We are super excited to bring you the 5th Indian Documentary Film Festival Bhubaneswar. It will be organized from 26th to 29th September at the Odissi Research Centre, XIMB Square.The festival line up will focus on contemporary documentary films from across the country. It will have a retrospective on the documentary films of Manipuri filmmaker Haobam Paban Kumar. Filmmakers from different parts of India will grace the festival with their presence and interact with the people of the city.
The festival poster is based on a poem called 'The Second Olive Tree' by Mahmoud Darwish.
Ruchika Negi
Ruchika Negi, a documentary filmmaker, visual artist, and educator, boasts a rich portfolio of work including Two Autumns in Wyszogród and Every Time You Tell A Story. Rajkumari Prajapati is a social activist renowned for her collaborative film project Raat: Night Time in Small Town India.
Niharika Popli
Niharika Popli, a filmmaker from the Uttarakhand with roots in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region of Pakistan. Having grown up in a multi-lingual family, Niharika has always been fascinated by the ability of languages to shape our perceptions of the world and ourselves.
Sreemoyee Singh
Sreemoyee Singh is a filmmaker and producer from Kolkata. She has a PhD degree on 'The Exiled Filmmaker in Post-Revolution Iran' from the department of Film Studies at Jadavpur University. She learned Persian and traveled to Iran to film her debut documentary "And, Towards Happy Alleys".
Sudha P Francis
Sudha Padmaja Francis is an independent filmmaker, researcher, copyeditor residing in Palakkad, Kerala. She has worked in editorial capacities at various organizations. She has made a short fiction and few documentary films, since 2016, which have screened at several festivals in the world. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Social Anthropology at IIT Palakkad.
Rangan Chakravarty
Rangan Chakravarty is a Kolkata based media producer and director. He did his masters in Media Studies from The New School for Social Studies, NY and a D. Phil from Sussex University. Rangan has conducted training workshops on gender and communications in Yemen, Egypt and Netherlands, and has served as a consultant for the Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam.
Stanzin Dorjai
Stanzin Dorjai, a filmmaker living in Ladakh, is dedicated to sharing stories that open the viewers’ eyes and minds to the unique challenges of life in the high Himalayas. His subjects are as compelling as the landscape. His message is as profound as the surrounding mountaintops.
Haobam Paban Kumar
Haobam is a prominent voice, emitting out of the restive north eastern state of Manipur, India dabbling in both non-fiction and fiction storytelling. His film AFSPA 1958 was awarded the Golden Lotus for the Best Documentary at the 56th National Film Awards 2008. "A CRY IN THE DARK" is another film screened at the 31st Toronto Film Festival 2006 and MOMA New York 2007. After nearly a decade of documentary filmmaking, he made his critically acclaimed feature film Loktak Lairembee (Lady of the Lake) which featured at 67th Berlin Film Festival 2017 and 21st Busan International Film Festival 2016.
Prachi Bajana
Prachee Bajania is a filmmaker, editor and writer. A post-graduate of NID, Ahmedabad and FTII, Pune, Prachee's journey is marked by eleven independent documentaries commissioned by esteemed institutions such as India Foundation for the Arts, Charles Correa Foundation, Sahapedia, Rough Edges and more. Her work resonates deeply with societal and humanitarian themes.
Films at IDFFB 2024
Insides and Outsides
Dir: Arab Ahmed
In an increasingly hostile environment of escalating violence, discrimination and disenfranchisement, Arbab explores what it is like being a Muslim in the country. The film ebbs and flows between looking outside in his surroundings, where a constant stream of hate erupts and engulfs all sides, and inside, where Arbab’s parents back home renegotiate their sense of identity with a changing political reality.
No City For Women
Dir: Rangan Chanravarty
Gurgaon, India's Millennium City, promises many opportunities - but, for women, it also poses specific challenges. Through women's personal narratives, the film explores their experiences of living and working in Gurgaon and illuminates the gendered nature of urban Indian life.
Trolley Times
Dir: Gurvinder Singh
'Trolley Times' is a portrayal of the historic and the largest sit-in protest, perhaps ever staged in the world, primarily by the farmers of Punjab and Haryana on the borders of Delhi from November 2020 to December 2021 against the three new farm laws passed by the Union government. The title itself is derived from the newsletter 'Trolley Times' that was started as a voice of the protest by a group of activists.
Humare Beech Mein
Dir: Rajkumar Prajapati & Ruchika Negi
Humare Beech Mein is a conversation between two women about making a film on caste. How do we film caste? What do we show? What do we hide? Who has access? Who refrains?
AND, TOWARDS HAPPY ALLEYS
Dir: Sreemoyee Singh
And Towards Happy Alleys is a passionate declaration of love for the cinema and poetry of Iran which also provides a frank view of daily life and bears witness to a fearless generation raising its voice and implacably demanding its civil liberties.
AGAINST THE TIDE
Dir: Sarvnik Kaur
Two friends, both indigenous Koli fishermen in Bombay, are driven to desperation by a dying sea. Their friendship begins to fracture as they take very different paths to provide for their struggling families.
AFSPA, 1958
Dir: HAOBAM PABAN KUMAR
During lntegraion of Manipur in 1949, a large portion of Manipuri population was resistant, believing the merger to be an illegal and illegitimate annexation. To curb these 'separatists,' the government adopted the Armed Forces Special Power Act, 1958, allowing officers to search and arrest based on mere suspicion, also to shoot and kill at will.
PRISONER NO. 626710 IS PRESENT
Dir: Lalit Vachani
Prisoner No. 626710 waits interminably for a bail hearing in court…Meanwhile, two friends who await his release reminisce and discuss the events and the circumstances that led to his incarceration.
FLY PAST, HORNBILL
Dir: Amit Mahanti
The Hornbill Festival in Nagaland is an annual state-sponsored event spread over several days in Kisama (Naga Heritage Village), where the culture of different Naga tribes is show-cased. Fly Past, Hornbill is a video essay that unpacks different layers of the festival – the performance and staging of culture, the engagement of tourists, commercialisation, political instrumentalization and military presence.
HELLO GUYZZ!
Dir: SAMIKSHA MATHUR
Hello Guyzz! is a reflection of modern day India, where cheap internet, longing to become the next big star, and high aspirations are a reality. But so are class, caste and gender differences.
ALL THAT PERISHES AT THE EDGE OF LAND, Dir: Hira Nabi
A ship berthed at Gadani and the shipbreakers coming from all over Pakistan to break it, discovers that they might have more in common than otherwise imagined, when they enter into a conversation
MEELON DUR
Dir: Megha Acharya
The everyday lives of three female labourers working in a brick kiln takes an upsetting turn after an unexpected rainfall halts their work. What unfolds is a threatening tale of unorganized labour and economic debts in a rapidly urbanizing India.
IN NO SENCE
Dir: Gia Singh Arora
In no sense, takes us on an intimate journey through a woman's complex relationship with the haunting reality of child sexual abuse. Through a unique interplay of movement and behind-the-scenes moments, it explores the complexities of trauma and attachment, memory and the body, inviting reflections on the possibility of healing and recovery.
DEKHO MAIN HOON
Dir: Gia Singh Arora
A small film crew observes the poetic world of renowned Bharatanatyam exponent, choreographer, and teacher Navtej Singh Johar through a three day workshop at his home in Sonipat, Haryana. The participants go through an introspective journey through movement as they explore touch, intimacy, and expression. As questions emerge in space, the borders between observing, capturing and thinking being collide.
PHUM SHANG (FLOATING LIFE)
Dir: HAOBAM PABAN KUMAR
In 2011, Manipur government burnt down hundreds of huts in Loktak Lake, in the pretext of cleaning the lake and blaming the locals for the pollution of the lake. Thousands of fishermen were displaced, became homeless and their livelihood snatched. With nowhere to go, the fisherpeople still continue to fight the authorities. They continue to fight a losing battle, where the administration challenge their relationship with the lake, since they live on floating huts, built on floating biomass or ‘Phumdis’
THE FIRST LEAP
Dir: HAOBAM PABAN KUMAR
The artiste of the first feature film of Manipur is meeting after a gap of 37 years. They meet, had lunch together and for the first time in 37 years they are watching the first feature film of Manipur - Matamgee Manipur together.
SLAVES OF THE EMPIRE
Dir: Rajesh James
Slaves of the Empire unfolds against the backdrop of colonial-era Fort Kochi, a picturesque town in Kerala. The film delves deep into the ordinary existence of a dhobi community, laundry workers who were enslaved by the Dutch during the colonial era.
B25
Dir: Raqeeb and Manvendra
Inside the walls of B25 is a sanctuary, where lives intersect, stories intertwine and people flourish. The film offers glimpses of these unconventional bonds and experiences, that reframe notions of home and belonging, while reflecting on queerness, love, chosen families, gender, violence, identity and freedom, against the backdrop of a rapidly changing country.
IF I COULD TELL YOU
Dir: Niharika Popli
If I Could Tell You invites viewers to reflect on the universal human need for expression and the many different ways we all strive to communicate our truths
INDI(R)A'S EMERGENCY
Dir: Vikramaditya Motwane, Archana Phadke, Arya Rothe
Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi abruptly proclaimed a 'internal emergency' in June 1975, imprisoning her opponents and stifling the media. The largest democracy in the world endured a virtual dictatorship for 21 months.
MR INDIA
Dir: Haobam Paban Kumar
The life and achievements of HIV-positive bodybuilder K. Pradipkumar, who won the Mr Manipur title in 2007 and several other laurels in other competitions at national levels.
THE ORCHARD AND THE PARDES
Dir:Renu Savant
In 2021, the filmmaker lived and recorded in Ratnagiri, documenting the lives of four Nepalese migrant laborers in a mango orchard. The film, The Orchard and the Pardes reveals power struggles between the workers, their employer, and the filmmaker, and explores the complexities of power dynamics at the micro level.
MY GRANDFATHER'S HOUSE
Dir:Alvina Joshi
The director visits her late grandfather's house to mourn his death with her grandmother. Once there, ugly truths about what kind of a man her grandfather was begin to surface.
GINGER BISCUIT
Dir:Sudha Padmaja Francis
The long history of baking in North Kerala from 1880s to its everyday practice and labour today, intermingled with filmmaker's own memories of it.
RASAN PIYA
Dir: Niharika Popli
'Rasan Piya' is a documentary on the life of renowned Hindustani classical vocalist, Ustad Abdul Rashid Khan, who represented the 16th generation of Miyan Tansen's lineage. The film explores the various influences that have shaped his life and music, a life steeped in the rich culture of Awadh.
ANDRO DREAMS
Dir: Meena Longjam
Andro Dreams is the love story of Laibi, an old woman with spirited soul, and her three-decade old all girls football club battling economic challenges, patriarchal system and orthodoxy in an ancient village of northeast India.
FLICKERING LIGHTS
Dir:Anupama Srinivasan, Anirban Dutta
In Tora, an Indian village on the border with Myanmar, the rhythm of life is set by daylight and darkness. But the village is on the verge of change: electricity is finally coming. Will it bring this close-knit community the progress it is hoping for?
THE BOOKS WE MADE
Dir:Anupama Chandra and Umadevi Tanuku
The Books We Made' is a documentary inspired by the work of Urvashi Butalia and Ritu Menon, both of whom co-founded the first feminist publishing house in India: 'Kali for Women'. The film is about the joy and pain of surviving in two non-lucrative professions: that of writing for small, discerning audiences, and that of publishing, translating and promoting work barely known outside its own linguistic region in India.
I WILL COME BACK DANCING IN THE DUNES
Dir: Christiane Mordelet and Stanzin Dorjai Gya
Otgo, 11, is the youngest of a family of herders in the Gobi desert. Proud of her freedom when she sings on her camel, alone among the dunes, lovingly caring for baby animals, listening carefully to her father's advice, happy when dancing on the stage of her village while dreaming of becoming a dancer in Ulan Bator's Opera, will she be strong enough to follow a different path cut off from her roots?
NUPISHABI (FEMALE IMPERSONATOR)
Dir : Haobam Paban Kumar
Sumang Leela or Courtyard Play is one of the most popular art forms of Manipur. One of the main attractions of this theatre is the Nupishabi or Female Impersonator. In this theatre no female can act, so male perform female roles. In brief it is a socially accepted tradition where males can become a female in front of the common people. But what is the story of these artistes who perform daily to make people happy? Why does one opts to do a female role in a society where being male is ‘the thing’? The film travels with these artists to trace these answers; looking at the back stage of their life and in the process, tries to look for the key answer – ‘What does it mean to be a Nupishabi?’
