Four-day online South Asian Feminist Film Festival begins tomorrow

Sangat Network and Kriti Film Club have announced their South Asian Feminist Film Festival to be held online from 27 through 30 November 2020.

This is the first edition of the festival and will feature 29 films across the six themes of the festival.

The festival celebrates South Asian Women’s Day and is aimed at bringing shared yet diverse identities, issues and ideologies alive. It will showcase short films, animation films, documentaries and feature films.

The curator’s note said, 'The films weave stories around themes of identity, labour, childhood, family, violence, conflict, ecology, culture, resistance and borders and take us on a journey that is nostalgic yet celebratory; difficult yet humorous; friendly yet conflicting... e(merging) from within and across the themes. Some old, some new and some very recent films have been included in the festival to give us a flavour of what it means to be South Asian.'

Some of the films being screened at the festival are Eeb Allay Ooo!, Bebaak (2018), Ashmina, Nooreh (2018), Sita's Family and Dreaming Taj Mahal from India; Ticket Please, Dying Dreams and When Mother Comes Home For Christmas from Sri Lanka; Bare Trees In The Mist and Saving Dolma from Nepal; Tazreen and Ontojatra from Bangladesh; Invisible Line and The Mermaid Of Churna Island from Pakistan, and Second Face from Afghanistan.

In addition to the films, there will be two panel discussions during the festival. The themes are ‘Minority and Queer Narratives’ and ‘What does it mean to be a South Asian today’. The first panel will feature Shazia Iqbal, Jabeen Merchant, Gagandeep Singh and Anomaa Rajakaruna and will be moderated by Vani Subramanian. The second panel will include Lubna Mariam, Salima Hashmi, Sapna Pradhan Malla, Nimalka Fernando and Miriam Chandy Menacherry and will be moderated by Kamla Bhasin.