightly to find where I was and told me to film a particular flower and kept talking. He liked the way we worked so much that he said, “We should go to my forest where you can shoot the calm and serenity.” We finally went there. It was an excellent location where I made the Professor sit on the high bench and showed him through several angles with an emphasis on his contemplation and his thoughts. Fortunately the sun was about to set. I had got a shot of him against the setting sun, walking
away from the camera in a long shot. How delighted I was with the last shots as it was most appropriate for his earlier answer, “One shouldn’t always be surrounded by friends and admirers”. The excitement didn’t end there. Professor Raman told Mr. Murthy that he would like to see the edited version of the film before its release. It was another surprise that we had least expected. We didn’t know how long we shot. We just enjoyed shooting as our Boss kept Professor Raman busy with his questions. We could see the Professor was happy and wished us well. Mission accomplished. We packed off with a big smile. Two weeks later Mr. Murthy rang up to say he would need additional shots of Sir. C V Raman to complete the film. This additional shoot was done without any hassles. Before I left the institute for the second time Professor Raman reminded me to show the film before its release. I assured the Professor that I would shortly arrange a preview of the film in the local cinema hall before its release was finalized. A few days later the final print of the edited version arrived. It was a special Indian News Review exclusively on Sir. C V Raman. The day of the preview arrived. Knowing the Professor’s mood, I wondered what he would DOCUMENTARY TODAY
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screening commenced and saw some designs on the ceiling. Looking at those designs the Professor smiled and remarked that the designs looked very interesting. He asked Mr. Gopal, “Who has made those lovely designs?” Mr. Gopal was perplexed and falteringly replied, “Sir, these black marks are of the exhaust fumes”. The Professor looked at Gopal and his smile became broader. Our short film began. The Professor was totally engrossed and immersed in the film. I could only look at the Professor for his reactions. I could occasionally see some smile on his face.
comment. I reached Professor Raman’s Institute five minutes before the appointed time, as per the earlier appointment fixed by Coffee Board Balu. The Professor was ready with his coat and tie on and with his usual Mysore-style turban walked majestically. He got into the taxi and sat comfortably in the front while continuing to talk to us. Earlier I had contacted my friend Mr. Gopal, owner of the Kapali Cinema Hall in the Majestic for the special screening in the morning. Mr. Gopal was so happy. He felt honored that a
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distinguished scientist was visiting his cinema hall; he kept asking me what arrangements he should make for receiving him. I requested him to be at the main gate to receive him. Our cab arrived at the Kapali Cinema Hall. The Professor, who was sitting next to driver, got down and dislodged his well adjusted position long turban. He was a tall personality. The Professor did not mind at all. Instead he said laughingly, “O! These cars are not designed for the people with turbans.” Professor, as he sat in the huge balcony, looked up before the
When the film was over I stood up next to him waiting anxiously for his reaction. He began by saying, “Not bad you know. It’s well done!” After a thought he added, “I must thank Balu who staged the entire shooting”. After dropping the Professor at his Institute, I called Mr.Murthy and told him what the Professor had said “Not bad you know.” Mr. Murthy was extremely happy with the Professor’s comment and he said, “We will now release the film without any changes.” The special edition of the Indian News Review focused on Professor C.V.Raman was released in all cinema halls during August 1969.
MEMOIRS
Assignment In Tashkent By Prem Vaidya As usual, I was the first to reach Palam airport early on the morning of Saturday, January 1, 1966. I was joined by some of Delhi’s best known cameramen, journalists and press photographers. We took-off at 0730 hours. Our route was to be DelhiTehran-Tashkent since we could not fly over Pakistan to reach Tashkent due to restrictions imposed on Indian flights. We reached Tehran at 1725 hours and our ambassador to Iran, former Air Force Chief, Aspi Engineer received us at the airport. While in Tehran, I had wanted to see the Mayurasan - the Peacock throne, which was brought to Iran by Nadir Shah Durrani as a war booty from India in 1739 A. D. But there was hardly any time. We were all invited for dinner by the ambassador, which went on till late in the night. Early next morning we rushed back to Tehran airport for our onward journey to Tashkent. As we took off from Tehran, for miles and miles we could see the barren deserts of Iran. The landscape changed dramatically, as soon as we entered the Soviet airspace via Afghanistan. Uniformed rows of long green farmlands, passed swiftly below us, one after the other. At 1400 hours we landed at Tashkent airport. The Control Tower instructed our pilots to hold-on at the end of the airstrip and not proceed towards the airport terminal as, just then, the Soviet Prime Minister, A. Kosygin was landing. I was ready with my camera and I got down from the plane, ran towards the terminal to cover Kosygin’s arrival, his meeting with local dignitaries and his departure from the airport.
From the airport we were taken to the Tashkent Hotel in the heart of the city. The arrangements for all the media persons from India and Pakistan was made in this Hotel. At night, while having our dinner, one of the Pakistani journalists was trying to show-off. Mischievously he broached the topic saying, “How funny the meeting of the two leaders will look in pictures. Our President Ayub is tall and well built whereas your Prime Minister Shastri is short, half of his height? “ The reply was equally prompt, “O don’t bother, your President will bend down to our Prime Minister who will be standing erect in upright position to look up.” With peel of laughter around our dinner tables we bid each other good night and departed. The next day on January 3, along with my colleague, Narayanswami, a photographer from the Photo Division, I went around the city to cover the various landmarks of the historic city. In the afternoon, we went to the airport to shoot the arrival of Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri. For me, it was a disturbing sight. All around the airport, I could see just the Soviet and Pakistani flags and there was no sight of the Indian flag anywhere. Even the crowds which were lined-up to greet the VIPs were seen holding the flags of these two nations. We were informed that at any moment, President Ayub Khan of Pakistan would be landing, DOCUMENTARY TODAY
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and formed a knot which was preventing the flag from going up all the way. She now very carefully straightened the rope and again pulled it. Finally, I got a perfect shot of the Indian tricolor going up the pole and proudly fluttering alongside the Soviet flag. By now, the entire face of the airport changed with Indian and Soviet flags on alternating flag-poles and the children in the crowds holding Indian flags in place of Pakistani flags! The security, meanwhile, cleared the way for Kosygin’s arrival in a black limousine followed by Madam Y. Nasriddinova, President of the Uzbekistan Republic, Marshal Melinovasky, the Soviet Defence Minister and other Soviet VIPs. I started running my camera on each individual for good close-up, mid and long shots. It was January 3, l966, a historic day. The eyes of the world were on Tashkent, the capital of the central Asian republic of Uzbekistan, where the problems between India and Pakistan were to be sorted out.
Lal Bahadur Shastri in the Prime Ministerial chair. (Photo: Stan Wayman/LIFE magazine)
followed by the Indian Prime Minister. I took my position along with the others to film the arrival of Ayub Khan. Premier Kosygin had come to receive him and soon, after the plane landed, I covered the arrival of the Pakistani President, his inspecting the guard-ofhonor, greeting the crowds and finally his departure from the airport with Kosygin. Now, I was waiting anxiously for Shastri’s arrival. Soon after Ayub Khan’s departure from the airport, I saw from the distance the simultaneous lowering of the Pakistani flags and the raising of the Indian tricolour on the many flag-poles at the airport. I rushed towards the nearest pole to capture on film the lowering of one such flag. A smart girl took out a 18
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well-pressed Indian flag, started unfolding it and tying it to the string. I rolled my camera to expose the Indian flag going up on the pole, but the flag stopped midway. I too, stopped my camera and aborted the shot. The girl was tugging at the string but the flag refused to go up. She then pulled the flag down, readjusted the knot and pulled the rope again to raise the flag. I switched on my camera, but again at the half-way position, the flag stuckup. The young girl was now getting desperate but the flag wouldn’t budge from the half-way position. Seeing me taking the shot, a man in uniform standing nearby shouted at the girl to do the job properly. She then pulled down the entire rope from the pole, found that a part of it was twisted
As scheduled, Air India’s flying carpet arrived on the Tashkent airstrip and Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri smilingly stepped out of the Boeing. He was followed by Defence Minister Y.B. Chavan, External Affairs Minister Sardar Swaran Singh and other Indian VIPs. A warm hand-shake between the two prime ministers was accompanied by uniformed musicians playing the national anthems of both the countries on their shining instruments. Children, with bouquets in their hands came running towards Shastri while the waiting crowds waved flags and cheered the Indian delegation. Soviet Protocol was so meticulous that everything went on as precisely as it had earlier during the arrival of the Pakistani president. Both the VIPs were provided with identical, large black limousines. Coincidentally, perhaps, the chauffeurs chosen were of the same height and smartly uniformed. The only difference
I found was that Prime Minister Shastri was allotted a beautiful dacha which served as the Uzbek President’s summer-villa, hardly three minutes walk from the ‘Neutral Villa’ – the venue of the daily meetings. On the other hand, the Pakistani president had to drive about eight kilometers daily to reach the spot. We followed the Shastri convoy from the airport to the villa. En- route we filmed the people of Tashkent giving a rousing welcome to Shastri all through.
Kosygin was the first to address the opening session and in his remarks hoped that the Tashkent meet would prove a turning point in the relations between India and Pakistan. One of the keen observers from the Indian delegation, Dr. C. P. Srivastava, notes meticulously in his book on Lal Bahadur Shastri that on the 26 occasions that he mentioned the two countries in his address, Kosygin took care to refer to India first and Pakistan next on 13 such occasions and then
Children, with bouquets in their hands came running towards Shastri while the waiting crowds waved flags and cheered the Indian delegation. After taking a shot of Shastri and Kosygin entering the villa, I left the place for my next coverage. Narayanswami and I were provided with a car and a charming Uzbek interpreter, Ms. Mukhram. Her features were similar to those of our Kashmiri girls. She called me by my first name and I followed her example. Mukhram proved to be very helpful till the last day of my assignment in Tashkent. January 4, 1966 was the day set for the plenary session of the conference. The venue was the Hall of Session of the Uzbekistan Council of Ministers in the heart of the city. The Hall was already crowded with reporters, photographers and cameramen from all over the world. Vantage points for the best angles were already occupied by the cameramen and photographers. Mukhram was able to secure a place for me from where I could cover both -Shastri and Ayub Khan. As per the protocol, the three VIPs -Kosygin, Shastri and Ayub Khan - guided by Soviet officials entered the Hall from three different doors in a synchronized movement and proceeded towards their respective chairs.
referred to Pakistan first and India next on the other 13 occasions! Speaking next, Shastri suggested that the leaders should leave no stone unturned in their search for peace. Speaking last, Ayub Khan said, it was not beyond the leadership of the two countries to solve Indo-Pak problems peacefully and honorably. With these words the three leaders embarked on their search for peace. All through the session, the atmosphere was most cordial except for Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s
grim demeanor which our cameras recorded faithfully. He seemed to be the only one not happy with what was going around. From January 5, the venue for the meeting was shifted to the ‘Neutral Villa’, near Shastri’s dacha. The place was now crowded by my tribe with all their equipment. Along with the AyubShastri meeting, negotiations between officials of the two countries were also scheduled. At the end of the day, Prem Prakash of Visnews and I were running after Bhutto to take some shots as he got into his car. I pointed my camera at him and facing the camera with a mocksalute, he said, “This is for you.” Then came Prem Prakash to take a similar shot. To him Bhutto said, “Best wishes for India.” Narayanswami followed with his still camera and Bhutto murmured, “Success for the Tashkent Conference”. On January 6, we were informed that Prime Minister Kosygin was going to call on Shastri. I rushed from the Tashkent Hotel to the Shastri dacha. But on arrival, I learned that Kosygin was busy with Ayub Khan for unscheduled talks and the meeting with Shastri was likely to be delayed. Finally Kosygin came at 1500 hours and had a long meeting with Shastri. Press
In happier times... Ayub Khan, Prime Minister of Pakistan with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India.
The lights were switched on and all the cameras started rolling to catch the historic event in the glittering Hall. DOCUMENTARY TODAY
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In the afternoon we were somewhat free and so, some of us roamed in the city of Tashkent. All the important junctions and squares were decorated with big photographs and posters of Shastri and Ayub Khan. At various spots, we saw news-bulletins with the headline “Indo-Pak Peace Talks” pasted on the walls and people crowding around to read closely. We covered some of these inquisitive faces.
Kya Karu Ram Mujhe Bhutto Mil Gaya... Zulfikar Ali Bhutto presenting Pakistan’s case in the United Nations.
reporters were heard whispering that there seemed to be some tension running on both sides and Kosygin was trying his best to ensure success at the conference as this was the first conference of the two non-communist nations on Soviet soil! On January 7, Shastri and Ayub Khan met once again in the ‘Neutral Villa’. Though the security was tight, I, somehow, managed to get in even as the meeting was being held behind closed doors in the small drawing room. Through the windowpanes and the thin curtains, I could see two figures engrossed in a discussion against a lighted wall. This gave a lively pictorial shot on the screen, suggesting a spirit of cordiality between the two. In the evening, the VIPs were taken to an Opera where an Uzbek girl was heard singing a famous song from Raj Kapoor’s film Sangam: Kya Karun Ram Mujhe Budha Mil Gaya. (What do I do, O Lord, I have married an old man). As her Hindi pronunciations were not so precise, T. N. Kaul, our ambassador in USSR, who was sitting in the second row, was heard imitating ludicrously: Kya Karu Ram Mujhe Bhutto Mil Gaya. (“What do I do, O Lord, Bhutto is with me.”) The entire crowd in Kaul’s row burst into laughter. It was my task to send my exposed film rolls to India. I had to struggle hard 20
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with the Indian Embassy staffers, trying to convince them about the urgency and the high news value of the footage which would be screened in Indian newsreels all over the country. In fact the coverage parcel was labeled in bold, red letters, “Useless if Delayed”. I was, however, very disappointed with the attitude of the Indian staff. Finally, Mukhram came to my rescue. She took the parcel and disappeared and in the evening informed me that the parcel had been dispatched to Delhi through Aeroflot. I slept soundly that night.
In the morning our group of five Kishor Parikh, photographer from The Hindustan Times, Prem Prakash of Visnews, Om Prakash, cameraman from A.B.C., Narayanswami and I - were invited by some local Uzbeks to participate in a cultural programme. It was clear that Mukhram was putting her public-relations to work! We attended the function and all felt homely as though we were among our Kashmiri brethren. January 10, was the most important day for our coverage and the venue was shifted back to the Hall of Session for the signing of the joint-communiqué by President Ayub Khan and Prime Minister Shastri. This time the Hall was glittering with more lights. Shastri, accompanied by Y.B. Chavan and Swaran Singh; Ayub Khan with
Finally, after the intense discussions and endless rounds of consultations, the differences between the two countries were narrowed down and the pledge was signed. On Sunday morning, we were again at the Shastri dacha, which, within a week’s time had become popular with the prime minister’s name. When I arrived, Kosygin was having discussions with Shastri. It has been our experience on VIP coverages that whenever the leaders were in a good mood, we could go near and take satisfactory close-ups. But if there was any sign of tension, it was better to stay at a distance and use a tele-lens. This technique helped me on many occasions and this time too, there was no exception.
Bhutto, and Kosygin in the centre, entered the Hall. Finally, after the intense discussions and endless rounds of consultations, the differences between the two countries were narrowed down and the pledge was signed. All cameras started rolling as the three leaders, with clasped hands and beaming smiles posed for the cameras. The Tashkent event was telecast all over Europe with the help of the Eurovision hook-up. Again, in the entire crowded hall there seemed to be just one gloomy face -
that of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto! All through the conference he appeared to have put on a mask of indifference on his face. The world press reporters were seen jotting-down eagerly the salient points of the agreement: “Renouncement of force was agreed upon...withdrawal of all armed personnel from each other’s territories...restoration of diplomatic relations...economic and cultural exchanges...repatriation of prisoners of war....” It was a charter of hope based on faith on both sides. In the evening, after signing the Tashkent Declaration, the Soviet Premier hosted a reception in honour of President Ayub Khan and Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri. Along with the VIPs, the media was also invited. In the centre of the hall a big, beautiful Belgian crystal jar was filled with Cognac which is immensely popular in the USSR. Most of those present were seen enjoying themselves at the gala informal gathering in a very relaxed mood. Shastri was seen sipping lemon juice and exchanging pleasantries. Though the party continued, Shastri returned to his villa by about 2030 hours.
snapped the view. We then returned to our hotel. I was so tired that without changing my clothes, I threw myself on the bed and soon slept passed off into a deep, well-deserved sound sleep. At night there was heavy thumping on our door and Prem Prakash came in shouting and sobbing. “Prem..., Prem... , Shastriji...!” I jumped out of my bed. There was commotion in the hotel and one could hear the sounds of running feet on the wooden floors of the hotel gangway. We rushed down to our car. No one had the time to tell exactly what had happened. Our Uzbek driver was there in the car. He immediately started the car and speeded. He knew where to go!
In the dead darkness of the night, a crowd, mostly of correspondents, had gathered in front of the closed entrance-gate of the Shastri dacha. We broke into the crowd and I informed the security-guards in my half-English, half-Russian that we were the members of the Indian prime minister’s delegation. Narayanswami and I carried different coloured badges. We showed these badges to the security and pushed in. We ran through the dark path towards the villa which was fully illuminated. Some people were running hither and thither and nobody was ready to talk. We rushed inside. There we saw the reason for all the commotion: Our Prime Minister was
The Time Magazine cover which showed the two adversaries.
Kishor Parikh, Prem Prakash, Narayanswami and I followed his car. On reaching the villa, I was told that on the previous night, Shastri was working till late hours in his drawing room. In my coverage so far, I did not have any shots of Shastri working during the night and so I decided to take one. At the villa, Shastri was speaking, long-distance, with someone in Delhi and after the call, he sat down to a late dinner. It was after his dinner that I saw him taking a brisk walk inside his drawing room. The room was well-illuminated while outside it was totally dark. The view from the pitch darkness outside into the lighted room through a French window and a lone figure walking up and down in silhouette, was a feast for a camera enthusiast! I started capturing this till I ran out of film in my camera. Kishor Parikh and Narayanswami also DOCUMENTARY TODAY
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probably, the same crowd which had greeted him cheerfully just nine days ago on the same road. Nature also seemed to bemoan this tragedy. Our day of departure from Tashkent was dull and cloudy, with mild snowfall all around. When we reached the airport, we saw a number of Soviet planes lined-up, all bound for Delhi. I dumped my luggage inside one of the planes and came down to cover the arrival of the body. “Remember Prem that day when we were taking a shot, the Indian flag stuck-up at the halfmast?” Kishor Parikh said, striking a shocking blow.
Face to Face... Ayub Khan and Lal Bahadur Shastri pose for the media after their negotiations.
lying in eternal sleep. Dr. R. N. Chug, personal physician, C. P. Srivastava, joint secretary, and Jagannath Sahai, private secretary to the Prime Minister were in tears. I was totally puzzled. Just a few hours back I had filmed him hale and hearty, hardly realizing that I was filming his last living shot! Everything had been going on so beautifully. A few hours ago, during the reception, we were informed that with the success of the Tashkent Conference, we would be flying over Pakistan on our way back to Delhi! But now it was to be with the prime minister’s mortal remains! With the signing of the Tashkent Declaration, this ‘man of peace’ seemed to have ended his life’s mission for the welfare of the 600 million people of India and Pakistan who constituted one nation, just 18 years ago. What a triumph and what a tragedy! Srivastava instructed us to rush back to Tashkent airport with our belongings and get into the plane. There was no one to look after anyone. As we were coming out of the Shastri dacha, we got the news that Kosygin was coming to pay homage. We rushed back to the room. Kosygin came and placed a wreath on Shastri’s body and stood in silence. Probably, this was the first time 22
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that Shastri had gone to a foreign country without taking any of his family members. I could well imagine the state of shock of Mrs. Lalita Shastri and shuddered at the thought of turning my camera on her face - now a
On that fateful day I was forced to take shots of all the flags - Indian, Pakistani, USSR, and Uzbek flying half-mast all around the airport! At the distance, towards the entrance of the airport, I saw a coffin loaded on a gun-carriage slowly approaching the aircraft. Premier Kosygin, President Ayub Khan, Y.B.Chavan, Swaran Singh and ambassador T.N. Kaul were among the pall-bearers. They carried the coffin
Even at this hour of dawn the people of Tashkent in their melancholic mood were lined-up on either sides of the road throughout the 17 kilometers, right from dacha to the airport, to pay their last homage to the man of peace. blank forehead - without the prominent vermilion - the sign of widowhood for a Hindu lady. Her glowing, motherly face, chewing betel leaves would now be a thing of the past! I slowly moved out of the villa along with my colleagues. On the way we collected our baggage and dashed-off to the airport. The first light of the cold winter morning was breaking in with the familiar glow in the horizon. Even at this hour of dawn the people of Tashkent in their melancholic mood were lined-up on either sides of the road throughout the 17 kilometers, right from dacha to the airport, to pay their last homage to the man of peace. It was
from the gun-carriage to the steps of the special Soviet plane. As the body was put in the plane, mourning notes of music were heard and the Soviet armed personnel stood respectfully, heads bowed and their rifles reversed. I was taking the shots in a most sorrowful state. At the Tashkent airport, tearful eyes of many onlookers saw the special plane take-off and after the runway was cleared, one after the other, planes were zooming up in the sky. Their destination was Delhi. Ours was the fourth plane to take-off. Premier Kosygin accompanied by Madam Nasiruddinova, chariman of the presidium of Uzbekistan, the Soviet
deputy foreign minister and the ambassador to India also flew to Delhi to attend the funereal. At New Delhi’s Palam airport, I pickedup a taxi to rush to my office to send the exposed material to my headquarters in Mumbai for the timely release of the sad event through the Indian Newsreel. As the taxi started, I
Bewildered, grieving crowds had already gathered there, seeking consolation and offering sympathy to the members of the bereaved Shastri family. Six pall-bearers, all of General’s rank drawn from the three services, brought the body from the Palam airport to the residence. Right from the President to the peasant, all were engulfed by this national calamity.
At the Tashkent airport, tearful eyes of many onlookers saw the special plane take-off and after the runway was cleared, one after the other, planes were zooming up in the sky. Their destination was Delhi. heard the Sardar driver asking me: “Aap bhi Tashkent se aa rahen hain ?” (Are you also coming from Tashkent?) “ Ji han,” I replied “Aapne hame yatim bana dala.” (You have made us orphans). I had no answer. At the Newsreel Office of the Films Division I saw NVK Murthy, Producer Newsreel, who had come from Mumbai to personally carry the exposed film material for immediate release as ‘Special Newsreel.’ It was a great relief. From office, I went to No.10 Janpath, to the residence of the late prime minister for further coverage.
With great difficulty, I managed to squeeze through the dense multitude in front of Shastri’s body. It was kept on a platform decorated with flowers. The body was wrapped in the national flag. And there I saw Lalita Shastri with bare forehead, swollen face and eyes full of tears. She was hugging the body in utter grief and sorrow. A dear husband with whom she spent a successful married life of 37-years, seven months and ten days, was now, no more. Some family members were consoling her. Gasping, sorrowful voices were coming in from all around. Everything in front of the camera looked pathetic. At night when I reached home, I found it
crowded with neighbors. Everyone had something to ask. The next day, January 12, was the day of the cremation. Well before dawn, Films Division unit members positioned themselves at vantage points. The spacious roads of Delhi from No.10 Janpath to the cremation ground could not accommodate the mourners coming from all over the country. Wherever I panned my camera, I could see multitudes of human heads. Lal Bahadur Shastri had a well-earned place in every Indian heart during his short term of premiership of 19 months. His five feet frame was full of the great virtues of humility and kindness. These were the qualities, along with his simplicity, that had made him a man of the masses. It was in sheer millions that they now turned out to pay their floral tributes on his last journey. Many preached Gandhism but he practiced it in his dayto-day dealings. He was an introvert, calm and cool. No one ever remembered of having seen him in a state of anger. He was possessed with unsurpassed sweetness while talking, which was the very essence of Shastri’s nature. I remembered one particular incident that is worth recalling. This was in October 1964 when we were returning from Cairo after the Non-aligned Summit Conference. One of our
Consultations in the corridors of power... Ayub Khan, Lal Bahadur Shashtri and Alexei Kosyjin with members of the Soviet Presidium. DOCUMENTARY TODAY
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A beloved Prime Minister passes away... Lal Bahadur Shastri begins his last journey. This rare photograph was taken by Larry Burrows of Life magazine.
members – Kundan Lal – boarded the plane, precariously holding under his arms two Mudhas (backless canechairs) purchased from Cairo. As he was entering the plane he and the Mudhas were blocking the way when suddenly, a man from the prime minister’s security announced, “P.M. is coming, please clear the way.” All of us moved aside in the gangway except Kundan Lal who, with his Mudhas just couldn’t make way. Shastri was soon close to him and seeing the Mudhas gave him a strange look. He then asked, “Don’t you get these things in Delhi? You seem to have lot of foreign exchange to waste.” Saying so, he then moved away. How effective these words were was seen immediately. Our friend quickly got down from the plane with the Mudhas and returned empty handed. Sitting next to me, wiping his perspiring forehead, he whispered, “Yaar, it never 24
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occurred to me, what a foolish thing I was doing.” A site at Rajghat, near the samadhis of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru was selected as the final resting place for Lal Bahadur Shastri. At the cremation ground, Shastri’s two sons fell unconscious. Hari Krishan Shastri, the eldest son of the prime minister performed the last rites as per Hindu custom in which the mortal remains are symbolically merged with the five great elements, Panchatatwa. The timely release of the Indian newsreels on the Tashkent visit and the events that followed, through dubbed versions in English and 14 Indian languages, had its reward. K.L. Khandpur, producer-in-charge at the Films Division conveyed in his letter, the feelings of A.N. Jha, secretary to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting :”I am writing this letter
to congratulate you and your staff for the speed with which you were able to record and present the events of the last week. Your good work has been appreciated by the minister and the deputy minister. Please convey our congratulations to all those who worked on the two newsreels concerned.” Khandpur added in his letter: “The coverage done by you, particularly at Tashkent, has been highly commended. The last living shot of the late Prime Minister has been specially noticed by many people. We are proud of the part played by you in this assignment. May I convey you our congratulations and once again thank you for your excellent work and cooperation.” Letters like these, especially in the government service, went a long way in keeping us fully charged most of the time.
ESSAY
The Ardours of Film Scholarship By Vijaya Mulay The notion of studying films on India made by non-Indians crossed my mind during the 1995 Festival of New Films and Videos in Montreal as I watched David Thompson’s film on Jean Renoir made by the BBC Omnibus series. In the section relating to Renoir’s film The River, based on a Rumer Godden novel, Adrienne Corri, who acted in The River, spoke eloquently about the French director. She said Renoir’s spirits revived in making a film in India. He was very unhappy with his Hollywood experience. I had also read about Rossellini’s Indian experience and his enthusiasm for India, so I thought it might be worthwhile for somebody (not me) to examine what India has given to such sensitive and creative filmmakers like Renoir and Rossellini. Louis Malle’s death in November 1995 eventually moved me to pursue this new project. Later, after his death, when I was going over his letters, as a part of remembering him, I realized something that I had not grasped before: how India had changed Malle. I had not fully comprehended it because the information had come to me in bits and pieces. Here was a firsthand experience of how one non-Indian filmmaker, a very creative and sensitive one, perceived India—and why. I could not wait in the hopes that someone younger than myself would take up a study about how non-Indian filmmakers perceived India.
film has a narrative but The River also documents his discovery of India, and the film’s documentary sections are far more interesting and stronger than the narrative ones. I extended my field further after mulling over some remarks of Jacque Derrida that appeared in an Indian newspaper article. There Derrida argues how fiction sometimes illuminates truth better than non-fiction because fiction can focus deliberately on only those things in the field of vision relevant to the point being made. Fiction can zoom in on a special object in the field under consideration and to selected objects relating to it rather than deal equally with the entire field. Finally, although I was averse to including exotic films, Tom Waugh at Montreal’s Concordia University
persuaded me to include “exploitation” or “sensational” images in film since in his opinion these were often more revelatory about the East-West cross cultural contacts than the more “dignified imagery.” The little Gangotri from where the river Ganges emerges is just a small rill. It becomes the majestic river Ganga as more rivers join it before it flows into the sea. My project has followed a similar path, growing bigger and bigger, though unlike the Ganges it is neither majestic nor holy. To do this project, I needed access to good libraries, film archives, and the Internet. Thanks to the McGill Centre for Research and Training on Women of the McGill University and a Ford Foundation Grant secured for me by the Magic
Jean Renoir with his wife.
Evolution of my study I first thought of limiting my study to Indian films by Renoir, Rossellini and Malle. India Matribhumi (India Motherland) by Rossellini and Calcutta and L’Inde Fantome series by Malle are documentaries. Renoir’s DOCUMENTARY TODAY
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Lantern Foundation of Delhi and sponsorship by the National Film Archive of India, I had some resources. While researching I also discovered that there are hardly any comprehensive studies about imaging of a country in films. The four that I came across covered only Hollywood films and some British films. No European, Canadian, or Asian films were included. I located about 900 films made within the period of 1901 to 2000. I thought that even a compilation of a data base of films, with as many details as possible might be of use to other researchers. Collecting information on films from as many countries as possible and researching in detail about films taken up for detailed analysis to place them in proper context has been a daunting task. When I met Edith Kramer, the director of the Pacific Film Archive at Berkeley, she asked me how many people were working in my team. When I told her it was a one-woman team, she laughed, “Talk about fools rushing in.” I promptly responded, “You’re so right, Dr. Kramer. One such fool is in front of you.” But this exercise also brought
some blessings in the form of new friends especially among archivists and librarians. They are often special people, happy to meet somebody who wants to look at their treasures. Or perhaps they feel compassion for an 81 year old researcher. It seems my age. research studies,
crazy to take on so much at But contemporary cultural in India, especially in film gets very little money to
hundred years of cinema on India. On this path, I have met a number of people who have travelled a part of the way. They helped in various ways in sharing their work and thoughts with me and giving me leads about where to search. Others helped in translations from Danish, French, Russian, German, Czech, Italian, Swedish, Japanese etc. and in finding videos and materials for me to peruse. They did it as a labour of love. But I know that still more work
Language has been the major tool for communication and has been a major turning point in the history of human beings. It has made higher thinking possible. support it, and the facilities that a good university like McGill can offer are so hard to come by, that when they came my way I decided to take the plunge and dive deep. As the territory is vast, my work would be more like mapping out the area so that later, others can investigate in specific fields in detail and make corrections if necessary to what I am doing. This study is a personal journey of a film buff and a film maker of these
Vijaya Mulay, the author of this article, receives the V. Shantaram Lifetime Achievement award from Mr. Vilasrao Deshmukh, then Chief Minister of Maharashtra, at the 2002 Mumbai International Film Festival.
needs to be done even for mapping. For want of researchers in various languages and more finances, I have not been able to access films on India made in Central Asian Republics, South East Asia etc. Maybe if I survive this project, I could try later or hope that others will. Strategic location of the study and attendant problems Archimedes said, “Give me where to stand and I shall move the earth.” He thus describes how strategic location is important. Given a point outside the Earth to stand on and a lever with a long arm—perhaps with a length of several light years—and with the Earth attached to the lever’s small arm, it should theoretically be possible for a man to move the Earth. In research too the researcher needs to specify where one stands. Edward Said refers to the researcher/writer’s equipment, namely his /her knowledge and experience as strategic formation and refers to how s/he proposes to approach the topic and the area of study as strategic location. I have already discussed my strategic formation: my experience/background and how I came to take up this project. Before I go on to explain my location with respect to this project, I would like to comment on the space between strategic formation and strategic
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location. For want of better words I describe it as the inadequacy of tools: language (both textual and visual) and difficulty in comprehension of reality in its totality, especially about India. Language has been the major tool for communication and has been a major turning point in the history of human beings. It has made higher thinking possible; it has freed human beings from the shackles of the concrete and immediate to roam in the realms of the abstract and distant. Visual representations have given a more concrete form to what language communicates. But all these tools also have inherent faults that screw up communication and perceptions. We shape reality as seen by us with these tools, using them as best as we can. As Honi Fern Haber says, “There is no view from nowhere. We can never leave all our prejudices behind and operate from a wholly disinterested standpoint.” Even with the best of intentions, the reality presented will always be specific and never be apprehended in its totality. That is something which one has to accept as inevitable. In addition there are hidden persuaders, manufacturers of consent, vested interests who deliberately manipulate and distort reality to suit their agendas.
Salman Rushdie
To understand these obstacles let us first look at language. It works fairly well when it is dealing with concrete and material things. It also works adequately enough when one uses words that are on low levels of abstraction such as colour that is the abstraction of a particular quality of an object. But an abstraction like the judiciary system of India in the year 2000 is built on many lower level abstractions. When a writer or speaker uses higher levels of abstraction, verbal communication can become a very clumsy instrument, much like
Unless both the speaker and spoken agree on the referent that the abstraction represents to each of them, their discourse can only lead to bad communication and faulty perception. This is done by many devices, the chief of which is using coloured language. In films it is done by many cinematic devices, such as camera angles, editing , characterization etc. Empire films like Clive of India (1935) are made, as Salman Rushdie aptly puts, with studios “being determined not to be confused by the facts.” But even if such agenda are not there, something else that is inherent in these tools obstructs the communication path.
clumsy forceps that crush the truth a little while grasping it; one has to be very careful to avoid such crushing. In his book The Tyranny of Words, Stuart Chase refers to an interesting exercise undertaken by Allen Upward. Upward wanted to find out what precisely was understood by the word “Idealism” as used in the Nobel Prize award – an award for “the most distinguished work of an idealist tendency.” He asked a number of his friends to interpret the term. He got
following responses: fanatical, poetical, what cannot be proved, altruistic, intangible, the opposite of materialism, not practical, sentimental, exact, true, something to do with imaginary powers. I have done similar exercises with my students with words like “democracy,” “communism,” etc. It has always been a salutary exercise for all concerned. The very strength of language, namely using abstractions at higher and higher levels, has one in-built flaw. Unless one is constantly watching, the handle, the symbol, the word becomes the thing discussed. One tends to forget that these abstractions, whatever might be their levels, are handles for a real entity either in the physical world or world of ideas. Unless both the speaker and spoken agree on the referent that the abstraction represents to each of them, their discourse can only lead to bad communication and faulty perception. Statements such as, “Muslim fundamentalism is threatening the civilized world,” have no meaning and cannot be a basis for a meaningful dialogue unless those in dialogue agree to what they mean by “Muslim fundamentalism” or the “civilized world” or in exactly what way the “threat” exists. Without such an understanding, the sentence becomes a verbal monster DOCUMENTARY TODAY
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that can trap the unwary. Yet one keeps on using abstractions in a similar manner all the time, sometimes as metaphors that look pretty and pithy. One even thinks that one has understood what is being said. But very often, the communication is only partial or not at all. If a speaker were to speak in a tongue that his listener did not know, both would probably shrug their shoulders to indicate that there has been no communication. But when the noise is made by hearing words that are familiar, one does not always realize that there is only partial or no communication. So far as the films go, unless the filmmaker does his encoding of what s/he wants to say in tune with the
decoding the audience would use, the message will be interpreted differently. Once I attended the screening of a film on mosquitoes that showed the havoc they could cause and why it was necessary to ensure that they did not breed. The filmmaker had taken a big close up of a mosquito to show what it does when it bites. The response of the villagers was opposite to the intended message. They said, “Oh your city mosquitoes are really big and harmful; ours are just tiny ones. They are quite harmless.” The film mirror in which reality is reflected is fogged by these faults and as the Bible says, we see only “through the glass darkly” As a two dimensional creature cannot understand what things look like in
Octavio Paz, describes India as an “unusual museum.”
three dimensions, we are not destined to see the complex Reality in its myriad forms and various dimensions. The parable of six blind men feeling an elephant and describing it is germane to how we perceive reality. Each blind man described the elephant differently depending on the elephant’s body part each touched (a rope if he felt the tail; a fan, if he felt its ear; a column if he touched the leg and so on). Each blind man’s description was true, but not the whole truth. Furthermore, our upbringing shapes us in specific ways to look at things. We even lose the talent we had as children to look at things in unconventional manner as children do all over the world. Perhaps some special people like visionaries, seers, geniuses, artists, poets, thinkers, etc. do not lose such ability to perceive myriad connections between life’s different dimensions. If such be the case, why do I raise the issue in the terms of discourse at all? I have done so because in India heated debates ensued, theatres were attacked and sets were destroyed over whether a particular film portrayed “reality” in India. Censors are limited to ordering cuts or at worst, banning films, but in the last two years of the twentieth century vigilante mobs with no constitutional authority have used violence usurping that authority to destroy films. It is difficult enough to assay the reality of any country or people in all their dimensions of time and space but it is far more difficult to do so in respect to India. Any truism about India can be immediately contradicted by another; as Rabindranath Tagore has said, “Everything is correct and so is its reverse.” Arthur Clarke says, “India is not a country, it is a universe.”
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Another writer, Octavio Paz, describes India as an “unusual museum.” India is an ethnographic and historical museum. But it is a living museum, one in which “modernity coexists with the archaic that has survived a millennia.” In a country with an extraordinary mix of ethnic groups, a profusion of languages that are mutually
incomprehensible (of which 16 are declared national languages by the Indian constitution), a highly varied topography and climate, diverse religious and cultural practices, a range of levels in economic development and as Shashi Tharur puts it, 300 ways of cooking a potato, it is impossible to make a definitive statement about India that is universally applicable, except perhaps one: India is India because it gladly accommodates and assimilates diversity. Any attempt to bring uniformity of culture or religion is antiIndian and anti-Hindu in character and is bound to fail as it goes against the grain of India. I hope to support this fact with findings of my study. In this project, I am not going to analyze how true a film may be to the reality of India (of course as I see it), except in case of films that have been made with a hidden agenda such as the genre of empire films. In respect of other genre of films, I restrict myself to the imaging of India as shown therein and relate it to the societal factors of
Arthur Clarke says, “India is not a country, it is a universe.”
neglects objects ‘B’. In contemporaneous discourses such selectivity provides the bedrock for artistic moorings. I am also interested in factors that make particular images of India popular at a particular time; thus I consider the social discourses of a moment that favour or reject those images. I wish I had better access to contemporary newspapers in the
What kind of India do these films portray? What discursive anchors moor these images? How do these perceptions relate to marginalised groups? Has the growing presence of writers and filmmakers of Indian origin made any difference to such imaging? the day and if the director is the auteur, then I explore his background to understand what urged him/her to undertake such a venture. I also explore whether contact with India had any long lasting effects on them.
directors’ countries, but I compensate by comparing the treatment of the same story by different directors in different times to speculate on them.
This study therefore takes into account the following things: What kind of India do these films portray? What discursive anchors moor these images? How do these perceptions relate to marginalised groups like women and Anglo Indians? Has the growing presence of writers and filmmakers of Indian origin made any difference to such imaging? As Kenneth Burke says, a way of seeing is also a way of not seeing, because focus on object ‘A’
India has meant many things to many people at different points of time. As I examine films made about India, I find in them, vestiges of many of these notions. Here are a few of them. To begin with, India was once “the Orient.” In the introduction to his book The Quest for India Bjorn Landstrom states that in ancient and medieval times all exploratory routes by land and sea in the eastern direction were undertaken with one goal – to reach
India as an idea
India. These voyages commence with one undertaking by Egyptians to the Land of Punt in 1493 BC (recorded in the relief at Deir el-Bahri on the orders of Queen Hatshepsut in words and pictures). They end with the Portuguese circumnavigating Africa in 1488 AD a thousand years later. The India these navigators had in mind was different not only from the Indian nation state established in 1947 but also from the entire Indian subcontinent. It was what India meant to the ancient and medieval Europeans. Their concept included all of Asia east of the Euphrates River, the Arabian Peninsula, and all of East Africa. This equation of India with a very broad concept of the Orient is evident in films like Gods of Asia, where the Maharajah’s natives sometimes look like Zulus and at other times like Arabs. Another concept of India originated with Columbus who sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to get to India. When he landed on the shores of the North American continent in 1492 he was so convinced about reaching India, that he called the local inhabitants Indians. This misnomer has stuck permanently to all native tribes of the North and South Americas, even though they use their own names like Mohawk, Cheyenne, Hopi etc. In medieval Europe and in travellers’ accounts, folk tales, stories, and DOCUMENTARY TODAY
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literature, India was portrayed as a land of fabulous wealth where magic and charms worked and wishes were fulfilled. It was represented as a paradise of sensual pleasures even as its mystics and philosophers were considered wise and spiritual. With the passage of centuries, though the gorgeous mental Technicolor of such exotic portrayals has faded, the vestiges of this golden myth have persisted. One sees them in films made as late as in the forties, fifties and even the nineties. In the French film Les Enfants du Paradis by Marcel Carne (1945) and the Polish film The Night Train by Jerzy Kawalerowich (1956), characters express either a longing to be in India or to convey India’s wisdom. This wonderland notion also appears in films such as the Swedish Skepp till India Land (Ship to India) by Ingmar Bergman (1947) in which a former sea captain and now the master of a salvage vessel, Alexander Blom, dreams of faraway voyages but is constantly frustrated in his attempts to escape. He lives in a room in the city where he dreams of India. He knows he will soon turn blind, and his wornout wife Alice hopes it will happen soon so he can become completely
dependent on her. When an Indian film critic, Amita Malik, asked Bergman about this film he told her the film was not about India. Its title Ship to India refers to a familiar seventeenth century Swedish expression signifying a dream; a ship to India refers to something very far away where everything is wonderful and where anything can happen. In another film, a Latvian one, released in 1992, titled Biletas Iki Taj Mahal (Ticket to Taj Mahal) made by Aligmantas Puipa for Film Cooperative USSR, the same notions about India are even more clear. This film is set in the post War period in Latvia shortly after the Germans were evicted and the country was annexed to the Soviet Union. The villagers’ lives, including those of the hero Fabiyonas and his wife Valeria, are made miserable by the most recent invasion of their village house. People have no privacy. Military corruption and infighting have come to a head. Fabiyonas starts losing touch with reality and often escapes by dreaming of visiting the Taj Mahal in the red light of the setting sun; on a sudden impulse he gets on a train to India. Valeria is distraught to find him missing but she never gives up hope
Ingmar Bergman... longing to be in India or to convey India’s wisdom.
of finding him despite a long separation. She finally finds him in an asylum in Vilnius and their reunion ends on an ambiguous note. It is interesting that both Bergman’s Blom and Puipa’s Fabiyonas are dreamers and unhappy with their living environments. Blom commits suicide; Fabiyonas is declared insane and committed to an asylum by the powers that be. These films’ characters parallel the lives of some of the 1960’s flower children who relocated in Third World countries, especially India and Nepal. An excellent documentary titled Freak Street to Goa: Immigrants of the Rajpath (John Caldwell and J.L.Pudaite, 1988) explores why four survivors from the 1960s subculture continue to live in the Indian subcontinent. We see Dick, once a Harvard student and commercial artist who now produces macrobiotic food; Eddy, an underground writer from the 1950s who now paints; Jim, formerly a radical activist in the US army who now writes epic poems and novels; and finally Woody from Germany, an exartist, who now runs several bakeries in Kathmandu and Goa. They all find fulfilment and do not regret their decision to live in Nepal and India, spending their summers in Nepal and winters in Goa. By the eighteenth century, with improved communication and contact with India, the geographic dimensions of the Indian sub-continent became better known. Nevertheless, western scholars, especially Germans did not define India by its geographic dimension. They have used the name and concept of India in terms of its cultural context. Winternitz and others for example, have used India as the reference point to talk of other countries of the Orient. Thus certain countries in West Asia were referred to as Vorderindien (near or fore India). Ostindien (East India) meant India proper but at times it also included both the Indian subcontinent and Burma. Hinterindien (Hinter India)
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referred to Burma now Myanmar. Niederlaendisch Indien (Dutch India) referred to Indonesia. Thailand, Borneo, Malayasia, Laos, Kampuchea, Viet Nam etc. were referred to as “the Farther India.” Such nomenclature did not take into account just the Indian continent but also those countries where Indian culture and its civilization spread. The Indian influence on buildings, language, folktales, myths, literature, arts, names of people, etc. is evident in many of these countries. Thus the German scholars understood that the bedrock that serves as the basis for stories and therefore films is culture. With the advent of Enlightenment and its emphasis on reason and individualism rather than tradition and community, a change in the imag(e)ing of India began. Many scholars have commented on this changed perception with respect not only to India but the entire Orient. In his book ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age, Andre Gunder Frank observes, Until about 1800, the predominant Western perception of the East was favourable. Europeans were attracted to and sought to learn from many parts of the Orient that were viewed as civilizationally, culturally, politically, socially, economically and technologically more advanced than any or all of Europe. Indeed ‘Orient’ as still recorded in the concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English, whose first edition in 1911 registers the following: ‘Orient: The East; lustrous, sparkling, precious; radiant, rising, nascent; place or exactly determine position; settle or find bearings; bring into clearly understood relations; direct towards; determine how one stands in relation to one’s surroundings. Turn eastward.’ What has happened to make all those nice meanings disappear and have the American Oxford Dictionary (1980) now say instead, “Orient: The East, Countries East of the Mediterranean, especially East Asia. Frank goes on to
Om Puri (standing) the frantic father in My Son The Fanatic.
show why instead of a global vision a myopic Euro-centric vision became the hallmark of historiography from the nineteenth century on. Defining India as a nation state or cultural entity? In defining the scope of the research field, at the outset, I had to resolve what India I would refer to in selecting films. Was it to be the nation state as it emerged in August 1947 or something larger than it? The euro-centric vision mentioned by Frank dominates in many films. But in terms of film history, visions of India have undergone many changes: from a mystic and exotic land, to imperial imaging, a land of contradictions, a spiritual land, an imaginary home land of non-Indians of Indian origin, and also as a part of a global humanity. After careful consideration I dispensed with the idea of India as a nation state. Nation state is a comparatively recent construct. The boundaries of nation states keep changing the world over, depending on who holds the political whip and what people accept. What seems more enduring is the cultural context established by communities and nationalities. That changes far more
slowly than the political boundaries of a nation state. Thus films like My Son the Fanatic or East Is East or My Beautiful Launderette find a place in this study even though they are about Pakistani families in England. There is far more similarity in language, food, music, literature and other cultural mores between Pakistan and North Indian states (the most populous ones) than between the latter and other regions in India. (Incidentally Indians have more Muslims than Pakistan). On the other hand, I exclude films that deal with the geography of regions now located in Pakistan or Bangladesh or with specific institutions that emerged in these countries since partition. I discuss all these different visions in my work on India’s representation in film, and since I have not come across a film made with the specific concept referring to the nation state established in 1947, I use a notion of India in its wide cultural sense. (Extracts from ‘From Rajahs and Yogis to Gandhi and Beyond: India in International Cinema’, Seagull Books: Kolkata, London, New York, forthcoming 2009.) DOCUMENTARY TODAY
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OSCAR SHORTLIST
Social documentaries dominate Oscar Race In recent years, the Oscar race has favored political and social documentaries over life stories. The last bio doc to win was The Fog of War five years ago. That film certainly had political undertones as it looked at the life of former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara as he revisited his part in the Vietnam War and won an Oscar for Errol Morris, who returns to the race this year with Standard Operating Procedure. This examination of the tactics used by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib divided film critics but this heavy-going film has made only $228,000 at the box office. But that is not too dismal for last year’s winner – the equally dark Taxi to the Dark Side — also had a very limited release and earned only $275,000. Of the 15 documentary features shortlisted, about 10 could be described as social-issue films, with varying degrees of didactic intent. Even within that category, there’s tremendous variety: Fuel, a grassrootsmarketed film about the bio-diesel movement, has little in common with Standard Operating Procedure. Fuel was one film that seemed to come out of nowhere, but as director Josh Tickell observes, “Everybody wants to be part of the green energy movement now.” Tickell’s inexpensively made, microdistributed film about turning grease and other waste products into diesel fuel no longer seems like a college-campus countercultural statement. “Making the shortlist is a huge relief, because I want this movie to be for ordinary folks, not just for green activists,” he says. “From a populist perspective, maybe it’s not so surprising. We’ve been test-screening it for heartland audiences in the Midwest, and we keep getting standing 32
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ovations. People are requesting the film for their church, their school.” And neither of those bears any similarity to Trouble the Water, a riproaring, rough-and-ready Sundance Award winner about a poor AfricanAmerican couple surviving Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward. This Katrina-themed winner of the jury prize at Sundance has a perfect 100% score from top film critics. The Los Angeles Times calls it “more than a keenly dramatic look at how this country treats the poor and dispossessed.” However, it has not been too successful at the box office having earned only $460,000 from 14 theaters since late August. One can further divide the issueoriented flicks into those that seem especially geared to the moment, in the vein of a recent Oscar winner featuring a former vice president, and those that tackle documentary perennials like the death penalty (At the Death House Door) or the Holocaust (Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh). Also in the running is a pair of documentaries about two men facing incredible challenges. Man on Wire revisits French wire-walker Philippe Petit’s daring walk between the two towers of the World Trade Center in 1974. The film garnered nearly universal rave reviews and has made almost $3 million. Producer Simon Chinn describes it as “a crime caper infused with poetry and inspired by Truffaut,” rather than issue-based cinema. Arguably, the social significance of Man on Wire lies in something never mentioned in the film — the fate of those buildings 27 years later. “Just possibly, I think the
time was right for this film to provide the audience some catharsis for 9/11,” Chinn says. Encounters at the End of the World, which recounts German filmmaker Werner Herzog’s journey to Antarctica, may have warmed up enough critics but it met with cool indifference from the public, grossing just under $1 million. Herzog however is blasé about the selection. “The shortlist is pleasant news, but it isn’t an event,” he says. “My producers and distributors are enjoying it. A nomination — now, that always means something. But this is really a nonstory, isn’t it?” Or is it really considering that he’s been virtually ignored by the Academy throughout his long career. Three other bio docs also made the grade: Blessed is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Sensesh — the story of an unsung hero of the Holocaust; Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts — a profile of the threetime Oscar-nominated composer; and In a Dream — a look at two mosaic artists in Philadelphia. Veteran cinematographer Ellen Kuras’ lyrical immigrant odyssey The Betrayal — Nerakhoon is a surprise inclusion, but nowhere near as major a surprise as Jeremiah Zagar’s intimate family memoir In a Dream, which has no distributor, has screened at only a few festivals and has scarcely been reviewed. “This proves that the committee watched all the films,” Zagar jokes, “because nobody’s ever heard of ours. Just seeing my name up there with Errol Morris and Werner Herzog, people I’ve worked my whole life to emulate — it’s wild. It’s a huge, huge honor.”
With I.O.U.S.A., director Patrick Creadon’s market timing was even more uncanny. When he started making a movie about America’s debt crisis two years ago, people he talked to were baffled. “They’d tell me, ‘What a dreadful topic!’” he says. “‘Why would you want to make that movie?’” Nobody asks those questions now. “I’m pleasantly surprised to make the shortlist, but I can’t claim to be shocked,” Creadon says. “People are delighted to find out that our movie is an entertaining, human story. It’s not about numbers. But it also happens to be about the biggest news story of the year.”
The 15 documentaries have been selected from a record 94 films which had originally qualified in the Documentary Feature category. The Documentary Branch Screening Committee viewed all the eligible documentaries for the preliminary round of voting. These 15 films will now move forward in the voting process for the 81st Academy Awards. Documentary Branch members will now select the five nominees from among the 15 titles on the shortlist. While an average scoring system produced this short list, the academy’s standard system of preferential voting
kicks in to determine the final five nominees. (Rule 12(C)2 dictates that this second round of voting requires the viewing of all short-listed documentaries in a theater unless the member watched all of the eligible documentaries in the first round.) The two-step process was instituted last year to address concerns about the caliber of documentaries making the cut. The 81st Academy Awards nominations will be announced on January 22, 2009. The winners will be presented with their awards on February 22, 2009.
Encounters at the End of the World Director: Werner Herzog Herzog and cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger go to Antarctica to meet people who live and work there, and to capture footage of the continent’s unique locations. Herzog’s voiceover narration explains that his film will not be a typical Antarctica film about “fluffy penguins”, but will explore the dreams of the people and the landscape. They begin at McMurdo Station and interview some maintenance and support workers, as well as iceberg geologist Douglas MacAyeal. They travel next to a nearby seal camp supervised by zoologist Olav Oftedal. Next they join producer Henry Kaiser at his diving camp, and interview cell biologist Samuel Bowser and zoologist Jan Pawlowski. Kaiser and Bowser stage a rooftop guitar concert. Herzog and Zeitlinger return to McMurdo for some more interviews, and visit the preserved original base of Ernest Shackleton. After some brief footage at the South Pole, Herzog interviews
penguin scientist David Ainley. This footage includes a shot of a penguin marching in the wrong direction, walking to a certain death in the barren interior of the continent. Herzog and Zeitlinger next visit Mount Erebus, and interview volcanologists. A strange sequence follows which was shot in tunnels deep below the station carved from snow and ice. Various trinkets and mementos, including a can of Russian caviar and a whole frozen sturgeon, are placed in carved-out shelves in the ice walls, and preseved by the extremely cold and dry air. On the slope of the volcano, Herzog and Zeitlinger explore inside ice caves formed by fumaroles. The film next visits the launch of a hot-air balloon used in a neutrino detection project run by physicist Peter Gorham. The film concludes with some philosophical words from a maintenance worker, and more footage from the fumarole ice caves and Kaiser’s dives.
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At the Death House Door Directors: Steve James and Peter Gilbert At the Death House Door is a personal and intimate look at the death penalty in the state of Texas through the eyes of Pastor Carroll Pickett, who served 15 years as the death house chaplain to the infamous “Walls” prison unit in Huntsville. During Pickett’s remarkable career journey, he presided over 95 executions, including the world’s first lethal injection. After each execution, Pickett recorded an audiotape account of his trip to the death chamber. The film also focuses on the story of Carlos De Luna, a convict Pickett counseled and whose execution troubled Pickett more than any other. He firmly believed De Luna was innocent, and the film tracks the investigative efforts of a team of Chicago Tribune reporters who have turned up evidence that strongly suggests he was.
Trouble the Water Directors: Tia Lessin and Carl Deal Trouble the Water tells the story of an aspiring rap artist and her streetwise husband, trapped in New Orleans by deadly floodwaters, who survive the storm and then seize a chance for a new beginning. It’s a redemptive tale of selfdescribed street hustlers who become heroes that takes you inside Hurricane Katrina in a way never before seen on screen. Trouble the Water opens the day before Katrina makes landfall, just blocks away from the French Quarter but far from the New Orleans that tourists know. Kimberly Rivers Roberts is turning her video camera on herself and her 9th Ward neighbors trapped in the city. As the hurricane begins to rage and the floodwaters fill their world and the screen, Kim and her husband Scott continue to film, documenting their harrowing voyage to higher ground and dramatic rescues of friends and neighbors. Intertwining Kim and Scott’s insider’s view of Katrina and powerful video with a mix of verite and in-your-face filmmaking, Deal and Lessin follow their story through the storm and its aftermath, and into a new life. Along the way, they discover Kim’s musical talent as rap artist Black Kold Madina when she finds the only existing copy of her recorded music survived the storm with a relative in Memphis. Kim’s performance in that moment reveals not only devastating skills as a musician, but compacts her life story into explosive poetry that paints a devastating picture of poverty. 34
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The Garden Director: Scott Hamilton Kennedy The Garden is the fourteen-acre community garden at 41st and Alameda in South Central Los Angeles, the largest of its kind in the United States. Started as a form of healing after the devastating L.A. riots in 1992, the South Central Farmers have since created a miracle in one of the country’s most blighted neighborhoods. Growing their own food. Feeding their families. Creating a community. But now, bulldozers are poised to level their 14-acre oasis. The Garden follows the plight of the farmers, from the tilled soil of this urban farm to the polished marble of City Hall. Mostly immigrants from Latin America, from countries where they feared for their lives if they were to speak out, we watch them organize, fight back, and demand answers: The Garden has the pulse of verité with the narrative pull of fiction, telling the story of the country’s largest urban farm, backroom deals, land developers, green politics, money, poverty, power, and racial discord. The film explores and exposes the fault lines in American society and raises crucial and challenging questions about liberty, equality, and justice for the poorest and most vulnerable among us.
They Killed Sister Dorothy Director: Daniel Junge
On February 12th, 2005, Sister Dorothy Stang, a Catholic nun from Dayton, Ohio, was shot six times and left to die on a muddy road in the Brazilian Amazon. Who was this woman? Why was she killed? And what will be done about it? For 30 years, Sister Dorothy Stang, a Catholic nun from Dayton Ohio, worked in the Brazilian Amazon, trying to improve the lives of the region’s huge underclass. But in the final years of her life, her attention turned to the rampant destruction of the Amazon – a fifth of which is already destroyed. Her answer was the Sustainable Development Project. But the programme received violent opposition from the region’s powerful loggers and ranchers resulting in numerous death threats. They Killed Sister Dorothy is a ground-breaking documentary feature and a true courtroom drama that follows the trial of Dorothy’s killers and examines her life’s work in the rainforest of Brazil. With unprecedented access to both sides of the conflict and to the courtroom, the film follows the dramatic twists and turns of the murder case, while exploring the complex factors which led to this violent confrontation in the Amazon. DOCUMENTARY TODAY
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Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts Director: Scott Hicks In July 2005, filmmaker Scott Hicks started shooting a documentary about the composer Philip Glass to celebrate his 70th anniversary in 2007. Over the next 18 months, Scott followed Philip across three continents - from his annual ride on the Coney Island “Cyclone” roller coaster, to the world premiere of his new opera in Germany and in performance with a didgeridoo virtuoso in Australia. Allowed unprecedented access to Glass’ working process, family life, spiritual teachers and long time collaborators, Hicks gives us a unique glimpse behind the curtain into the life of a surprising and complex man. Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts is a remarkable mosaic portrait of one of the greatest - and at times controversial - artists of this or any era.
I.O.U.S.A. Director: Patrick Creadon. I.O.U.S.A. focuses on the shape and impact of the United States national debt. The film features Robert Bixby, director of the Concord Coalition, and David Walker, the former U.S. Comptroller-General, as they travel around the United States on a tour to let communities know of the potential dangers of the national debt. This is a tour carried out through the Concord Coalition, and is known as the “Fiscal Wake-Up Tour.” In February 2008, Walker announced that he would be resigning from his post as Comptroller General to become the president and CEO of the newly established Peter G. Peterson Foundation. His term is scheduled to end in 2013. He states that he feels he can more freely draw attention to the serious issues the U.S. is facing from this position. The companion book, written by the film’s executive producer Addison Wiggin and Agora Financial’s Managing Editor, Kate Incontrera, expands on the film and details America’s budget, personal savings, trade, and leadership deficits. It also elaborates on several statistics mentioned in the movie – from the $9 trillion federal debt to the $738.6 billion trade deficit to the fact that each citizen owes an average of $30,000. 36
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In A Dream Director:Jeremiah Zagar In the vibrant, bohemian neighborhood of South Philadelphia, 50,000-square feet of concrete are covered with tile and mirrors — mosaics that were created by Isaiah Zagar, an eccentric, tormented artist in the past four decades.. In A Dream is a documentary feature film that chronicles his work and tumultuous relationship with his wife, Julia. It follows the Zagars as their marriage implodes and a harrowing new chapter in their life unfolds. The murals chronicle his love for his wife, Julia, and subtly hint at the darker corners of an extraordinary imagination. Where Isaiah is obsessive and narcissistic—a former Peace Corps volunteer who has become an icon in South Philly’s art community—Julia is gracious and warm. For decades, their opposing natures complemented one another perfectly. But suddenly the family is torn apart at the seams: A few hours before picking up his oldest son from a rehabilitation center, Isaiah declares to the camera, “As people get older they have less and less passion.” He then confesses to an affair with his assistant, is kicked out of the house, and spirals into a debilitating, suicidal depression. The film is a fascinating portrait of love and betrayal, family bonds, and the intimacy of dysfunction.
Made in America Director: Stacy Peralta Made In America offers a compelling, characterdriven documentary narrative which chronicles the decades-long cycle of destruction and despair that defines modern gang culture. From the genesis of LA’s gang culture to the shocking, war-zone reality of daily life in the South L.A., the film chronicles the rise of Crips and Bloods, two of South Los Angeles’ most infamous African-American gangs, tracing the origins of their bloody four-decades long feud. Throughout the film ex-gang members, gang intervention experts, writers, activists and academics analyze many of the issues that contribute to South LA’s malaise: the erosion of identity that fuels the self-perpetuating legacy of black self-hatred, the disappearance of the African-American father and an almost pervasive prison culture. Finally the gang members themselves articulate their enduring dream of a better life. They provide the film with its ultimate statement: a message of hope and a cautionary tale of redemption aimed at saving the lives of a new generation of kids, not just in South LA but anywhere in the world that gang violence exists. DOCUMENTARY TODAY
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Pray the Devil Back to Hell Director: Gini Reticker Pray The Devil Back To Hell is the gripping account of a group of brave and visionary women who demanded peace for Liberia, a nation torn to shreds by a decades old civil war. Thousands of women - ordinary mothers, grandmothers, aunts and daughters, both Christian and Muslim - came together to pray for peace and then staged a silent protest outside of the Presidential Palace. Armed only with white T-shirts and the courage of their convictions, they demanded a resolution to the country’s civil war. Their actions were a critical element in bringing about an agreement during the stalled peace talks. Combining contemporary interviews, archival images, and scenes of present-day Liberia the film recounts the experiences and memories of the women who stood up to their country’s tyrannical leader and brutal warlords, in order to bring peace to their tormented country. A story of sacrifice, unity and transcendence, the film honours the strength and perseverence of the women of Liberia. Inspiring, uplifting, and most of all motivating, it is a compelling testimony of how grassroots activism can alter the history of nations.
Man on Wire Director: James Marsh
Man on Wire chronicles Philippe Petit’s 1974 high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of New York’s World Trade Center and is based on Philippe Petit’s book, To Reach the Clouds. Director James Marsh gave many why he was drawn to such an inspirational, iconic documentary. First and foremost, Marsh claims the film immediately struck him as “a heist movie” and after seeing how much collaboration and exhaustive planning went into planning “the coup,” it’s easy to understand Marsh’s sentiments. Secondly, Marsh also comments that as a New Yorker himself, he sees the film as something to give back to the city. One of the greatest comments he could receive, he says, is to hear someone say that they will now always think of Petit and his performance when recalling the World Trade Center’s twin towers. Explaining why the towers’ destruction 27 years later was not mentioned in the film, Marsh says that Phillippe Petit’s act was “incredibly beautiful” and that it “would be unfair and wrong to infect his story with any mention, discussion or imagery of the Towers being destroyed.”
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Standard Operating Procedure Director: Errol Morris Is it possible for a photograph to change the world? Photographs taken by soldiers in Abu Ghraib prison changed the war in Iraq and changed America’s image of itself. Yet, a central mystery remains: Did the notorious Abu Ghraib photographs constitute evidence of systematic abuse by the American military, or were they documenting the aberrant behavior of a few bad apples? Errol Morris sets out to examine the context of these photographs in Standard Operating Procedure Why were they taken? What was happening outside the frame? He talks directly to the soldiers who took the photographs and who were in the photographs. Who are these people? What were they thinking? Over two years of investigation, we amassed a million and a half words of interview transcript, thousands of pages of unredacted reports, and hundreds of photographs. The story of Abu Ghraib is still shrouded in moral ambiguity, but it is clear what happened there. The Abu Ghraib photographs serve as both an expose and a cover-up. An expose, because the photographs offer us a glimpse of the horror of Abu Ghraib; and a cover-up because they convinced journalists and readers they had seen everything, that there was no need to look further. The cover-up at Abu Ghraib involved thousands of prisoners and hundreds of soldiers. America is still learning about the extent of it.
The main underlying question that has still not been resolved, four years after the scandal: how could American values become so compromised that Abu Ghraib and the subsequent cover-up could happen?
Fuel Director: Josh Tickell
Fuel is an insightful portrait of America’s addiction to oil and an uplifting testament to the immediacy of new energy solutions. Director Josh Tickell, a young activist, shuttles the viewer on a whirlwind journey to track the rising domination of the petrochemical industry – from Rockefeller’s strategy to halt Ford’s first ethanol cars to Vice President Cheney’s petrochemical company sponsored energy legislation — and reveals a gamut of available solutions to “repower America” —from vertical farms that occupy skyscrapers to algae facilities that turn wastewater into fuel. Tickell and a surprising array of environmentalists, policy makers, and entertainment notables take us through America’s complicated, often ignominious energy past and illuminate a hopeful, achievable future, where decentralized, sustainable living is not only possible, it’s imperative. DOCUMENTARY TODAY
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Blessed Is the Match Director: Roberta Grossman Hannah Senesh was a Hungarian Jewish resistance fighter, an optimist in the face of dire circumstances and a poet. The child of educated parents in Budapest, Hannah’s early years were consumed by her love of literature. Her emotional growth as a teenager paralleled the growth of anti-Semitism in Hungary and led her to fiercely embrace Zionism. After emigrating to Palestine, Hannah volunteered for a special unit in the British Army and parachuted into occupied Yugoslavia. She then traveled clandestinely back to Hungary to make contact with the resistance, but was arrested, tortured and subsequently executed. Her group’s bold foray was the only outside rescue mission for Jews attempted during the Holocaust. Blessed Is the Match is an inspirational documentary narrated by three-time Academy Award nominee Joan Allen. It is a paean to Hannah Senesh’s courage and creativity. Gorgeous images of parachutes float gracefully in the air like Senesh’s words, written days before her capture by the Nazis: Hannah Senesh comes to life in this film through unusually effective re-creations with actresses Meri Roth and Marcela Blessed is the flame that burns in the secret fastness of the Nohynkova, alongside interviews with kibbutz members, heart fellow parachutists, historian Sir Martin Gilbert and Hannah’s Blessed is the heart with the strength to stop its beating for nephews. But perhaps what brings us closest to this brave honor’s sake young woman are the letters she wrote to her mother, Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame. Catherine, which capture a daughter’s hopes and dreams for herself and her people.
The Betrayal/Nerakhoon Directors: Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Phrasavath The Betrayal, about a family caught in the tides of war, is as much a history lesson about a part of the Vietnam War that is little known as it is a story of how co-director Thavisouk Phrasavath came to America at the age of 14 with his mother and nine siblings after his homeland, Laos fell to the Communists. The it is beautifully shot and visually poetic film — a combination of cinema verite and archival footage with elements of experimental filmmaking blended in as well. The film is simultaneously a micro view of this one family’s struggles to survive in and adapt to a foreign culture in the aftermath of war, and a macro statement about the fight of immigrants to retain a sense of self-identity, sense of culture and sense of self while assimilating to a new environment. By blending elements of narrative and experimental filmmaking into a documentary, Kuras makes these wider themes personal. 40
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The Ones That Did Not Make It One of the most wonderful things about the world of documentary film is the complete unpredictability of the form. It seems much easier to look at a list of upcoming works from major and minor narrative directors and know what’s going to stand out at the end of the year than to even attempt the same thing with an upcoming batch of documentaries. Critics will tell you that they go into every film with a blank slate of opinion, but it’s naive to think that we don’t have different expectations for films by different filmmakers. And most years shake out with a healthy mix of cinematic veterans and relative newcomers delivering movies of a somewhat predictable baseline of quality with a few healthy surprises sprinkled in between. However, with rare exceptions, the world of documentaries usually follows much different and less predictable rules. While Bill Maher, Martin Scorsese and Ben Stein lick their wounds at being left out of the running, there are many others who should have but didn’t make the grade. Not everyone in the documentary world is happy to see the Oscar nomination process used as a soapbox for issues-of-the-week and there have been the usual cribs. “Documentary might be the most vital form in American film right now, and the Academy consistently ignores the best work and the most important trends,” says Paul Sturtz, co-director of the True/False Film Festival, a prestigious documentaries-only event, “There seems to be this attitude that it doesn’t need to be a good film if it’s about an important subject — it automatically gets eight out of 10.”
spark controversy. This year, a requirement that the film have a qualifying theatrical run in New York as well as Los Angeles prior to the August 31 deadline meant the critically acclaimed Waltz With Bashir, an animated war memoir directed by Ari Folman, was left out of consideration. Meanwhile, several undistributed or unreleased films in the shortlist, including Fuel, Blessed Is the Match and Stacy Peralta’s L.A. gang-war history Made in America qualified only because their producers booked semi-clandestine New York engagements in empty theaters. Sturtz and others have publicly lamented the omission of several eligible films, most notably Sundance critical favourite The Order of Myths, a portrait of Mobile, Ala.’s still-segregated Mardi Gras traditions. “I think it’s a rich, panoramic achievement that leaves you asking questions,” Sturtz says. “It’s better than 90% of the films on that list.” Given its subject matter, the absence of Roman Polanski: Wanted and
Desired is something of a surprise, and many observers expected the hit Religulous and the well-reviewed Texas development saga The Unforeseen to make the shortlist.
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father Director: Kurt Kuenne Dear Zachary is the most emotionally devastating film of 2008, but what makes it one of the better documentaries of the year is that it’s also unspeakably inspiring. What Kurt Kuenne found when he picked up his camera to chronicle the life of his slain best friend, Andrew Bagby, was both unspeakable evil and unbending good existing together in the same story. It turned out that the woman who killed Andrew, her former lover, happened to be pregnant with Andrew’s son, Zachary. Dear Zachary starts as a cinematic love letter to a father who will never know his son, but it evolves into so much more than just another series of talking heads or courtroom twists
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father.
The Academy’s annual rejiggering of qualification rules also tends to DOCUMENTARY TODAY
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blindness is equitable to being possessed by demons, the teens set out to climb the 23,000-foot Lhakpa Ri on the north side of Mount Everest. Blind climber Erik Weihenmayer may be the leader of this inspirational crew, but Sabriye Tenberken is one of the documentary characters the year. Blind herself, she started a school in Tibet for visually-impaired children and her conflict over wanting to protect them while also letting them reach for the peak is the heart of Blindsight. It is the kind of documentary that makes you want to know more as soon as it ends.
Stranded: I’ve Come From a Plane That Crashed in the Mountains
Up the Yangtze.
and turns. What’s remarkable about Dear Zachary is what’s remarkable about all great documentaries - the way its director assembles the footage into an experience that rivals and even surpasses most fiction. Dear Zachary provides the full range of human emotions. Kurt Kuemme crafted his true story into something that a lesser filmmaker would have turned into just another true crime story.
Up the Yangtze Director: Yung Chang One of the most haunting films of the year was Yung Chang’s emotionally and historically resonant Up the Yangtze. The Three Gorges Dam project in China is dislocating two million people who live along the Yangtze River. Imagine two million people being forced to uproot their lives, their history, and their ancestry and move to higher ground because of a hydroelectric dam. Now imagine those same people getting jobs on a boat for tourists who want to say goodbye to a large chunk of the world before it changes forever. Rarely has a film so vividly captured a country in transition and the lives changed by it. These people aren’t just saying goodbye to the world they’ve always know, they’re 42
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giving tours of it. Up the Yangtze is one of the most underrated films of 2008, documentary or narrative.
Blindsight Director: Lucy Walker Blindsight is one of those films that forces the viewer to reassess what they consider an accomplishment. The story of six Tibetan teenagers climbing the breathtaking peaks of the Himalayas would be fascinating in and of itself if they were just average climbers, but they also happen to be blind. Shunned by a society who believes that
Director: Gonzalo Arijon Stranded: I’ve Come From a Plane That Crashed in the Mountains powerfully details the plight of 45 Uruguayans, mostly members of an amateur rugby team, whose plane crashed 13,000 feet up in the Chilean Andes in the fall of 1972. Sixteen survivors ultimately made it out of the mountains about two months later after they notoriously were forced to eat the bodies of their perished friends. The documentary details the brutal experience in vivid detail, using filmed recreations, photos and great
Stranded: I’ve Come From a Plane That Crashed in the Mountains.
interviews with several of the survivors. A work of passion for director Gonzalo Arijón for two years, the film even accompanies the survivors on an emotionally devastating visit back to the crash site more than three decades later. Stranded forces its viewers to ask several difficult questions. If it meant your survival, could you eat human flesh? Would you judge those who did? Would you ever be able to forgive yourself? By focusing his camera almost entirely on interviews with the survivors of the famous 1972 Andes plane crash - best remembered nowadays thanks to the 1993 movie Alive - Arijon has turned the emphasis from the horrifying action that the survivors had to participate in to live another day and, instead, attempts to learn more about the crash victims themselves. Arijon treats his subject matter without tabloid sensationalism, turning it into a sentimental and emotionally powerful experience.
Young @ Heart Director Stephen Walker Young@Heart is a New England senior citizens chorus that has delighted audiences worldwide with their covers of songs by everyone from The Clash to Coldplay. Based in Northampton, Massachusetts, the group is made up of two dozen spirited seniors who specialize in reinterpreting rock, punk and R & B classics from a unique perspective. Their lineup includes former schoolteachers, executives, doctors and food service workers, and the chorus is guided by their longtime director Bob Cilman. With less than two months to go until a one night only concert in their hometown, the performers struggle with the new lyrics and unfamiliar melodies of seven new songs. During their thrice weekly rehearsals, they gradually take possession of music ranging from R&B classics like Allen Toussaint’s Yes We Can Can to Coldplay’s emotionally powerful ballad Fix You, upending assumptions about old age, love, sex and death.
Chicago 10
Chicago 10 Director: Brett Morgen Chicago 10: Speak Your Peace is a partly-animated film that tells the story of the Chicago Seven. Brett Morgen’s approach to Chicago 10 is unique: Instead of just telling the story of the insanity that happened in Chicago in 1968 and the ridiculous court case that followed, Morgen made a film more consistently entertaining. The film is an animated reenactment of the trial based on transcripts and rediscovered audio recordings, making the film fall in the animated documentary genre. It also contains archive footage of David Dellinger, Abbie Hoffman, William Kunstler, Jerry
Rubin, Bobby Seale, and Leonard Weinglass, and of the protest and riot itself. Morgen blends archival footage of the riots that surrounded the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968 with animated recreations of the court case that are based on the transcripts. Eight of the counter-culture leaders who protested in Chicago were brought before a clearly-prejudicial judge and charged with inciting to riot. Using motioncapture animation and talented actors like Hank Azaria, Nick Nolte, Mark Ruffalo, and Jeffrey Wright, Morgen gives the viewer a “you-are-there” experience that a typical recreation, archival footage, or basic interviews never could have achieved. DOCUMENTARY TODAY
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Bigger, Stronger, Faster Director: Christopher Bell
The Order of Myths
Religulous Director: Larry Charles Religulous stars the political comedian Bill Maher. The title of the film is a portmanteau derived from the words “religion” and “ridiculous,” implying the satirical nature of the documentary that is meant to mock the concept of religion and the problems it brings about. Bill Maher interviews some of religion’s oddest adherents. Muslims, Jews and Christians of many kinds pass before his jaundiced eye. Maher goes to a Creationist Museum in Kentucky, which shows that dinosaurs and people lived at the same time 5000 years ago. He talks to truckers at a Truckers’ Chapel. He goes to a theme park called Holy Land in Florida. He speaks to a rabbi in league with Holocaust deniers. He talks to a Muslim musician who preaches hatred of Jews. Maher finds the unlikeliest of believers and, in a certain Vatican priest, he even finds an unlikely skeptic. Hilarious but probably not everyone’s cup of tea.
The Order of Myths Director: Margaret Brown This film does a credible job of showing how Mardi Gras has progressed, or not progressed, in Mobile, Alabama which is the city where the first US celebrations started in 1703. Much is made of the 44
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segregated societies, both black and white, still wanting to keep their groups separate and it gives the wrong idea to a lot of people who have seen it. The Globe and Mail in Canada says: “A study of community ritual, pomp and camaraderie, ‘The Order of Myths’ also gradually unveils the startling connections between the two communities, where the greatgrandchildren of slaves and the greatgrandchildren of slave owners still live highly segregated lives.” This is patently untrue of the city and it’s citizens. True, Mardi Gras groups, all but a couple of them, are segregated by race but it is what each society wants for themselves. Freedom of Assembly is a basic tenet of our Constitution and both races, as private organizations, are free to admit whomever they please. Mobile has had a very diverse city and county government for decades and currently has a black mayor, Sam Jones, elected by a wide margin in the last balloting. He is well liked by most everyone in the city as far as I know and will be a shoo-in next time. The movie presents all the parades and balls as just silly merrymaking but with it’s emphasis on racial segregation gives the impression of Mobile having separate water fountain, back of the bus, Old Time Southern Democrat forced segregation.
Bigger, Stronger, Faster is about the use of anabolic steroids as performance-enhancing drugs in the United States and how this practice relates to the American Dream. The issue of steroid use is a lot more complex than Capital Hill, Barry Bonds, and Hulk Hogan would have you believe. It’s certainly complex for Chris Bell. His older brother “Mad Dog” and his younger brother “Smelly” openly use steroids every single day. All three of the Bell brothers grew up obsessed with ’80s icons like Ah-nuld, Sly, and the Hulkster, and they desperately wanted to have muscles like their heroes. But the catch of the bodybuilding world is that it’s impossible to do so without a little “help.” How do you survive in a culture that so openly rewards the person who rises to the top thanks to using steroids and you’re not? And are the stories about the damaging effects of steroids overblown? Did Barry Bonds cheat or did he do whatever it took to become the best? The great thing about Bigger, Stronger, Faster is that it refuses to answer those questions. It just asks some new ones that you might not have considered about the issue of steroids. The irony of it all is that it took steroids to show Chris Bell what he truly does excel at - making films. Note: A real-life tragedy recently befell the film when Bell’s older brother passed away.
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired Director: Marina Zenovich On March 11, 1977, Roman Polanski was arrested in Los Angeles and charged with the following counts: furnishing a controlled substance to a minor, committing a lewd or lascivious act on a child, unlawful sexual intercourse, rape by use of drugs, perversion and sodomy. Less than a year later, on February 1, 1978, Polanski drove to LAX, bought a one-way ticket to Europe, and never came back. Roman
Polanski: Wanted and Desired explores the implausible events that took place between these dates, along with details, before and after, that forever altered the life and career of Polanski, one of the world’s most acclaimed directors. The film re-examines the notorious California case involving Polanski, the world’s most celebrated director at the time, whose life already read like the script of one of his most tragic, brutal films. Polanski lost both his Polish parents during WWII, but rose to become a star filmmaker in Poland, England and, later, the U.S. His storybook love affair with Sharon Tate ended with her 1969 murder at the hands of followers of Charles Manson; she was eight months pregnant. Surviving the tragedy and press firestorm accompanying it, Polanski rebuilt his career in the 1970s - until he made a fateful mistake during a 1977 photo shoot with a 13-year-old girl.
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired.
Revisiting many of the key players in the case, and without apologizing for its title character, the film explores the tragedies that might have influenced Polanski’s behavior, as well as the little-known specifics of the case. In particular, it explores the dubious actions of Judge Laurence J. Rittenband, whose zeal for
Bigger, Stronger, Faster.
celebrity cases was coupled with a vindictive streak against Polanski, who was vilified by much of the American press. Convinced he could not trust Rittenband after a series of rulings against him - including a 42-day stay at a California prison for observation Polanski finally left the country for good just before his sentencing. Over a dozen friends, actors and lawenforcement officials are interviewed in the film, including: Fmr. Defense Attorney Douglas Dalton, speaking about the case for the first time in 30 years; Fmr. Assistant DA Roger Gunson, who prosecuted it but ended up being sympathetic to Polanski; Samantha (Gailey) Geimer, the victim; Lawrence Silver, Samantha’s attorney; producer Andrew Braunsberg, a close Polanski friend; Philip Vannater of the LAPD (Ret.); Dave Wells and Jim Grodin, Assistant DAs (both Ret.); Richard Brenneman, reporter for the Santa Monica Evening Outlook; Marilyn Beck, Hollywood Gossip Columnist; actress Mia Farrow; Hawk Koch, producer; Dr. Ronald Markman, psychiatrist; Lorenzo Semple, Jr., screenwriter; and others. DOCUMENTARY TODAY
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TV NEWS NBA Code of Ethics to regulate TV news content The News Broadcasters’ Association (NBA), the apex body of news channel broadcasters, has submitted its selfregulation proposals to the government. The association has submitted two documents, ‘Code of Ethics and Broadcasting Standards and News Broadcasting Standards (Disputes Redressal) Regulations. Public grievances over television content have been taken into consideration while framing the Code of Ethics and the recommendations have also been vetted by former Solicitor-General Harish Salve. The television industry has at last woken up to the fact that needs to implement some kind of self-regulation if it wants to avoid being regulated by outside organizations. Since these documents follow the furore created all over the country over the coverage of news by Indian television channels – particular the Aarushi murder case and more recently, the terrorist attack on two of Mumbai’s most visible and prestigious hotels. Every evening, 380 channels vie for the
attention of about 500 million Indians. This is the world’s most competitive media market where channels are desperate to adopt almost all possible trick to gather eye ball and the consequent ad revenue. Meanwhile, another 200 channels are vying for permission to launch services. The Indian television industry has a turnover of Rs 22,600 crore in 2007, growing at a cumulative healthy rate of 21% over the last four years. It was Rs 19,120 crore in 2006. At the time of going to press it was still not known how the I & B Ministry will respond to the initiative. Media industry experts say the ball is now in the court of the ministry, which had made it clear earlier that NBA had missed its deadlines to submit its recommendations. Ms Sushma Singh, Secretary, Ministry of I & B, had said that the Ministry will accord high priority to the content code issue and will look at reviewing the existing draft content code to suit the changing times. The Ministry had claimed that it had received over 240 complaints of content code violation from
Do they need a code of ethics? Media persons scamble to get the right angle to cover the terror strike at the Taj in Mumbai.
individuals, civil society organisations and other watchdogs in the past few years. The Ministry had sent 80 plus show cause notices and warnings to broadcasters in the same period. Responding to the complex demand, the NBA, has now constituted a News Broadcasting Standards (Disputes Redressal) Authority to enforce its code of ethics and broadcasting standards: a nine-member body chaired by Justice J S Verma, former Chief Justice and former NHRC chairperson. The Authority consists of eminent personalities from various walks of life like historian Ramachandra Guha, sociologist Dipankar Gupta, former NASSCOM chief Kiran Karnik, and economist Nitin Desai. It also has representative from the media like India TV managing editor, Times Now editorin-chief Arnab Goswami. The authority became operational from October 2, 2008. The Code of Ethics states the principles that news channels must recognise. It mentions that news must not be selected or designed to promote any particular belief, opinion or desires of any interest group. On self-regulation, the document states that channels must maintain impartiality and objectivity in reporting. Viewers of 24-hour news channels expect speed, but it is the responsibility of TV news channels to keep accuracy and balance in its reports, pictures, graphics and even captions, it says. It says sting and undercover operations should be the last resort of news channels in an attempt to give the viewer comprehensive coverage of any news story. However, they should not allow sex and sleaze, use of narcotics or any act of violence, intimidation or discrimination as a
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justifiable means in any sting operation. Sting operations must abide by the principles of self-regulation documented by the code and news channels must ensure that they will be guided by an identifiable larger public interest, it says. The NBA says that news channels must provide for neutrality — and ensure that allegations are not portrayed as facts and charges not conveyed as an act of guilt. Besides, crime and violence must not be glorified. The document also includes clauses on depiction of violence against women and children as well as on restrictions on portraying sex and nudity. The broadcasting rules on programming that exist even today are also included: News channels must refrain from allowing broadcasts that encourage secessionist groups and interests, or reveal information that endangers lives and national security. It also seeks to ban material that glorifies superstition and occultism in any manner. The objects of the News Broadcasting Standards Dispute Redressal Authority will be to entertain and decide complaints against or in respect to broadcasters, television journalists and/or news agencies in so far as these relate to the content of any broadcast. It also has the powers to impose a fine of upto Rs one lakh on broadcasters in case of violation of television content. It can also recommend to the ministry of information and broadcasting, the nodal body, to revoke the licence of the concerned broadcaster. However, making a complaint is not an east task. The body will levy a fee of Rs 1,000 per complaint and it could impose costs not exceeding Rs 10,000 in favour of or against complainants. Mr G. Krishnan, President, NBA and CEO, Headlines Today, said, “The government has appreciated the move. However, we expect the ministry to demonstrate necessary patience
Miloni Bhatt covers 24 Hours Of Terror for NDTV 24 x 7.
required and show faith in private players. It is not possible to find instant solutions to problems related to content. We have put in place the necessary set up, it will take some time to deliver”. With the Supreme Court stepping in to lay down coverage norms in media, the information and broadcasting ministry deciding to accord high priority to content code and News Broadcasters Association (NBA) setting up a high powered team to facilitate self regulation, the ball of content code is now in three courts. Commenting on the scenario Mr Krishnan said, “The Supreme Court had taken this decision with the Arushi murder case in mind.” It may be recalled that the case involved the alleged murder of a teenaged girl in Noida, that created a massive interest among th public and the media. Responding to the nature of coverage of the Arushi case which in some cases were prurient, the Supreme Court in a public interest litigation, had issued notices to the Centre, Uttar Pradesh government, the Press Council of India, The Times of India, Hindustan Times, NDTV, Aaj Tak and CNN-IBN, seeking their response on laying down norms and guidelines for the print and electronic
media in covering criminal cases where investigation is pending. The Bench, consisting of Justice Altamas Kabir and Markandey Katju had also asked Additional Solicitor-General, Gopal Subramaniam to assist in this case. In the order, Justice Katju said, “We will lay down guidelines on media coverage. We are not concerned about media criticising us”. It may be recalled that the NBA had released a code of ethics for the broadcasters in April 2008 in support of its stance of self regulation. Krishnan said that with the constitution of this new body, NBA has successfully completed the second stage of its promise. Currently, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India regulates on carriage issues of broadcasting sector, while there is no such body to regulate on the content related issues. The Broadcasting Bill proposes a body Broadcast Regulatory Authority of India to deliberate on content related issues. TRAI also recently sought content regulation power from the ministry. The industry on the other hand has always preferred self regulation. It is this vacuum that sends the content code ball to so many courts. DOCUMENTARY TODAY
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NEWS Delhi’s First Public Art Festival What do public toilets in Mumbai have in common with cars made of cotton in East Germany? Why is a weight-lossplant in South Africa related to vegetable-oil-powered-cars in Australia? What causes cancer in the villages of Punjab and why are Russian Kalashnikovs relevant for a fish species in Africa? What do Brazilian gold mine works have to do with the Bus Rapid Transport System in Delhi? All these questions are ecological and economical aspects of a world in transition. The films are about urban life and technology versus the environment, as well as about people from all layers of society trying to deal with the rapid changes. These were also the themes of the films shown at the Public Art Festival held in five different locations in New Delhi from December 12 to 21, 2008 The undoubted highlight of the festival was Godfrey Reggio’s masterful Qatsi trilogy comprising Koyaanisqatsi: Life out of Balance (86 minutes); Powaqqatsi: Life in Transition (99 minutes); and Nagoygatsi: Life as War
Darwin’s Nightmare.
(89 minutes).. Created between 1975 and 1982, the trilogy is an apocalyptic vision of the collision of two different worlds — urban life and technology versus the environment. The musical score was composed by Philip Glass. Where Koyaanisqatsi deals with the imbalance between nature and modern
From Godfrey Reggio’s masterful Qatsi trilogy.
society, Powaqqatsi is a celebration of the human-scale endeavor the craftsmanship, spiritual worship, labor and creativity that defines a particular culture. Nagoygatsi chronicles the most significant event of the last five thousand years: the transition from the natural milieu, old nature, to the “new” nature, the technological milieu. Qatsi is a Hopi Indian word meaning life. The other highlight was Darwin’s Nightmare, a 2004 French-BelgianAustrian documentary film written and directed by Hubert Sauper, dealing with the environmental and social effects of the fishing industry around Lake Victoria in Tanzania. Other films which were screened included Bushman’s Secret (65 minutes); Rivers and Tides (90 minutes) and Technology to Ecology (15 minutes) The Indian films included Stop.Watch. (15 minutes); In who’s interest? (27 minutes); Scavenging Dreams (28 minutes); Mere Desh Ki Dharti (60 minutes); Q2P (53 minutes) and Delhi - Work in Progress (38 minutes)
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Putting an end to business as usual The annual Anti-Corporate Film Festival will now be held in May instead of October. This was announced in San Francisco recently on the concluding day of the 3rd Annual Anti-Corporate Film Festival, which was held in San Francisco between October 15 and 17, 2008. Presented annually by CounterCorp the AntiCorporate Film Festival is a three-day series of films, postscreening discussions, and related events held every year in San Francisco. It includes U.S. and foreign, feature-length and short, documentary, narrative (fictional) and animated films. The 3rd Festival’s opening night film was The World According To Monsanto (France, 2008, 109 minutes) a detective story that follows the trail of deception, devastation, and death left by a corporate serial killer whose weapons include PCBs, herbicides/ insecticides/defoliants, bovine growth hormone, dioxin, genetically-modified crops, and seed patents and other socalled “intellectual property”. Earlier in the day the festival opened with Jade
The True Cost of Oil.
Ajani’s Growing Awareness (USA, 2008, 100 minutes) which offers an unvarnished look at a more sustainable alternative to the current corporatecontrolled, government-subsidized global food system: small, organic, local farms.
The Festival concluded with two films about how corporate pervasiveness affects people’s daily lives. The Big Sellout (Germany, 2006, 94 minutes) documents the real outcomes of the privatization of basic public services such as water, electricity,
The next day saw the unspooling of two documentaries: The True Cost of Oil is a film that coincides with two pending trials in San Francisco against Richmond, CA-based Chevron. It includes previews of two works-inprogress — The Naked Option and Sweet Crude — and one short film, Justica Now, all about Chevron’s exploitation of people and the environment in Nigeria and Ecuador. The theme of oil carried over into the next film Gashole, which tells the history of U.S. oil consumption, oil prices, and the economic, political, and cultural effects of being the world’s largest consumer of oil. What is impeding efforts to change that fact — such as the development of alternative fuels? The film was narrated by actor Peter Gallagher.
transportation, and healthcare on four continents: essentially, higher prices for fewer services — or, if you’re poor, no service at all. And finally, in keeping with the CounterCorp tradition of having a narrative (fictional) work as the centerpiece of the Anti-Corporate Film Festival was the California premiere of Visioneers (USA, 2008, 94 minutes) a satirical look at the effects of corporate culture at the largest and most profitable corporation in the history of the world. The goals of the Festival are to raise public and media awareness, promote critical thought and analysis, and encourage informed discussion and debate about how corporations actually operate, and what they really add to — and subtract from — humanity’s “bottom line”. “By ‘anti-corporate’ we don’t just mean ‘independent’ (i.e., noncorporate) films, but those that examine and reflect the role that corporations play in our daily lives, and the effect they have on people, communities, and cultures around the world — and on the planet itself,” said Festival Director John Wilner. DOCUMENTARY TODAY
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Sikkim screened in India Satyajit Ray’s controversial 1971 documentary Sikkim, which was subsequently banned after Sikkim acceded to India in 1975, was finally unspooled at the 14 th Kolkata Film Festival held between November 10 and 17, 2008. The Indian censors had purportedly banned the film for glorifying monarchy in the Himalayan kingdom amid some criticism that New Delhi had browbeaten its tiny neighbour. China opposed India’s claim on Sikkim until 2005. Sikkim is now
Students’ Festival The first Cut.In Students’ Video Festival will be held at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai on February 6 and 7, 2009. The festival is being organized by the Centre for Media and Cultural Studies, an independent centre of Tata Institute of Social Sciences, engaged in media teaching, production, research and dissemination. The CMCS has done pioneering work in critical media education in the country. It seeks to enable the creation of a lively group of thinking doers and doing thinkers. This national level video festival aims to encourage talent among this group and also to bring them together. The festival will feature works by graduate/postgraduate/diploma students all over the country selected by a panel of judges. Films will be screened in four broad categories: Best Documentary (under 30 minutes); Best Short fiction (under 30 minutes); Best Public Service Message (Under 2 minutes); and Music Video (under 6 minutes). The competition is for short documentaries, short films, public service messages and music videos produced between January 1, 2006 and December 1, 2008. Two prizes will be given in each category. Additionally, there are prizes for the best script, camera, edit and sound design. The prize consists of a trophy and a citation. 50
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India’s second smallest state, wedged between Nepal, China and Bhutan, and is strategically important for New Delhi. Ray scholars say the Indian government’s fears that the documentary depicted monarchy in a way that undermined democracy — at a time when Sikkim faced being annexed by either India or China — was unfounded. “To imagine Satyajit Ray would glorify monarchy over democracy is utterly wrong because he is the same person who could make films ridiculing monarchy as we see in Hirak Rajar Deshe,” said Arup K. De, head of the Society for the Preservation of Satyajit Ray Films. It was thought that all the prints of the hour-long documentary had been destroyed after it was banned by India. However, one rare print was found at the British Film Institute in 2003 and it was restored digitally frame-by-frame by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The ban on the film was also lifted around this time.
Josef Lindner, the academy’s preservation officer, said that a video version was shown at the Kolkata Film Festival. The 35 mm version would be ready by end of the year. The academy has undertaken to restore damaged prints of the films of Satyajit Ray, who was awarded a lifetime achievement Oscar in 1992. He received the honour on his death bed in a hospital in Kolkata. The academy has so far restored and preserved 15 of Ray’s feature films and two documentaries, including Sikkim. Lindner said Ray’s Shatranj Ke Khiladi (The Chess Players), made in 1977, will be restored next.
Winners of the 2008 Students Oscar line up for a keepsake photograph. Rajeev Dassani can be seen at extreme left in the back row. Photo©AMPAS
Indian bags Student Oscar An Indian student at the University of Southern California Rajeev Dassani bagged the Gold Medal Award in the Narrative category of the 35th Annual Student Academy Awards. He was awarded for his film A Day’s Work which tells the story of how a simple job escalates into a violent misunderstanding when an American family hires three immigrant laborers to help them with a move. Rajeev Dassani is from Raleigh, North Carolina and graduated in 2002 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a degree in communications. Rajeev, an identical twin who likes to paint, draw and write short stories, completed his film A Day’s Work for his thesis at the University of Southern California. Eleven other students – representing eight colleges across the United States plus one from Germany – were also honored at the 35th Student Academy Awards. The Student Academy Awards ceremony honored the student filmmakers for their achievements in the alternative, animation, documentary, narrative and honorary foreign film categories. Trophies and cash prizes were awarded in front of a full house at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. The ceremony was hosted by Academy President Sid Ganis and featured trophy presentations by Academy Award nominees Jason Reitman and Caleb Deschanel, as well as former Student Academy Award winner and Emmy® winner Todd Holland. Each of the winners gave their first “I’d like to thank the Academy” speech (well, the first one that wasn’t just in front of a mirror) and clips from each of the winning films were screened for a standing-room only audience in the Samuel Goldwyn Theater. During the week preceding the Awards ceremony the students met with Academy members and dined with the Academy’s Board of Governors, where one student noted “it’s like speed dating only everyone is an Oscar® winner.” The student filmmakers also visited the Directors Guild of America, where they met directors Jake Kasdan (Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story) and Billy Ray (Breach, Shattered Glass), and had the opportunity to sit down with several members of the American Society of Cinematographers for a round table discussion. The 2008 winners join an exceptional group of Student Academy Award alumni – a group that has earned 35 Oscar nominations, 6 Academy Awards, one Special Achievement Academy Award and numerous Emmys.
Alternative GOLD MEDAL AWARD: Shih-Ting Hung, University of Southern California For Viola: The Traveling Rooms of a Little Giant SILVER MEDAL AWARD: Phoebe Tooke, San Francisco State University For Circles of Confusion
Animation GOLD MEDAL AWARD: Nicole Mitchell, California Institute of the Arts For Zoologic SILVER MEDAL AWARD Tatchapon Lertwirojkul, School of Visual Arts, New York For Simulacra BRONZE MEDAL AWARD Evan Mayfield, Ringling College of Art and Design For The Visionary
Documentary GOLD MEDAL AWARD Laura Waters Hinson, American University For As We Forgive SILVER MEDAL AWARD J.J. Adler, Columbia University For Unattached BRONZE MEDAL AWARD Brian Davis, University of Southern California For If a Body Meet a Body
Narrative GOLD MEDAL AWARD Rajeev Dassani, University of Southern California For A Day’s Work SILVER MEDAL AWARD Z. Eric Yang, Florida State University For The State of Sunshine BRONZE MEDAL AWARD Melanie McGraw, University of Southern California For Pitstop
Honorary Foreign Film Reto Caffi, Academy of Media Arts, Cologne, Germany For On the Line (Auf Der Strecke) DOCUMENTARY TODAY
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World War II films shown at Huston Memorial Lecture
The John Huston Memorial Lecture on Documentary Film presented a special screening of two controversial World War II documentaries directed by John Huston, San Pietro and Let There Be Light.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences held a special screening of John Huston’s controversial World War II documentary classics San Pietro (aka The Battle of San Pietro) (1944) and Let There Be Light (1946) as part of the John Huston Lecture on Documentary Film. John’s son, Tony Huston, introduced the films. The historical significance and current relevance of these documentaries was among the topics covered in a postscreening panel discussion with Dr. Charles Wolfe, professor of film and media studies, UC Santa Barbara; Dr. Betsy McLane, documentary
historian and author; and Richard E. Robbins, producer-director of Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience, which was a 2007 Oscar nominee for Documentary Feature.” John Huston began shooting documentaries as a member of the U.S. Army Signal Corps in 1942. His first assignment was to record combat conditions on Adak Island, which led to the “straightforward and uncontroversial” Report from the Aleutians. San Pietro was produced and directed by Huston for the U.S. War
Department. But the problem was that it was deemed too violent and realistic — in other words, too anti-war. Not a good thing. San Pietro was held from release until 1945, when General George Marshall’s endorsement led to the removal of its “classified” status. (Even so, San Pietro suffered severe cuts before reaching U.S. screens.) The War Department also banned Let There Be Light (above), “a naked portrait of the psychological problems suffered by returning veterans,” with voice-over narration provided by Walter Huston (John’s father). The ban was finally lifted in December 1980, and the film was released the following year. At that time, the New York Times‘ Vincent Canby called it “a good, slickly made documentary,” though he failed to see what the Army’s fuss was all about.
Ed Carter, documentary curator of the Academy Film Archive; Richard E. Robbins, producer-director Dr. Charles Wolfe, professor of film and media studies, UC Santa Barbara; Dr. Betsy McLane, documentary historian and author; Tony Huston; and Academy director of special projects Randy Haberkamp. Photo: Matt Petit/©AMPAS 52
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Videos on Eviction
Stone docu on Chavez After making a biographical film on George W Bush, American filmmaker Oliver Stone is planning to make a documentary on Venezuela’s controversial President Hugo Chavez. The 62-year-old director has been working on the untitled project for six months and is hoping to have it ready by 2009.
Thirteen videos from eight countries on all the continents competed in two different categories (free technique videos, maximum 3 minutes, and documentaries, maximum 8 minutes) at the first edition of the International Alliance of Inhabitants Video Contest, which supports the fight for the right to housing, ended on December 31, 2008. These films competed with one another for the honour and the right to be shown during the 2009 WSF in Belem and during the main events of the Zero Evictions Campaign. The films feature works which dramatically or ironically expose the hidden face of the seemingly gleaming cities and brilliant policies, but which are often the result of evictions and destruction, which offer no valuable alternative to the people concerned. These stories denounce human rights violations, particularly, the right to housing, which have been perpetuated in too many countries in the name of neo-liberal policies, social exclusion, economic and racist policies. There are also stories about resistance and alternatives, suggesting the possibility of living in another world; a world where the inhabitants will be the builders, and not mere customers and users of urban spaces. It is perhaps for these reasons that these stories are often ignored or treated superficially by the mass media, which consider them as marginal facts; while the depth of this urban and housing crisis should make them dig to the root of the failure of neo-liberal globalisation.
This should surprise precisely no one, since controversial Presidents are to Oliver Stone what big explosions are to Michael Bay. Stone’s previous documentaries include Comandante, about Cuban President Fidel Castro, and Persona Non Grata, which began as a project about Yasser Arafat but eventually became a wider-reaching primer on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Chavez, who led a failed military coup in 1992 before becoming President in 1999, has led programmes to tackle disease, poverty and illiteracy in his country, but has also been the subject of electoral controversies, another attempted coup and mass protests, so there’s lots of dramatic meat there. Stone was with Chavez in February 2008 during the dramatic rescue of hostages that Chavez helped to broker from the militant Columbian FARC group (that’s not the focus of this film, but there are two other documentaries already being planned on that topic). Instead, Stone plans to focus on Chavez’ “South American revolution” of leftist leaders who oppose US foreign policy in the region, object to privatisation of national industries and generally make things difficult for poor ol’ Dubya. The documentary will also focus on the opposition faced by Chavez at home and abroad, especially from the Bush administration, which has been vocal in its distaste for the populist socialism espoused by Venezuela’s president. Stone also announced that he’s working on another documentary, the subject of which is still under wraps, but he denied rumours that it is about Iran’s super-controversial President Ahmadinejad. Still, how many more controversial Presidents are there? Nixon, Castro, Bush, now Chavez — at the very least, Putin should be expecting a call from Stone any minute now.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez being shown around a US naval ship.
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Career Honour for Greaves The noted documentary filmmaker William Greaves who has been to India quite often to attend the Mumbai International Film Festival was the recipient of the 2008 Career Award at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. The Career Award presentation showcased Greaves’ first film, The First World Festival of Negro Arts, as well as a 20-minute section of his most recent work-in-progress on Harlem. William Greaves is considered by many to be the “Dean” of African-American filmmakers. He graduated from the elite Stuyvesant High School in 1944 and then studied at The Actor’s Studio. He had a number of roles on Broadway and in motion pictures. He found that because of his race he was confined to marginal and often insulting roles. He decided the only way to rectify this was to move behind the camera, and he began to take directing classes at the City College of New York. Finding few opportunities in the United States he left for Canada in 1952. There he accepted an editing position with the National Film Board of Canada, and quickly rose through the ranks to become one of the leading members of the Board’s renowned Unit B. He left the NFB in 1963, and returned to the United States where he was eager to document the Civil Rights movement. In 1968, after making films for the United Nations and the United States Information Agency, he established his own production company and for the next several decades his films were either produced independently, several for PBS. Between 1968 and 1970, he was Executive Producer and co-host of Black Journal, the first Black-produced news and public affairs series on network television. His 1968 avant-garde film Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One was released theatrically in 2005 to critical acclaim and, together with its 2005 sequel Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take 2 1/2' executive produced by Steven Soderbergh, was awarded the 2005 Best Experimental film by the National Society of Film Critics. He has won many awards during his career, including an Emmy for Black Journal.
Tran Eka Tran bags Twilight 2008 award Tran Eka Tran, directed Astha Gohil bagged the Best Student Film award at Twilight 2008, held as part of the Delhi International Arts Festival. Murli Manohar was conferred the Best Director award for Karan Motcham. Antaral while Ujjwal Utkarsh received a Special Mention. The Last Act by Madhavi Tangella of SRFTI (Kolkata) got the screenplay award while The Last Board by N Sundar received special mention in the screenplay category. Trip, by Emannuel Quindo Palo of FTII, Pune, bagged the best script award. In Transit by Arunima Sharma from FTII, Pune, won a special mention for script and also swept the best camera and sound award. Priyanka Chhabra of the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad won two awards. Her film The Furnished Room got the editing award while Say No To Plastics got a special mention in the animation category. Solo by Anjali Nayar of NID, Ahmedabad, was adjudged the best animation film. In the Professional’s category, the best screenplay (Fiction) award was given to Jugal Kishore Tayal who made his film Best Friend’s Promise with a handycam. The film has been produced by Dark Wizard. The screenplay award for animation went to H2O by Nilesh Nevgi for SCNN Production. Sujan Bandhu – a Day with a Boatman by Viplab Majumdar received the best script award for a documentary. In the professional awards, there was special mention of a biographical film on Lenin by Arunava Ganguly. Twilight was held at the India Islamic Cultural Centre and the Alliance Francaise, showcasing around 60 short films made by students and budding filmmakers from India. The jury members who included Madan Gopal Singh, Gargi Sen, Namrata Joshi and Amit Sengupta.
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IFFI NEWS Film Division Presents ‘Framing Time’ in IFFI independent channel for documentary films, he added.
Ms. Sushma Singh, Secretary, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, lighting the lamp to inaugurate ‘Framing Time’ by Films Division, during the 39th International Film Festival 2008. Kuldeep Sinha, Chief Producer, Films Division is seen at extreme right while Chief Guest Dr. Jabbar Patel is seen in the centre.
As many as 68 documentary films on Indian art and heritage as also an exclusive package of five films on World War II under the ‘Why We Fight’ series were screened as part of Framing Time organized by Films Division in coordination with the Directorate of Film Festivals and the Entertainment Society of Goa. A photoexhibition on the 60-year journey of Films Division which is celebrating its diamond jubilee this year also formed a part of the package.
the setting up of a separate documentary channel, which will ensure the promotion of this medium. Today Doordarshan has a number of channels on different topics. Hence it will not very difficult to set up such an
Kuldeep Sinha, Chief Producer, Films Division said that the programme is planned as a celebration of the growth of the documentary film movement in India, spearheaded by Films Division. While the power of cinema, as a whole, in modulating and redefining human emotions and values has been widely acknowledged, the impact of documentaries is also not to be underestimated. They have proved to be a far superior medium these days, for social engineering. The fact that even cinema houses are now screening documentaries at par with feature films is but an indicator of its effectiveness and impact on the audience. In India, Films Division leads the movement, by making and showing socially relevant documentaries and animation films. It has an archive of more than 8000 documentaries – many of which have won national and international accolades.
Kuldeep Sinha, Chief Producer of Films Division, addressing a press conference, during IFFI-2008.
The section was inaugurated by Ms Sushma Singh, Secretary in the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting in Panaji in Goa on November 23, 2008 as part of the 39th International Film Festival of India 2008. The Films Division documentaries have been a very effective mode of communication not only in India but also abroad, said eminent filmmaker Dr Jabbar Patel, who was the Chief Guest on the occasion. Dr Patel suggested DOCUMENTARY TODAY
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Short Film Centre will provide platform for short filmmakers the Short Film Center. “I think a little more publicity will help a great deal in focusing attention on the section,” said Geetika Narang another filmmaker who came with her film Goodnight.
The Chief Minister of Goa, Shri Digambar Kamat inaugurating the Short Film Center, during the 39th International Film Festival (IFFI-2008) in Panaji, Goa on November 23, 2008.
The short filmmakers expressed happiness over the initiative of the Short Film Center, to showcase short films and provide a platform for business. “There were buyer and sellers and the brand IFFI-Goa made the difference” said one of the filmmaker at the joint press conference for the short filmmakers, here today. “It felt great. We made friends and our films were received well,” said Shahbaz Nashir, a Germany based Iranian filmmaker. Geetha J. maker of Akam/ Inside said that it was a platform for short filmmakers and it will help in creating the required awareness for such films in the country. Sten Rosendahl of Sweden was happy about the fact that here they could get instant feedback from the audience. Gabrielle Brennen from France said that this exposure would help short filmmakers to participate in the other film festivals also. Filmmakers emphasized that people are not aware that short films can be fiction also. “People associate short films with documentary, while this is an effective 56
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way of story telling,” said one filmmaker. Filmmakers informed that that more than 300 short films were present in the segment and quite a few films were bought. A buyer who was present during the press conference informed the audience that there is a great excitement in the field about the quality of the films that were there at
Short films have inspired many feature length movies. If we want to see good cinema we need to promote short films said Karan Narvekar. He said that short films get step sisterly treatment in comparison to feature films which is not a very satisfactory state of affair. On the need to be more engaging, all the filmmakers urged the media persons to watch the movies in the segment to know for themselves the quality of the movies. “Films are very interesting but they need to be seen to have any impact,” said the filmmakers. The filmmakers said that there is some recognition among the TV channels for documentaries but short films are yet to make an impact. Filmmakers acknowledged that short films are meant for more personalized viewing. It was pointed out that there is a need to explore the new emerging technologies and content must be created for hand held devices.
The Director of the Short Film Center Ms J. Geetha along with other Short Film Makers at a Joint Press Conference, during the 39th International Film Festival (IFFI-2008), in Panaji, Goa on December 01, 2008.
Vasudha award for Spanish film A Spanish film Monday to Friday by Albert Bayona won the Vasudha award in the environmental section of the international competition for short films held for the first time as part of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI). A three-member jury led by Aribam Syam Sharma selected the 15minute film, which is about environment change and human’s thoughtless and short-sighted interference in landscape and destruction of nature. In the general category of the short film competition, which included feature and non feature films, a five-member jury led by filmmaker Janhu Barua selected a Belgian film Plot Point by Nicolas Provost for the coveted Gold Lamp Tree and Rs.5 lakh award. The 15-minute film questions the boundaries between reality and fiction by merely suggesting cinematic narrative codes namely, tension, climax and plot, but eventually leaves the mystery unravelled. The Silver Lamp Tree award along with Rs.3 lakh was bagged by Indian film Good Night, a 29-minute film directed by Geetika Narang. The special Jury award went to a French film L’Ecrivain (The Writer), an 18-minute film by Gabriele Brennen. Jury chairman Janhu Barua said the jury’s opinion was that the films for the competition were “good” in terms of quality but things could be vastly improved in terms of quality and quantity. He hoped that the idea of promoting short films through a short film centre like the one held by the IFFI organizers would go a long way in changing the reality that the short film producers get a stepmotherly treatment in general and in India in particular. The awards were presented by Goa Speaker Pratapsingh Rane, Director Film Festivals S. M. Khan and Goa Chief Secretary J. P. Singh.
The Grit and Grime of Filmmaking with all its glitter and glamour Film as a dream. Film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls. Thus wrote the great Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman while commenting on the illusory world of cinema. Kuldeep Sinha’s debut novel – also his first in English – The Darkness In The Arc takes a realistic yet measured peep into the lives of stars and their makers and mirrors the traumas and turbulences, the struggle and insecurity in a life which, to the outer world seems so glamorous. Using true-to-life characters which have been drawn from the world he has seen, experienced and has been a part of for the last 30 plus years, author Kuldeep Sinha draws up a portrait of the film world which is so frighteningly realistic that it would deter any aspirant. He cuts through the glitter and glamour to expose the grit and grime of filmmaking. The road to stardom is a long and arduous journey and Kuldeep captures it through all the frustrations and exploitations that litter the path to glory. A deeply-felt sensitive human document, this is a must-read novel for those who are a part of the industry for the insight it gives and for those who are not a part of it for the world it reveals. The Darkness In The Arc is Kuldeep Sinha’s first novel in English. He also has two short story collections in Hindi: Kashish and Siskiyaan A prolific writer, Kuldeep Sinha has authored a number awards winning of short stories and two books on cinema: Patkatha Lekhan Ke Tatva and Film Nirdeshan which are widely read by the cineaste and film students in particular. He is the recipient of many literary and Rajbhasha Awards and special honours including the ones bestowed by Ashirwad, Mumba.Rashtriya Hindi Academy, Kolkata, scroll of honour by IIOMC & School of Broadcasting and Communication, Mumbai and Lifetime Achievement Award by ICCR, Mumbai.
He graduated from the Pune University and went on to obtain Diploma in Cinema from the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune in 1973. His scholastic pursuits took him towards obtaining Diplomas in Advanced Management and Journalism. He also completed a number of management and professional courses including the one in Science & Technology from the ISRO in 1985. Kuldeep Sinha is also a sought-after documentary filmmaker with over 30 years experience in film and television. After Joining Films Division as a Director in the year, 1982, Kuldeep Sinha rose to become the Chief Producer in 2006. He is also the Chief Executive Officer of Children Film Society of India. Kuldeep Sinha has won five international awards including at the International Agri Festival, Czechoslovakia, International Festival of Scientific Films, Belgrade and Santarem IFF, Portugal. He won the National award for his film on Taranath Shenoy in 1986 and has bagged seven more National awards as Producer, apart from RAPA and FAO and Maharashtra State film awards. DOCUMENTARY TODAY
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NEW FILMS BLACK PAMPHLETS (Nitin K/Hindi-English/) Black Pamphlets is a thoughtprovoking film about student politics based against the background of the Delhi University Students Union Election of 2005. Though elections have been banned at most universities, Delhi University is an exception. Various student unions criss-cross the city for 12 days before D-day – campaigning for their favourite candidate, using as many as 150 cars (some say the figure is actually 500!), 10 tempos and four buses. Cosmopolis
COSMOPOLIS: A TALE OF TWO CITIES (Paromita Vohra/English/13 minutes) Mumbai has two different faces. The documentary has two parts. One is a poem – ‘The Forgotten City’ – about the several mills and the working class, the closure of mills and subsequent unemployment. And another more interesting is: ‘Defeat of the Minor Goddess.’ Here’s a city where diversity co-exists, though not peacefully at all times. At times the undercurrents are too strong. The difference is not just about culture or language. It is about food too. Yes, the vegetarian/non-vegetarian issue acquires giant proportions here. A young woman emphatically states that all the residents in her locality are vegetarians not because they hate the non-vegetarians but because their beliefs are strong and that they have respect for life. This is their way of respecting life – ousting the nonvegetarians out of their localities, not letting houses to them either on sale or rent. The lone non-vegetarian resident faces stiff opposition. But she is stubborn. “Why should I change my 58
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food habits for them?” The young woman candidly says that in her locality all are diamond merchants who have clout, so they can have their way and decide who lives in their locality. This leads to a bigger battle for control: between Goddess Annapurna and Goddess Lakshmi (played by Renuka Shanane). The Minor Goddess here is Goddess ‘Annapurna’ who claims to have come first to the city and provided food in abundance to its people. All is well till her sister the Goddess of Wealth Lakshmi comes along and the attitudes of the people change. Goddess Lakshmi is given more importance and people worship her more fervently. We are shown monologues of the two goddesses who vie to outdo each other. Ultimately Lakshmi becomes greater than Annapurna who is forced into vegetarianism. Ultimately she decides to leave the city thus giving all the power to her sister Goddess Lakshmi. This film looks at how in a city which seemingly absorbs everyone and everything, divisions of class, language and food do exist. Is Mumbai truly a great cosmopolitan city? That’s the question the film asks.
The campus is a beehive of activity as student leaders make lofty speeches. Representatives of various political parties make themselves heard as they back a particular candidate. Yes, money power is an important aspect. So is caste. “It’s Gujjars vs. Jats,” says a student. But history plays no part here. Ask them who Bhagat Singh was and many of them are clueless. But for most students, these elections “are simply a waste of time. Once the guy wins, he throws a DJ party and a rain party, there’s plenty of food and drink. And that’s the end of it.” The film tries to understand the mindset of the student community and how money and muscle power work even here.
NEE YAAR (R.V.Ramani/Tamil/30 minutes) Nee Yaar (Who are you?) is based on the works, life and times of Tamil writer Sundara Ramaswamy, popularly known as SuRa, one of the foremost modernist writers in Tamil. He is known for evolving a modern Tamil literature and his writings were often pitted against his Brahmin background and upbringing. He began his literary career at the age of 20 by translating Thakazhi’s Thottiyude Makan’ into Tamil. He wrote more than 60 hort stories, tree novels and several articles
and essays on the society and culture. One of the renowned Tamil poets, he founded ‘Kalachuvadu’, a magazine which is still sought after by serious followers of the Tamil literature. He passed away in 2005, at the age of 75. As per his wishes, the body was cremated without any rituals. ‘Nee Yaar’ reflects the writer’s experimental style and explores the many facets of his life and beliefs. Ramani, who had associated with many films as a cinematographer, has done the photography and editing of the documentary. The documentary is produced by the Public Service Broadcasting Trust, Pune.
68 PAGES (Sridhar Rangayan/Hindi/92 minutes) Subverting the Bollywood film genre of song-dance and high drama, this film places characters ignored by Bollywood centrestage: a transsexual bar dancer, a prostitute, a gay couple. They tell their stories of pain and trauma, of happiness and hope, about being HIV+ and marginalized. Five lives marked by pain and bound by hope – all chronicled in the 68 Pages of a counselor’s diary. Coming from a country like India that is still in denial, 68 Pages rips open the underbelly of its society to reveal how it stigmatizes and shuns those who are HIV+ or even those who just want to be what they are. While these stories expose the shallowness of the system, it also offers hope and healing by trying to bring about a better understanding of their fight to live with dignity.
FOUR WOMEN AND A ROOM (Ambarien Al Qadar/English-Hindi/42 minutes) Four Women and A Room explores the complex ways in which women understand and experience motherhood. The key question it raises: is motherhood always a ‘natural’ precondition towards the fulfillment of a woman’s subjectivity? A package that tends to fix the role of women as ‘producers’ in the given cultural context. The film explores this juncture to etch out individual and diverse desires of women and the ways in which they relate to being mothers or its absence. Set against a backdrop of the emergence of ‘choice’ based New Reproductive Technologies and the history of how abortion came to be’legalised’ in India, the film tells the story of four women:. Late into pregnancy, Mili is confounded with the unknown. Having gone through endless rituals of matchmaking, Latika is wondering about her desire to be a biological mother. Then there is Kalpana and an unknown woman who undergoes a sex selective abortion. As against popular perception, The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act 1971 originated from the population control imperatives of the Indian State,
Ambarien Al Qadar.
not from pro-choice arguments of feminist politics. Under a government aided programme, abortion of female foetuses became the preferred method of population control between 1970 and 1980s. Despite the initial ban imposed on the use of sex selection technologies in 1978, the 2001 Census indicated that the girl child was more unwanted than ever. In a bid to fix the ‘problem’ prolife arguments began slipping into the language of advocacy, policy and activism. In the midst of all this, no thought was given to how women would negotiate agency and choice in a culture that ceaselessly tries to fix their role as producers; a culture that obsesses around the production of a male child despite its apparent hypocrisy. Four Women and a Room sets out to explore some of these questions.
Searinly honest, the film is a tribute to the human spirit of optimism and survival. This hard-hitting drama about marginalized people is directed by Sridhar Rangayan who also directed documentaries like Gulabi Aaina and Yours Emotionally. The film bagged the Silver Remi at WorldFest 2008 at Houston, USA DOCUMENTARY TODAY
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making them ideal locations for starting a business. However, the agraharams are gradually being torn down to make way for multi-storeyed edifices, a prime example being the Fort Area of Thiruvananthapuram. The documentary was filmed in Puthen Street and Karamana in Thiruvannathapuram, Kalpathi in Palakkad and in various locales in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. The film takes the viewers into the interiors of these houses; explains the layout with its open-ended plan; shows them the nuances of its personality with carvings, paintings and many a unique feature that is in complete harmony with nature; its secrets; its inhabitants and their distinctive rituals. It ends its account with pathos. It shows viewers visible signs of decay including termite laden wood beams, unkempt environs and general disrepair. Finally, the most heartbreaking is how it is all being torn down to make way for glitzy new buildings.
CHITTI HATIA (Sharad Sharma/Hindi-Punjabi-Urdu/ 52 minutes) Delhi-based cartoonist Sharad Sharma chronicles the poignant story of his friend Bittoo Sondhi, a Delhi-based biker, and his triumph over the unknown. Bittoo’s father had migrated to India during the Partition when he was just thirteen. It had been his long cherished dream to revisit his birthplace Rawalpiundi – a wish which could not be realized till his death. Bittoo, however, got an opportunity to fulfill his fathers dream when his cartoonist friend Sharad Sharma received an invitation to run a comics workshop in Lahore. Once the workshop was over, both Bittoo and Sharad set out on a mission to search for Bittoo’s ancestral house in Rawalpindi. Chitti Hatia is not just a search, but rather a chronicle which talks about partition and a family that was forced to migrate from Pakistan and as well helps to break the stereotypical image of Pakistan. 60
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AGRAHARANGALUDE VILAPAM (M.Venukumar/Tamil/22 minutes) Agraharangalude Vilapam (A Lament for Agraharams) delves into the vanishing heritage of agraharams, which were once an ubiquitous feature of most South Indian towns and which literally means a garland with open ends. Agraharams were once the bastions of learning, knowledge, art and culture, yet they were simple homesteads at the heart of South Indian society. They are the traditional homes of South Indian Brahmins; invariably row houses with slanting roofs and common walls lining both sides of the street that leads to a temple. Lamentably, today, these heritage buildings are mere shadows of their former austere glory. The very style of architecture of these structures once encompassed a kind of world that was quite insular. The theruvus (streets with agraharams) are usually situated in the heart of towns,
“There are laws in place to protect these heritage buildings from being destroyed. Sadly there is no tangible effort by the Government or individuals to enforce the law,” rues Venukumar. The documentary was produced by Maharaja Sivanandan, filmed by Sree Raj Panikar, narrated by Anandavalli and researched by T.S Subramoney.
WHERE’S SANDRA (Paromita Vohra/English/) The film is a search for Sandra – Sandra from Bandra – the stereotypical figure of the Indian Catholic woman in Bollywood films. At the most literal level, this film is about the Christian women of Bombay who created a certain space for women in general. They were the earliest women in Bombay to enter the workforce, which was part of the reason for the unease around them and for the sexual stereotyping that they received. But they also embodied a certain spirit - of
fun, of pleasure and a certain chutzpah. This generation of women doesn’t know that we owe something to them, for being out there first where we so easily are today.
Punches And Ponytails
The film explores the stereotype of Christians more gently – through the aspects of fantasy that exist in the idea of the sexy, supposedly available but actually unattainable Christian woman. Says the filmmaker, “I’ve tried to stay away from dismantling stereotypes in the film, tending instead to create my own notion of this figure by taking my own and others’ ideas of Sandra, and weaving in Bollywood imagery and interviews with women actually named Sandra living in Bandra.” This is not the sort of history that is recorded often - it is an invisible, everyday history of women from a minority community. For the filmmaker it is important to tell the history of Bandra not through the usual historiocultural lens, not tell tales of buildings and the comings and goings of conquerors and settlers, but rather, to trace it through the lives of its women. And in speaking of these women and what lives and times they shaped, perhaps also understand something of the feminist/social history of the city of Bombay.
PUNCHES AND PONYTAILS (Pankaj Rishi Kumar/English/74 minutes) The film is a journey into the sweet science of boxing being practiced by two Indian women. The film unfolds with them as they wrestle with their day to day existence of being a boxer and the conflicts that surround them. While
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one of the boxers, is comprehending and dealing with her own sexuality, the other struggles with the limitations of her own body and need to prove that she too can box like her brother. Using cinema verité style and shot over a period of two and half years, the film articulates the boxers concerns and share experiences and ideas about their future. What emerges is a poignant study of two young women as they pursue their dreams, cope with setbacks, and confront their different sexualities— made even more poignant by the fact that, in the end, neither of them makes achieves success and both swallow up into the dark anonymity of the small town. Pankaj Rishi Kumar says, “I shot with two woman boxers as they tried to understand their bodies, their undying love for the sport and their constant struggle to realize their dreams. It was not important for me whether the two boxers won or lost, what was important was their negotiations with people and forces around them. The question for women boxers determined to stay in the game was not ‘why?’ but instead, as I came to ask myself in this film, ‘why not?’ DOCUMENTARY TODAY
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VIDEO PRIMER
Non-Linear Editing (This is a continuation of our series on understanding the world of video.) Yes, it’s finally time to put it all together. And post production has never been easier… Non-linear editing (NLE) makes editing and assembling your production as easy and as flexible as word processing.
you plan to perform only simple cuts and edits, and prefer to work with a separate transition track, the A/B Editing workspace is a good choice. z
Once your raw materials are in your computer, you can edit, alter, adjust, and reconfigure them— over and over again—with a few mouse clicks. Getting to Know NLE Tools By getting to know the Adobe Premiere interface, you’ll learn about many of the tools and methods that are familiar to seasoned professionals who may have learned their craft working on costly high-end systems. Yet Adobe Premiere software is also easy for beginning video enthusiasts to learn and use. Because of its flexibility and many customization options, Adobe Premiere is a good choice for beginners and experts alike.
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Effects workspace: Providing efficient access to both audio and video effects (which, in earlier releases of Adobe Premiere and in some other video editing applications may be called “filters”), the Effects workspace uses your current workspace—either A/B Editing or Single-Track Editing— with the following adjustments: the Monitor window displays in Single view, and the Effect Controls, Navigator, and Transitions palettes are active. You may want to use the Effects workspace if the tasks in your editing session all revolve around applying effects to your audio and/ or video.
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Audio workspace: The Audio
Four standard workspaces: The arrangement of windows, features and palettes is called the “workspace.” You’ll find four different types of editing workspaces in Adobe Premiere; which one you use will usually depend upon the task at hand: z
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A/B Editing workspace: This straightforward mode resembles a traditional editing method called “A/ B roll editing” which uses two video tapes, or rolls, (A and B) and is recommended for those who are new to video editing. In the A/B Editing workspace, clips are usually dragged directly from the Project window to the Timeline window. If DOCUMENTARY TODAY
Single-Track Editing workspace: Most professional video editors use a single-track editing system for precise placement of clips in the Timeline. Clips are usually dragged from the Project window to the Source view of the Monitor window for trimming and for setting In and Out points. Clips are then dragged to the Timeline window for positioning. In the Timeline window, the Video 1 track combines the transition track and the two video subtracks (often called “upper” and “lower” rather than “A” and “B”) into a single track which, while it may be expanded to show the three subtracks, behaves as one track. In other words, in singletrack editing (unlike A/B editing), all tools act on the three subtracks as a unit, for inserting and overlaying trimmed clips.
workspace also uses your current workspace—either A/B Editing or Single-Track Editing—with the following adjustments: clips open in a separate Clip window, the Audio Mixer is open, and no palettes are displayed. The Audio workspace is a convenient configuration to use when you are working on the audio portion of your project. You can reconfigure these four basic Adobe Premiere workspaces to combine your favorite features, then save your own custom workspaces for ongoing use. Because most professional video editors use two monitors, custom workspaces that take advantage of dual monitors can also be saved. Dual monitor configurations offer additional flexibility and the benefit of having more windows and palettes open and accessible. The workspaces are divided into three key areas: the Project window, where assets are managed; the Monitor window, where video being edited is viewed; and the Timeline, where video clips are arranged over time. Additionally, a variety of feature-rich, pop-up palettes for handling transitions, effects, and other
functions, are visible when needed but can be hidden to conserve screen real estate.
The “Export Bin From Project” feature lets you share bins among multiple projects.
need to build a review file for the segment; and no color show a cutsonly segment that can play in real time.
The Project window: The Project Window manages all the assets in your video project including video, audio, stills, and titles. You organize your assets into folders called “bins,” which can be given custom names (e.g. “Scene 12,” “Voiceovers,” etc.). The Project Window provides basic database functions, so you can sort or search your content, as well as add custom fields of information.
The Timeline window: The Timeline graphically shows the placement of each clip in time, it’s duration, and its relationship to the other clips in the program. Once you’ve captured or imported clips into your project, you can use the Timeline window to organize your clips sequentially; make changes to a clip’s duration, speed, and location; add transitions; superimpose clips; and apply effects, opacity, and motion. The Adobe Premiere Timeline is easy to use, understand, and manage; clips of audio, video, and graphics can be moved, trimmed and adjusted with simple mouse clicks or with keyboard commands. Up to 99 video and 99 audio tracks can be created for your program, and each track can be given a descriptive ID. Tracks can be hidden to reduce screen clutter or locked to avoid accidental changes. Each track in Adobe Premiere is collapsible, which means that there is more information available by clicking and “twirling down” a track. This saves screen space but keeps critical controls handy. You can uncollapse tracks to make precise adjustments to transitions between specific video clips. The preview indicator area (directly under the yellow work area bar) is color-enhanced: green means that a preview exists on disk for the segment; red indicates that you
The Monitor Window: You can use the Monitor window to view individual clips, set In and Out points, trim clips, set markers, add and remove clips from the Timeline, and to preview your program. The Monitor window can be displayed in any of three modes to suit your needs and work style:
The Project Window displays Preview and Bin areas, providing a convenient overview of the files associated with a project. z
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Preview Area: Click the Play button under a thumbnail- sized poster frame to preview a video clip within the Project window. The Preview area includes basic information about the clip, such as frames per second and average data rate. The poster frame used to represent a clip can be changed from the default (first frame) to any frame you select from the clip. Bin Area: The Bin area provides a hierarchical representation of the files in your project. Use the Search button to find what you need, fast. Command buttons let you quickly delete selected clips and bins and add new items.
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Dual View mode: The Source view (left side) displays the individual video clip selected; the Program view (right side) lets you view the program you are constructing. This is the default mode for the Single-Track Editing workspace.
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Single View mode: Only the Program view is displayed. Source clips may be opened and edited in individual Clip windows. This is the default mode for the A/B Editing workspace.
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Trim mode: The Trim mode offers more controls, while displaying a zoomed-in view of a particular edit in the Timeline. It provides more visual feedback to help you trim clips with greater precision.
You can change the mode of the Monitor window at any time by clicking on the selector buttons or by choosing a mode from the Monitor window menu. Palettes: Designed in the same style as the standard palettes in other, DOCUMENTARY TODAY
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familiar Adobe software applications, the palettes in Adobe Premiere are easy to navigate, especially if you are familiar with other Adobe programs, such as Adobe Photoshop or Adobe After Effects. Palettes are organized into tabbed groups in separate windows. Certain groups display by default in each basic workspace. But you can display, hide, or recombine palettes as you work, and the arrangement of palettes you left open
the last time you used Adobe Premiere will appear automatically at startup. z
Navigator palette: Use the Navigator palette to quickly and conveniently move around the Timeline window by dragging a view box within a miniature representation of the Timeline.
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Info palette: Provides information about the area in the Timeline, or the selected clip, transition, or operation you are performing.
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History palette: With up to 99 levels of undo, the History palette makes it easy to experiment with creative ideas in any Adobe Premiere window, with the assurance of being able to easily return to the point where your experimentation began. All states created during your current work session are listed in the History palette. If you return to an earlier state in the project, all subsequent states are dimmed in the palette; Adobe Premiere deletes them if you resume editing. Alternatively, you can delete states manually by clicking the Trash icon or by choosing Delete from the History palette menu.
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Transitions palette: Transitions can be useful in setting a mood or adding a creative element to your project. Examples of transitions include
dissolves, wipes, zooms, page peels and many others. Adobe Premiere includes over 75 transitions, and you can add others, such as QuickTime transitions. You select transitions from the Transitions palette. Within this palette, transitions are organized into folders by type. You can customize these groupings, putting the transitions you prefer into folders you name, or by hiding transitions that you don’t often use. Each transition is represented by an icon depicting how it works. To help you choose, these icons can be animated by simply choosing Animate from the Transitions palette menu. A brief description can also be displayed. In addition, you can preview the transition effect with actual frames from the two clips involved in the transition. To add a transition, simply drag the icon from the Transition palette to a point in the Timeline where two clips meet. A default transition can be specified, and the process of adding transitions can be automated. You can apply or remove a transition at any time. All transitions have duration, alignment, and direction parameters. Duration refers to the number of
frames affected by the transition. Transitions use frames from the end of the first clip—called “tail material”— and frames from the beginning of the second clip—called “head material.”
To apply an effect, just drag it to a clip in the Timeline window or, if the clip is selected in the Timeline, the effect can be dragged to the Effect Controls palette, where attributes can be modified and, if multiple effects have been applied, the order in which they are rendered can be adjusted. You can apply, disable, or remove an effect at any time.
Alignment refers to the position of the transition in relation to the cut between the two clips. The options are Center at Cut, Start at Cut, and End at Cut. Direction indicates how the transition operates on the two clips. Normally, the direction will be from the first clip to the second—from left to right on the Timeline—but for some types of transitions, you may want to change the direction. z
By default, when an effect is added, keyframes are set at the beginning and end of the clip, resulting in the effect being applied to the entire clip. The locations of these keyframes are indicated by half-diamonds on the keyframe line in the Timeline window. If an effect has adjustable controls, you may wish to change the start or end point of the effect by dragging these symbols, or add additional keyframes to create an animated effect.
Video and Audio Effects palettes: Video and audio effects (sometimes known as “filters”) serve many useful purposes. You can use them to fix defects in video or audio, such as correcting the color balance of a video clip or removing background noise from dialogue. Effects are also used to create qualities not present in the raw video or audio, such as softening focus or giving a sunset tint, or adding reverb or echo to a sound track. Multiple effects may be applied to a clip, but note that the result may vary depending on the order in which effects are rendered.
A clip that has an effect applied to it appears with a blue-green bar at the top of it in the Timeline window. This is important because, at times, you may choose to temporarily “turn off “ one or all of the effects in the clip to concentrate on another aspect of your project, or to save time when previewing your program. Effects that are turned off do not appear in the Program window and are not included when the clip is rendered or previewed. Turning off an effect does not delete the keyframes created for any of the effect’s settings; all keyframes remain unless the effect is deleted from the clip.
Adobe Premiere includes dozens of effects, including many shared with Adobe After Effects. Additional effects are available as plug-ins. Adobe Premiere comes with several Adobe Photoshop plug-ins that can be used in your video work, and many other plug-ins are available from thirdparty vendors or can be acquired from other compatible applications. Video effects are listed in the Video Effects palette; audio effects in the Audio Effects palette—grouped by type in each palette. You can reorganize effects and customize folders as you prefer, and hide effects or folders that you rarely use.
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Effect Controls palette: The Effect Controls palette (similar to the one in Adobe After Effects) offers convenient control over all aspects of a clip’s effects parameters with real-time feedback in the Monitor window. Once you’ve applied an effect to a clip, the Effect Controls palette may be used to adjust effect settings, hide an effect during previews, or delete an effect, as well as to rearrange the order in which multiple effects are rendered. DOCUMENTARY TODAY
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WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN EDITING IN AND OUT POINTS AND TRIMMING ? Editing a video program means using only the best segments of the material you have shot or gathered. In the first stage of the process— capturing—you select those portions of material that you think you might want to use, and save them on your hard drive. You will probably capture more clips than you will actually use, and it’s likely that you won’t use your captured clips in their entirety. When you insert clips into your video program, the clips do not become part of the program file; rather, the program references the source clips stored on your hard drive. Clips become part of the finished program only when you export your project to a delivery medium, such as videotape or to a file to be posted on the Web. Unless you are absolutely sure you will not be using some of the source clips you captured, it’s best not to delete any of them from your hard drive until your project is completed. You define the beginning of the clip’s appearance by marking an In point (the first frame that will appear in your program). You define the end by marking an Out point (the last frame that will appear). Initially, you select In and Out points when you capture your clips. Most clips are captured with extra frames at the beginning and end to allow for more precise editing later and, often, to include overlap footage for transitions. These extra frames before the In and after the Out points of a clip are called handles. It is common to fine-tune the beginning and end of a clip just before moving a clip into the program. For numerical precision, you will want to set In and Out points in the Monitor Window in Adobe Premiere. For visual precision, or if you prefer to use the mouse, you can edit directly in the Timeline. Even if you use only a small portion of a captured clip in your program, the entire clip remains available on your hard drive, allowing you to make adjustments at any point in the editing process. Trimming is a term that is sometimes used to mean setting In and Out points. In Adobe Premiere, when you use the Trimming Window, that is precisely what you are doing but, unlike setting In and Out points in the Monitor Window, you are affecting two clips at once. z
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Commands palette: Lets you create a button list of frequently used commands, and assign your own keyboard shortcuts or function keys to them. The Commands palette comes with a list of preset commands, which you can modify to suit your needs. You can customize your Adobe Premiere Commands palette for rapid recognition by color-coding your buttons. DOCUMENTARY TODAY
The term trimming is often used, as well, to refer to the practice of removing frames from clips when you have completed your project and you want to “tidy up” your files. This function in Adobe Premiere is “non-destructive.” When you use the Project Trimmer, Adobe Premiere first creates a copy of the project, just in case you change your mind. Only those portions of clips actually used (including specified handles) are copied; unused clips will not be copied. If you so choose, you can then delete the clips you originally captured, in order to save disk space.
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