Behind the Bazaar
Directors:
Nikhil, Nikhita, Sankuraj, Satyam, Shrishti
Synopsis:
The 150-year-old Chor Bazaar in south Mumbai forms an integral part of the cultural fabric of the city. Widely believed to be a one-stop destination for shopping needs of the rich and poor alike, the market famously sells everything from “pins to pianos”. However, as the Bhendi Bazaar area in which it is located undergoes redevelopment, so does Chor Bazaar. As the first phase of construction goes on in full swing, we explore what this drastic change means for the occupants of the space. Was there a way of improving living conditions without a complete erasure of all that the streetscape represents for its current inhabitants?
Still City
Directors:
Madhumoy Sathpaty, Mrudula Ravi, Sayan Bhattacharjee, Sukrita Baruah, Vilo Awomi
Synopsis:
Still City is an attempt to scrutinize and reflect upon the act of photographing the street in a city like Bombay. It follows the enquiries of one of the film-makers, who is the protagonist of the film, who has been thinking about the complexities of the act of ‘street photography’ after attending a paid photowalk in Chor Bazaar. It looks at the way that the street is photographed by different people – the participants in the photowalk, a student who is a photo enthusiast, and two popular Instagrammers who photograph the city in unconventional ways. By looking at their practices and common patterns in street photography, the film enquires into the relationship that photographers have with the streets and people that they photograph, why they choose to photograph certain kinds of areas – particularly lower class localities, and how street photography both mediates and reflects one’s relationship with the city and its streets.
Bombay, Bamboo and BMC
Directors:
Ishan Singh, Nayoneka Shankar, Prthvir Solanki, Sarath P. Raju, Shreya KA
Synopsis:
The idea of the ‘public’ street is highly contested – who does the street belong to and why? Often, those who literally spend their entire lives on the streets are given no right to public spaces. This is a film, that through the narratives it follows and the documentation of the lives of the people of a street community wishes to raise the question and challenge normative assumptions about the streets, the pavements and accessibility and bring into focus the plight of the inhabitants of the streets and their everyday struggles. The enduring struggle against the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation or the BMC and their eviction strategies and executions, their battle with Mumbai’s erratic weather patterns- heavy rains leading to flooding, and its extreme heat conditions during the summer; their everyday problems- water shortages, lack of toilets, diseases and sicknesses and access to hospitals, road accidents, women’s safety- the film tells about it all. While this forms the main storyline, the film also seeks to change the dominant assumptions about the “homeless”- from middle class assumptions about safety to the precarious nature of the existence of these street people. In the West, homeless people are usually individuals who have ‘failed’ and are treated as outcasts owing to substance abuse, poor family backgrounds and other personal factors; they are quite literally homeless with little or no belongings to their name and wander around in search of food, money and whatever else is needed. Here, in India, while a significant number of homeless people fit within this ambit, there are also the homeless people who have made the streets their homes– they have functional households equipped with basic kitchenware, make-shift beds, roofs under which families live, send the children to schools, go to work and come back, to their homes. This is another key idea the film presents.
Canvas on a Fence
Directors:
Andres Ramirez, Bursenla, Dheeraj Dubey, Malvika, Ruchira Petkar
Synopsis:
The film centers on the relationship between six artists Saudagar Abdul Gani, Rajesh Karpe, Swaroop Kaintura, Dharampal, Hanif Mohammed Qureshi and Ganraj Choudhary and the street outside Jehangir Art Gallery. These artists have different personalities, ages, and temperaments. The film tries to capture the relationship among themselves and their collective idea of art and street. Though the film looks at them as a group, it also tries to capture their pieces of individual personalities and attempts to weave them into one fabric. The film uses an observational style to structure the narrative. It includes informal interviews with the artists present on the street. The interviews and observations combine together to form a narrative structure that portrays the artists’ everyday lives, their challenges and their personal ideas about their art and space.
A Street (In Four Senses)
Directors:
Ketan Krishna, Archana Kaware, Srishti Raj, Kamesh Shekar
Synopsis:
A Street (in four senses) is a conversation with four visually impaired individuals who negotiate with streets and public utilities that have been created without keeping them in mind. Structural issues make it extremely difficult to travel independently. For some, these issues, ranging from uneven footpaths to unreliable strangers, make independent travel impossible. In the absence of the sense of sight, these individuals use their remaining senses to create a map of the physical world around them. This film attempts to portray how these people negotiate with these unfriendly streets in their daily lives.
Raet ke Mahal
Directors:
Maanvi, Arjun Chavah, Akash Basumatari, Priyamvada Jagia
Synopsis:
What is a ‘home’? Is it the same as a house? Or does it mean something else? Sand Castles or Raeton ka Mahal (2015) is a film which looks at homelessness in Mumbai through the eyes of people living on Girgaum Chowpatty. In the process of looking at ‘home’, the film discovers intertwining issues of sustaining livelihood, stereotypes about the poor, dignity and self-respect, ineffective laws and unreal demolitions in the city. When Tulsi Thakur, one of the many living in.
Chadariya Jheeni
Directors:
Akshay Panse, Tanvi Khemani
Synopsis:
Girgaum Chowpatty is able to find a house, the questions assume another form, unravelling the unending struggle for a roof to live in the ever changing, harsh and liberating city of Mumbai.
Kadak Bai
Directors:
Abhimanyu Kumar, Milen Mathew John, Prerna Gupta, Sameer Gardner
Synopsis:
The film documents the encounter of the filmmakers with Gayabai Sassane, a daily wage worker at the Kapurbawdi Naka in Thane. As the film progresses the viewer engages with Gayabai’s struggles, joys and beliefs. The inspiring resilience of the Naka workers and the painful apathy of the authorities form the backdrop of the film as we familiarize ourselves with Gayabai Sassane’s home, family and workplaces. Ultimately, leaving the viewer fascinated by Gayabai’s grit and angered by the system’s viciousness.
Kabhi Aana Tu Meri Gali
Directors:
Abhimanyu Kumar, Milen Mathew John, Prerna Gupta, Sameer Gardner
Synopsis:
The film attempts to trace the parallel story of the process of gentrification in Kamathipura along with the disappearance of sex workers in the area. Based out of present-day (2016 and 2017) Kamathipura, the film attempts tcapture the voices of sex-workers and former sex-workers and speak to them about the value and necessity of their work, and the challenges they face in simply carrying out their profession on an everyday basis. While other professions too face issues of eviction owing to the redevelopment process, none of them bear the stigma of being shamed, defamed, and notorious. The film then explores the dynamics between redevelopers, sex-workers, and other professionals operating out of Kamathipura.
Inside Out
Director:
Divya Cowasji
Synopsis:
This film is about the experience of women in public space within a metropolitan city like Mumbai.
Dane Dane Pe
Directors:
Krishna Ketan Panchal, Mridula Chari, Nithila Kanagasabai, Nitya Menon
Synopsis:
Migrants bring their own identities to cities that are manifested and re interpreted through food. Despite this city becoming increasingly hostile to outsiders, boundaries blur and stories meld. Old legends, a hardening Mumbai, new identities.
Koshish Project – Mental Illness
Directors:
Maryanne De Souza, Shubham Sharma, Harshal H Patil
Synopsis:
Homelessness and destitution. The PSA questions the archaic Bombay Prevention of Begging Act 1959.
Koshish Project – Unorganised labour
Directors:
Soubhagya Pai, Shraddha Sharma, Bhaskar Nayak
Synopsis:
Homelessness and informal/ unorganized labour. The PSA questions the archaic Bombay Prevention of Begging Act 1959.