Biriyaani
Sajin Babu
India. 2019. 92 min

The movie chronicles the life of Khadeeja, a married muslim woman confined within the four walls of the household, forced to conceal her desires in the name of religious and societal norms.  When fate brings her to an abandoned life, she chooses a different way of financially and sexually liberating herself– to be a sex worker;  soon to realize that her soul is still dissatisfied. Finding a new way of hope, she decides to give back to the forces that pushed her to live an orphaned life of humiliation and misery.
Shot in various regions spread across Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the movie captures the essence of life from a conservative, religious and rural background.  While these places are representative of areas where such stories might still exist, the movie does not push the audience to see it as a regular event in these places.

The film was selected at “Film Bazaar Recommends” section in Goa and it’s world premiere was in Oct in Italy at 20th Asiatica film festival where it won NETPAC Award for best film and also won Jury Price in 12th BIFFES.

SAJIN  BABU

Sajin Babu is a film maker from Kerala, India.  His inclination towards cinema began at a very early age.  When he joined college, he began making campus films followed by docu-fiction, documentary, short films.
His debut feature film titled “Unto the Dusk” made in 2014 won him numerous accolades including the Silver Pheasant, certificate of merit to promote at National & International Market at the 19th International Film festival of Kerala 2014, best feature film at Bangalore International Film Festival 2014 etc.  The film was also screened at various film festivals across the country.
His second feature “Man with a coffin” was made and released across Kerala in 2017.

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Sajin Babu :    ta.sajin@yahoo.co.in

Shindisi
Dito Tsintsadze
Georgia.  2019.  108 min

Georgia’s Oscar submission tells a harrowing true story taken from the Russo-Georgian War of 2008.

Panic sweeps over a pretty rural village as word spreads that the Russians are coming. Everybody grabs what they can and hurries out of town by oxcart or on foot, knowing they may never see their homes again.  Only two families stay behind: stoic old Badri (Goga Pipinashvili) with his sick wife Khatia (Tamar Abshilava); and the burly drunk Vazja (Dato Bakhtadze), still grieving for his dead wife, with his teenage daughter Mariam (Mariam Jibladze), who seems to be in a world of her own.  Khatia is recognizably Ossetian, an ethnicity closely allied to the Russians, so she and Badri have some smattering of protection. Vazja has the courage of his angry grief, and one presumes that only the thought of leaving Mariam alone restrains him from shooting a Russian.

At the same time, a local sapper unit of some 20 lightly armed combat engineers learns that a cease-fire has been declared and peace talks are underway.  They are to be evacuated from the combat zone without harm.

DITO  TSINTSADZE

Dito Tsintsadze (born 2 March 1957) is a Georgian film director and screenwriter.  He has directed thirteen films since 1988. His film Lost Killers was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival.  In 2007 he was a member of the jury at the 29th Moscow International Film Festival. Starting from the year 1996 he lives and works in Berlin.

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Maria Iakobidzi :    mari_7iak@yahoo.com

King of Beasts
Tomer Almagor, Nadav Harel
USA.  2018.  86 min

The directors are careful to be even-handed in their portrayal of their main protagonist Aaron Neilson, a burly thirtysomething dude with bulging tattooed muscles and what he himself describes as an “A-type personality.” Working as a hunting guide in Colorado,  Neilson — whose living room she shares with several stuffed big cats, diorama-style — clearly lives for his trips to Tanzania, where he goes after his prey with steely determination and considerable patience.

Indeed, the actual moments of violent death in King of Beasts are few and far between: First to bite the dust is a buffalo, just before the half-hour mark, whose carcass provides dinner for Neilson, his safari companeros and their entourage of paid native servants, and also serves as bait for the crew’s bigger targets. A hippo is also slain for the latter purpose, setting us up for the climactic encounter with the king of the jungle, an “old lion” who shows up just after the hour mark, and whom Neilson goes after using the old-school method of bow and arrow.

As well as shedding light on the mechanics of safari hunting — which involves a lot of patience, waiting and downtime — King of Beasts illuminates as an exploration of masculine self-image (Neilson evidently sees himself as heroic and Hemingway-esque) and of how macho hombres engage with each other in close-quarters situations. One of Neilson’s party is a greenhorned younger fellow mainly employed to flatteringly record Neilson’s exploits for posterity via video in a series of carefully staged tableaux.

TOMER ALMAGOR

Award-winning filmmaker Tomer Almagor wrote and directed the critically acclaimed 9 FULL MOONS starring Amy Seimetz, Bret Roberts, Donal Logue & Harry Dean Stanton. His recent work includes directing the documentary KING OF BEASTS, and producing YOU ARE HERE starring Billy Baldwin and Lea Thompson, HAPPY TIMES starring Michael Aloni & Stefi Celma and TIGER WITHIN starring Ed Asner. His work screened at Sundance, Slamdance, SXSW & Rotterdam film festival, found critical acclaim and sold for distribution worldwide. Tomer is a partner and the creative director at URBAN TALES PRODUCTIONS, where he and his partner are producing a slate of films, including Tomer’s new film project RECIPROCAL BEAT.

INTERVIEW WITH TOMER ALMAGOR

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Tomer Almagor :    tomeralmagor@urbantalesproductions.com

Sea is Shaking
Nikita Tuzov
Russia.  2019.  46 min

Murmansk is the city behind The Arctic Circle. It is cold, windy and brutal. It is a city where the polar night lasts at least 40 days and not much sunlight during the year. It is a city where people’s lives connected to the sea uncompromisingly. This documentary is filled with interviews of sailors’ and citizens who loves their region and never going to leave it. You will see how the fishing goes during the storm in the Barents Sea and you will meet the wonderful nature of Murmansk region.

NIKITA TUZOV

Nikita Tuzov is a businessman, lives in Murmansk, married.  The whole family is connected with the fishing industry and the changes that it is undergoing in recent years, he is very concerned. Sea Is Shaking is a debut work for Nikita.

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Ekaterina Rusakovich :    ekaterina@eastwood.agency

Kaifinama
Sumantra Ghosal
India. 2019. 90 min

Kaifinama looks at the life and art of the Urdu Progressive poet Kaifi Azmi. Kaifi Azmi was both a poet for social change as well as one of the foremost lyricists in the Hindi film industry. Not content to limit himself to fine writing, he worked ceaselessly throughout his life as a catalyst for change among the disenfranchised.  The film looks at his small-town roots, his commitment to socialism, his wide-ranging body of work and the enormous changes he brought to the life of the village where he was born. This extraordinary journey is documented through extensive interviews with him and his wife Shaukat Kaifi as well as insights from his children – Shabana and Baba Azmi – and reminiscences by his friends and colleagues.  Kaifinama thus is both the definitive film biography of Kaifi Azmi and a history of the times he illuminated with his genius.

SUMANTRA  GHOSAL

Sumantra Ghosal spent the better part of his life making advertising films for his companies Cinematix and Equinox.  Now, he makes documentaries. Noteworthy among his several films on the arts are the two feature-length films:  The Speaking Hand
(on the tabla maestro Zakir Hussain) and The Unseen Sequence (on the Bharatanatyam dancer Malavika Sarukkai).
In 2017, Sumantra completed The Space Between The Notes – a documentary on a concert by Zakir Hussain and Niladri Kumar. He also served as creative collaborator with Malavika Sarukkai and wrote the poems for the full-length dance project Thari – The Loom.
His most recent work is Kaifinama – a full-length documentary film to commemorate the birth centenary of the Urdu poet Kaifi Azmi.

DIRECTOR,S STATEMENT

Kaifinama entered my life as a surprise.
One day, quite out of the blue, Kaifi Azmi’s daughter -Shabana – asked me whether I would make a film to commemorate her father’s birth centenary. Having agreed without much thought given to the road ahead, I soon found myself in a quandary.
Kaifisaaab led a long and eventful life straddling many worlds and making an indelible mark in each of them.  He belonged to an era and an ethos that was unfamiliar to me. He wrote poetry in a language I couldn’t speak and which I understood with difficulty.
Ironically, I decided to start the journey by translating some of his most seminal poems into English.
That, I thought, would allow me to wrestle not just with the texts of his works but with their subtexts and their contexts as well.

TALKS WITH SUMANTRA GHOSAL and SHABANA AZMI

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Sumantra Ghosal :    sumantra@cinematixfilms.com

The Geshema is Born
Malati Rao
India.  2019.  70 min

Tibetan Buddhist nuns have for centuries sought the audacious idea of equality within their ancient faith. Empowered by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, they now receive the highest monastic degree – the Geshe Ma or Phd degree. The film explores their journey. For the Buddha, establishing a community of nuns was a radical experiment for its time.

Over the centuries, Buddhist religious life was available to women and many historical events mention highly accomplished nuns, but the highest monastic qualifications were denied to them. His Holiness the Dalai Lama worked for decades on behalf of women in Tibetan Buddhism, to empower and enable them to finally receive the same education and the same degree as the monks. In achieving this, he impacted the potential of women across all faiths to participate fully in their faiths, drawing upon the value and usefulness of the wisdom that results from women’s unique experiences. The Film traces the journey of Namdol Phuntsok, the first woman ever to be awarded the highest degree in Tibetan philosophy – the Geshe degree, the ‘knower of virtue’.

MALATI  RAO

Malati Rao has been making documentaries for the last decade, several of which have been broadcast on public television. Handmade in India, on India’s craft traditions, and Born Behind Bars, about children growing up in prison, have been applauded and screened at several film festivals. Malati holds an MFA degree in Film and Media Arts from Temple University, USA, and an MA in Mass Communication from Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi.

INTERVIEW TO TIBETAN NUN

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distribution@psbt.org

Sharmila Tagore
Umang Sabarwal
India.  2019.  55 min

Introduced to film acting at age 13 by Satyajit Ray, Sharmila Tagore evolved into one of the most iconic actors and stars of the 60s and 70s India, straddling the worlds of classical and popular cinema with grace and poise. The Film journeys through her film career and life stories, while reflecting on her choices and resolve that made her an independent and phenomenal woman.

UMANG SABARWAL

Umang Sabarwal is an alumnus of AJK MCRC Jamia Millia Islamia. She has worked in video production, short films and films for education. She was the founder of SlutWalk arthaat Besharmi Morcha, a women’s protest in New Delhi. She wants to make non – fiction films, likes experimenting with form and is partial to stop motion animation.

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Prison Diaries
Uma Chakravarti
India.  2019.  40 min

The story of the unexpected imprisonment of a number of women, for their resistance to the Emergency of 1975-77, through the life of Socialist and famous actor Snehalata Reddy.  Being the only woman political prisoner in jail, she spent eight months in solitary confinement, recording her concerns and traumatic experiences in her diary, extracts of which were later published. Released for a few weeks on parole, she died of a heart attack just before she was to return to jail.  The Film recounts her ordeal through the reminiscences of her children and close friends.

UMA CHAKRAVARTI

Uma Chakravarti is a feminist historian turned filmmaker. She has taught history to many generations of women students and been associated with the women’s movement and the movement for democratic rights.  She has co-authored Delhi Riots: Three days in the Life of a Nation and published books on Buddhism, Caste and Gender, among others. Her films are deeply rooted in history, memory and the archive. Her first film A Quiet Little Entry explored the plight of women’s lives during the National Movement, while Fragments of a Past revolves around a political activist who does not remember her own past.

INTERVIEW TO UMA CHAKRAVARTI

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Moti Bagh
Nirmal Chander
India.  2019.  60 min

For over five decades, 83 year old Vidyadutt Sharma has nurtured Moti Bagh, his 5 acre farm in a small Himalayan village. Around him are 7000 ghost villages – a chilling testimony to large scale migration by locals in search of employment. Chronicling the changing landscape in verses of resistance, Vidyadutt Sharma and Ram Singh, his Nepali farmland, plough the fields and keep them alive, hoping to return Moti Bagh to its old glory.

NIRMAL  CHANDER

Nirmal Chander is an award winning filmmaker who has been working for over two decades in the field of documentaries as producer, director, cinematographer, researcher, script writer and editor. His films All the World’s a Stage, Dreaming Taj Mahal, Sab Lila Hai, The Face Behind the Mask and Zikr Us Parivash Ka, among others, have been lauded for their humanistic approach and have travelled to many international film festivals.  Nirmal also conducts workshops on filmmaking.

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Mullah,s Daughter
Hassan Solhjou, Mahdieh Sadat
Great Britain. 2019. 72 min

An Iranian family becomes a miniature representation of Iran, where a conservative mullah tries to control things.  But his defiant daughter has a secret plan.

An unusual and personal story about a Muslim mullah and his family in Iran – filmed by his own daughter, Mahdieh.  She makes a living as a photographer, but due to political restrictions, the government has banned her from working. Her father, the highly conservative mullah, is a radical supporter of the Iranian clergy, but is himself fighting to control his defiant children with their conflicting attitudes and religious beliefs. At the same time, Mahdieh is struggling to keep a secret: she is planning the escape from the country with her boyfriend. But as time goes by,  the family situation grows even more complicated.

HASSAN  SOLHJOO

He is a senior producer at the BBC World Service, a editor and presenter of a film showcase in BBC Persian TV.  He studied cinema in Iran and UK and so far he has made more than 10 films, mainly documentaries. His films include  The Night Season (1991),  Fish Talking (2006),  In Search of a Healer (2007),  The Birds I Dreamed  (2010) and  Throw A Stone into The Water (2011).

MAHDIEH  SADAT

Mahdieh Sadat MIRHABIBI, born in 1982, is an Iranian Photographer living in exile. She has been banned from her job as a photographer in Iran and had to flee to Turkey. She is now based in Turkey. She has been covering stories in Iran, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, India through her pictures.  Mullah′s daughter  is her first film.

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Hassan Solhjoo :  hassansolhjoo@googlemail.com