SUN OCT 24 2004
5:30 Bombay: Our City
Anand Patwardhan (India, 1985)

Artist in Person

(Hamara Shahar). In Bombay, some four million people—about half the city's population—inhabit hastily constructed huts clustered in sidewalk colonies. Attempts to cure the city's ills through “beautification” have led to the periodic bulldozing of the slums, but somehow, the poor always reappear. With characteristic compassion and ironic insight, Patwardhan gives equal time to Bombay's slumdwellers and to their privileged opponents—indeed, some of the most compelling evidence against demolition comes from the very people who favor it, as they reveal their nostalgia for the good old colonial days while enjoying the fruits of the slumdwellers' backbreaking labors. The people who are literally building the metropolis are afforded no home there. One poor woman confronts the filmmaker: “Do you have a solution? You just want to earn a name taking photographs.” Patwardhan's only reply is to continue filming, giving a few disenfranchised people the chance to speak. - Juliet Clark

Photographed by Ranjan Palit, Patwardhan. (82 mins, In Hindi with English subtitles, Color, DV-Cam, From First Run/Icarus)

Followed by short:
Occupation: Mill Worker
Anand Patwardhan (India, 1996).

By the mid-nineties, many of the textile mills that supported Bombay's once vibrant working class had shut down. Patwardhan observes as employees forcibly occupy one closed mill, and screens Bombay: Our City for workers refurbishing the machines. (22 mins, In Hindi with English subtitles, Color, DV-Cam, From First Run/Icarus)

(Total running time: 104 mins)