Environment Support Group, Bangalore announces a Summer Workshop for
students in the age group of 13-16 years, from 19th -21st May 2008.
The three-day workshop aims at sensitizing children to the environment-
development debate, with a special focus on analyzing the changing urban
environment of Bangalore. A Pedagogy of experiential learning has been
followed in the Workshop Design. The workshop will be held at S-3, Rajashree
Apartments, 18/57, 1st Main Road, S.R.K Gardens, Bannerghatta Road,
Jayanagar Bangalore - 41. For further details and registration, contact
Divya Ravindranath or Nandini Chami at 26531339 / 22441977 or email
(bhargavi@esgindia.org)
National
Curtain Raiser, ViBGYOR 2008 and Premier Screening of 'Yis As Akh Padshah
Bai' - Bangalore, January 18th and 19th, 2008
The National Curtain
Raiser Festival of the third edition of ViBGYOR Film Festival for
Short and Documentary films will be held on 18th and 19th of January
2008 in Bangalore. The event will open with the primeir screening
of the film 'Yi As Akh Padshah Bai' (There was a Queen) produced by
Other Media Communications on 18th evening. It will be attended by
the representatives of Association of Parents of the Disappeared Persons
(APDP) from Kashmir and the film directors. The screening will be
followed by an interaction with the representatives of APDP and the
directors of the film. This is organised at 5pm in Charles Ranson
Hall, UTC, 17 Millers Road. The screening of the films from ViBGYOR
package will continue on 19th from 10am to 9pm in SCM House, Mission
Road. All are invited.
Organised by ViBGYOR
Film Collective and The Other Media, Supported by Environmrnt Support
Group, NESA, SICHREM, VISTHAR, SANGAMA, Visual Search, Moving Republic,
SCM and UTC.
The third edition
of ViBGYOR will be held from February 13th to 17th 2008 in Thrissur,
Kerala. Around 200 films from all over the world will be screened
in various categories and packages.
For more details:
www.vibgyorfilm.com / www.othermediacommunications.com
*Synopsis of the
film* "Yi As Akh Padshah Bai" (There was a Queen…)
1 hour, 30 minutes Kashmiri/Urdu/Hindi/English with English subtitles
An Other Media Communications' Production * * All Women Crew Directed
by Kavita Pai / Hansa Thapliyal Camera: Ranu Ghosh Sound: Gissy Michael
Editing: Gouri Patwardhan Music: Manish J. Tipu
Executive Producer:
E. Deenadayalan * * *Synopsis*
"Give us
guns and we'll play our role!" - These are not the words of a
hardened criminal, these are the words of a teenaged girl in Kashmir
less than a week after her sister was buried. Farha's sister Shahnaza,
and her friend, Ulfat, victims of 'crossfire', would have been adult
women today - they were barely seventeen when they died, as old as
the *tehreek*, the movement, that exploded into existence in 1989,
shattering forever the peace of the Valley, and turning it into one
of the most critical conflict zones in the world.
Over these eighteen
years, flashes of intensified conflict and bouts of negotiations have
followed one another with monotonous regularity in Kashmir. Newspapers
and television channels manufacture predictable binary images of conflict
– angry men and weeping women, peace loving Kashmiris and terrorist
Kashmiris, misguided innocents and fundamentalist separatists, victims
and aggressors. Over and above these is the image that erases all
differences – the Kashmiri as terrorist.
When we set out
to make a film on peace initiatives by women in conflict, the question
uppermost in our minds was, are women in Kashmir not Kashmiri, do
they really want peace? What kind of peace? And what about the men,
don't they want peace too, aren't they human? If both men and women
want peace, then what is the conflict about? Can 'peace' still the
turmoil at the heart of every Kashmiri? What then are the conditions
for peace?
It felt strange
to speak to women, only women, ignoring the other half. So we spoke
to a few men – one a former militant, another who had sent his
son for training across the border with his blessings, a third who
had lost his son and then realized he was a militant, a fourth whose
brother was killed in crossfire – we spoke to men and realized
that while every story had the power to shock and move, the women's
stories were compelling in their honesty, in their rage, in their
helplessness, in their grief, in their
contempt, in their fierce refusal to forget, in their determination
to survive, to nurture. It is through these women – proud, strong,
with an undying zest for life – that we examine what peace means
and how it can come about in Kashmir.
