Indian Ocean & South Asia Research Network

21 October 2013

Like Us, Like Them: Reflecting on Documentary Praxis – a social justice film retrospective

About the retrospective:

Drawing on the documentary film work of the speakers, this presentation, illustrated with clips from the 1990s onwards,critically engages with the politics of representation in documentary film. There is also the vexed issue of using the image as evidence. The turn towards the reflexive, the poetic and the affective within documentary work has to be located in this context, where the truth claims of the documentary come into question. The presentation will discuss these issues, in an attempt to share some insights and dilemmas that are thrown up in any encounter between filmmakers, their texts and subjects.

A short bio of the speakers

Anjali Monteiro and K.P. Jayasankar are Professors at the  School of Media and Cultural Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.  Both of them are involved in documentary production, media teaching and researchsince the 1980s. Jointly they have won thirty national and international awards for their films. Their most recent award is the Basil Wright Prize for ‘So Heddan So Hoddan’  (Like Here Like There) at the 13th RAI International Festival of Ethnographic Film 2013.  An adaptation of their film ‘Saacha‘ (The Loom) is a part of the exhibition ‘Project Space: Word. Sound. Power.‘ currently showing at the Tate Modern, London. They have several papers in the area of media and cultural studies. They also serve as visiting faculty to several institutions in India and abroad and are currently at the University of Technology, Sydney as an ICCR visiting professor/Key Technology Partner fellow.

31 October 2013

Imagining DiverCity: a screening of 3 films on Mumbai integrating  Q&A with filmmakers Anjali Monteiro and K P Jayashankar.

This event is co-hosted by Indian Ocean South Asia Research Network, FASS and DAB.

The three films to be screened are:

Saacha
Directed by K.P. Jayasankar and Anjali Monteiro, 2001, 49 Mins

Bharatmata ki Jai
Directors: Avadhoot Khanolkar , Anurag Mazumdar, Arpita Chakraborty, Amol Ranjan, Shweta Radhakrishnan, 2012, 28 mins.

Naata
Directed by K.P. Jayasankar and AnjaliMonteiro, 2003, 45 Mins.

About the filmmakers:

Monteiro and Jayashankar are award winning film makers and Professors at the School of Media and Cultural Studies at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). They are currently at UTS as ICCR Visiting Professor/Key Technology Partner Fellow for a semester.  Their work cuts through a number of layers of spatial, socio-political, economic and communal concerns that confront communities in the metropolis – that I know would be of interest to many of you in the faculty.

TISS is a one of five Indian universities that are Key Technology Partners with UTS and has a number of schools and centres ranging from habitat studies, urban policy and governance, and critical media praxis. Given the emphasis (and Uni support) for research collaboration and staff/student mobility between KTP institutions, the occasion could also serve as a prompt to consider opportunities for working together.

10 March 2009

NAATA (The Bond), Anjali Monteiro & K.P. Jayasankar, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India, 45 min