HLF 2015

I really don't intend to write a detailed post about this year's Hyderabad Lit Fest, mainly because I was there but not very engaged, so I really don't have much to say.

But there was a few memorable things for me and they are as follows:

- For reasons I will not go into, Javed Akhtar acquired a copy of my book and began to read it - thankfully not aloud - as I watched. It was a moment of acute embarrassment for me made worse by a friend taking a photo of me in this state.

- Listening to Ahdaf Soueif, who was brilliant but who was interrupted rather rudely by the venue's emcee while she was answering audience questions; and who gracefully told her audience that we could continue the discussion outside the tent. The discussion went on for another hour and I had to leave reluctantly because I had a session to host.

- Book loot from the second hand book store! 

Two Milosz - one a novel and the other a memoir, a good find given that Poland was the guest nation at this HLF. And look at the Beckett! and the Khair and Hughes! 

There are some more books that aren't in these photographs but the two books that are making me crow with delight are the pre-Shakespearean Tudor plays and the Sidney's Defence of Poesy.  

Please take a good look at the contents page of the plays. If you've ever studied Eng Lit, you'll have heard of Ralph Roister Doister and Gammer Gurton's Needle but it is very unlikely that even a college library will have had a copy. I have those plays! I am so excited!!!

That's basically it about the HLF.

Doc Splash at the Hyd Lit Fest 2015

The Docu Circle of Hyderabad, curated and run by Sumanaspati Reddy, has been doing superb work over the last several years, bringing great films to Hyderabad without fuss. Sumanaspati himself is unassuming and works with the kind of dedication and complete lack of interest in self-aggrandisement that is celebrated only when it is part of the Gita or something.

Anyway. Doc Splash has a number of short documetaries at the Hyd Lit Fest today, in association with Films Division and PSBT, and though the schedule is certain to be available on Facebook, I don't know if my readers here are in the same pool there, so I'm putting up the entire list.

Here goes:

​Festival curated by : ​

Sumanaspati Reddy

i​

n association with PSBT and Films D

​i​

vision
C R E A T I V E . E D G E !
Docs on the creative spirit!
at Hyderabad Literary Festival 2015
Today at 11 am [25th January]
----------------------

1. THE BROKEN SPINE: ART AS THE WILL TO SURVIVE
Director: EIN LALL .
30 min . 2001 (On painter and installation artist Nalini Malini)

2. MALEGAON KE SHOLAY
Director : NITIN SUKHIJA
30 min . 2003 . (Small town community film-making)

3. AMIR KHAN
Director : S.N.S. SASTRY
19 min . 1970 Classical Hindustani vocalist)

4. YAADEIN - KAIFI AZMI
Director : AMITA TALWAR
57 min . 1999 (Urdu poet)

break : 15 mins

5. MANA KALOJI
Director : S. AMARNATH
55 min . 2013 (Iconic poet- activist of Telangana)

About the films:


THE BROKEN SPINE: ART AS THE WILL TO SURVIVE

Director : EIN LALL
30 min . 2001 . English with sub-titles

The film portrays conflicting yet complementary layers in the work of painter and installation artist Nalini Malini.

Ein trained in video with the Inner London Educational Authority. She has made several films on women’s issues including those on women artists and experiments in video art and video dance. Her films have been screened at several international festivals.
A PSBT production

* * *

YAADEIN - KAIFI AZMI

Director : AMITA TALWAR
57 min . 1999 . Urdu/English with sub-titles

"Yaadein-Kaifi Azmi" is a feature documentary of 58 minutes durationcommissioned and telecast by Doordarshan in 1999. It traces the earlier struggle of this Leftist activist who was an active member of the Progressive Writer's Movement. Fired with idealism, Kaifi Azmi moved to Mumbai from a tiny nondescript village Mijhwan in Azamgarh District in U.P. and eked out an existence doing odd jobs. This is a simple portrayal of an earthy man documenting his initial struggle in the film industry, his ideologies, the highs and lows of his life and career, his contribution to his village and the legacy of work left behind.

Amita Talwar is a postgraduate in English Literature. She was the founder Editor/Publisher of the popular city magazine Channel 6 brought out from Hyderabad since 1990. She has been trained in Filmmaking from the School of Professional and Continuing Studies, New York University. She is a leading art-photgrapher from Hyderabad.
* * *
MALEGAON KE SHOLAY
Director : NITIN SUKHIJA
30 min . 2003 . Hindi with sub-titles
The film traces the progress of a community in a small town in Maharashtra in search of a new identity- that of a parallel film industry.
Nitin has worked in various forms of media from journalism to theatre. He was associate director on Anshuman Rawat’s ‘Art of Dying’ and is currently scripting a feature film titled ‘Dadar’.
A PSBT production
* * *

MANA KALOJI (OUR KALOJI)
Concept : B.NARSING RAO. Director : S. AMARNATH
55 min . 2013 . Telugu with sub-titles
The film explores the relevance of Kaloji Narayana Rao (1914-2002) in the current times, captured through his personal life and ideas of resistance. Popularly known as Kaloji or Kalanna, he was much loved and admired poet, freedom fighter and political activist of Telangana.
Mana Kaloji, was shaped with the archival interviews of his wife – Rukmini Bai, grandson –Santosh and Kaloji himself. Kaloji’s life, narrated as memories by his wife and grandson, has been juxtaposed with his own interview where he counters with his own ideas of life and resistance. This juxtaposition forms a conversation-like intimate encounter with him capturing the human essence beneath the legendary personality.
Eminent filmmaker, poet, painter and photographer, B.Narsing Rao is a cultural icon of Telangana. The film was as part of Kaloji centenary celebrations.

Amarnath has been practicing filmmaking in various capacities as director, associate director, line-producer, scriptwriter, editor and cameraman - primarily documentary filmmaking .
* * *
AMIR KHAN
Director : S.N.S. SASTRY
19 min . 1970 . Hindi and Urdu with sub-titles

SNS Sastry’s portrait of the Hindustani classical master Ustad Amir Khan is at once gentle and audacious in the way he sets up images of his world of concerts, disciples, world travel, his adoring and nagging wife and little child. Of course, there is Khan sahab’s beautiful singing, as well as his reflections on music, recognition and remuneration. This film occupies an inspiring and enviable place between documentary and fiction and could as much be a film about the film maker and his place in this world as an artist.

We have heard accounts of people tracking this documentary in theatres and going to watch feature films in order to watch this, in the early 1970s, when documentaries and newsreels were screened before the main feature!

S.N.S. Sastry (1930–1978) was among Films Division's most celebrated cameramen and filmmakers. A diploma holder in cinematography from the Bangalore Polytechnic, Sastry joined Films Division as a cameraman and started directing films in 1956. The four films chosen for screening are among the best of the nearly 45 films he made for FD.
Gentle, audacious and maverick by turns, Sastry’s films never cease to surprise!