The Documentary circle of Hyderabad will be screening two films today in context with the Indian woman’s collective and individual struggles. The films, directed by award winning Merajur Rehman Baruah and Uma Chakravarti bring to light pertinent issues. Beginning at 7 pm today, the screening will take place at Lamakaan, Road no 1, Banjara Hills. The event is open to all.
Express Features
n Shifting Prophecy (2007) by Merajur Baruah is a 30 minute film that focuses on the struggles of rural Muslim women, in particular Daud Sherifa Khanam, to fight the sexist rulings of the conventional jamaat (a group of Islamic male elders who decide on issues of marriage, dowry, divorce etc) and patriarchal social order in Tamil Nadu.An independent documentary filmmaker, Merajur received the Commonwealth Vision Award 2006 as commanded for his film “Beyond the Zero Line” from the Royal Commonwealth Society, United Kingdom. He has also received Rajat Kamal for the best film on social issues at the 55th National Film Awards and also best director award for his film “Shifting Prophecy” at the Hyderabad International film Festival 2008.
n Fragments of a Past (2012) by Uma Chakravarti is a 52-minute film that locates the life and work of a woman political activist in her everyday existence, the relationships she lives out at home and in her work and the political affiliations she tries to hold together, even as they are subjected to multiple stresses. Through her journey of recovering her grandmother’s history for a different generation of women, in a poignant reminder of the ephemeral nature of memory, and the loss of remembrance itself, she cannot often recall the very event that led to her own political transformation, even as it is etched in the memories of so many others who outlived the tragedy of that event, or heard about it then, and over the many decades thereafter.Following a life-long engagement with history, in 2010, Uma made her first film on an unknown woman who was on the fringes of history but was politically active between 1922 and 1930.