DOCUMENTARY VOICES: ANAND PATWARDHAN
THU OCT 7 2004 - SUN OCT 24 2004

Artist in Person, October 21–24

Indian filmmaker Anand Patwardhan has described himself as “a non-serious human being forced by circumstance to make serious films.” Active for three decades in the fight for social justice, both in India and abroad, Patwardhan makes documentaries out of passionate political commitment. His films advocate for change with sincerity and conviction, but not without wry humor and an eye for the absurd.

Patwardhan has a distinctive filmic “voice” in a literal sense: in his films we often hear him speak, as narrator or thoughtful questioner. He often does his own camerawork, providing a feeling of directness, a personal eye. His films have found acclaim at festivals worldwide, but he has often been forced to fight Indian censors for the right to show them in his native country. The problems he addresses—economic inequality, environmental devastation, the challenges faced by secular and democratic movements in an era of fundamentalism and nationalism—are dangerous and crucial, and clearly as relevant here as they are on the subcontinent.

Patwardhan presents his films in person on four of the six evenings in this series and delivers a lecture on October 21 as part of the ongoing project Documentary Voices, which brings international documentary filmmakers to the Bay Area as resident artists at the Pacific Film Archive. This is a special opportunity to encounter an engaging speaker and an inspiring example of activism against the odds.

Notes by Juliet Clark

Click titles to view full film notes

THU OCT 7 2004
7:30 A Time to Rise
An eloquent document of Indian farmworkers' activism in Canada. With In Memory of Friends, a thoughtful study of the uses of history, religious intolerance, and Bhagat Singh's legacy.

THU OCT 14 2004
7:30 A Narmada Diary
Combining politics, ethnography, and environmentalism, this film documents the devastation wrought by India's Sardar Sarovar dam project, as well as the courage of indigenous people who vow to drown rather than be moved. With Fishing: In the Sea of Greed, a powerful indictment of factory fishing and other “rape and run” industries.

THU OCT 21 2004
7:00 In the Name of God
Lecture by Anand Patwardhan. Patwardhan discusses film and activism following the screening of his fascinating work about the destruction of the Babri Masjid by Hindu fundamentalists. “Hard-hitting, provocative...lucid, courageous.”—Variety. With short We Are Not Your Monkeys.

FRI OCT 22 2004
7:30 Father, Son and Holy War
Anand Patwardhan in Person. “Patwardhan's impressive, passionate documentary explores in great detail the roots of sectarian violence in India today, and suggests that religious fanaticism is not the only problem; the cult of machismo is...just as deadly.”—Variety

SAT OCT 23 2004
7:00 War and Peace
Anand Patwardhan in Person. Patwardhan's monumental, often darkly funny film illuminates the perils of nuclear nationalism in South Asia and around the world. This “solemn, stirring perspective on the competitive chauvinism between India and Pakistan...has a riveting intelligence all its own and earns its epic title.”—NY Times. “A tour de force.”—UK Guardian
[view video clip]

SUN OCT 24 2004
5:30 Bombay: Our City
Anand Patwardhan in Person. A heartbreaking, politically incisive glimpse into the lives of Bombay's slumdwellers. “Patwardhan gives us this story simply and clearly, with restrained passion, and it becomes, finally, appalling and moving.”—LA Times. With short Occupation: Mill Worker.

Presented by the Pacific Film Archive in collaboration with EKTA and
3rd I: South Asian Films. Documentary Voices is made possible with the support of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.