Arbhaat Short Film club: 3rd session

Arbhaat Short Film club had its third screening on 27th June.

I was initially hesitant to go - the sky was leaden, overcast and torrential downpour seemed imminent. The weather, however cooperated and I found myself in the NFAI auditorium at 6:30.
The theme of this session was 'cityscapes'. I have often thought that cities have personalities.

First was a set of 3 movies, black and white and shot in the years, 1956, 1958 and 1959 respectively.

Warsaw '56
Poland, 1956
Director: Jerzy Bossak, Jaroslaw Brzozowski
Length: 7 minutes

I loved this film. Truly. There is a poignancy in the narration and the images of the film that I cannot forget. After the bombing in Warsaw, Poland, buildings are still in ruins. But people continue to inhabit these dangerous places, making it their own. A mother is happy because her child cannot yet walk - a small topple can be dangerous here. The building has precipices, treacherous ledges. The women resort to tying their children to the bed with a string if they are busy. A child escapes and wanders through the building, the string trailing behind her. I think I will forever remember that image - the end of the string being dragged over rubble, the soft patter of young feet and the dangerous stillness of the building.

A day without the sun
Poland, 1959
Length: 19 minutes

Urban reality, loneliness.

Vilay
India, 2010
Director: Umesh Kulkarni
Length: 12:42 minutes

Umesh Kulkarni always manages to touch my heart. In all his films, I find a part of myself, and I hate him for showing it to me and pity myself. Vilay is a story of two individuals - a grandson and his grandmother, who is slowly dying. As she deteriorates, their ancestral home is being dismantled.

This is a movie about change. About death and dying. About things that have been lost. About the holes in our hearts.

I remembered my grandmother, who would also dress in a shirt and a loose skirt to hobble around the house. I remembered the house we left behind - a modern garden flat, but my memories of it, are quite the same as that of the boy and his house.

Local
India, 2012
Director: Bharat Pawar
Length: 5 minutes

An unusual take on a mundane object - the local. 

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