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Film screening: ‘My name is Salt’

Watch the critically acclaimed and multiple award winning documentary ‘My name is Salt’ this evening; being screened at the NCPA.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

A powerful story well told, has an impact like no other.

This evening, the critically-acclaimed and much-feted documentary film, My Name Is Salt, will be screened at the NCPA in collaboration with the Indian Documentary Producers’ Assocation (IDPA). The film is a sensitive, searing look at the many families who come to Kutch to extract salt, for a long eight months with the harsh sun beating down on them.

Describes a blurb on the film’s website, ‘The desert extends endlessly – flat, grey, relentless. There is not a tree or blade of grass or rock. But there is one thing in abundance: salt. Salt is everywhere, lying just beneath the cracked, baked surface of the earth. This is the Little Rann of Kutch, 5000 sq kms of saline desert. And for eight months of the year, the salt people live here – laboriously extracting salt from this desolate landscape. They have been doing this for generations.

Year after year, they migrate from their villages, 40,000 of them, to live on this bleak land without water, electricity or provisions. Arriving just after the monsoon, Sanabhai and his family will live here from September until April. Their nearest neighbour is a kilometre away. They communicate by flashing mirrors in the sunlight. Sanabhai’s wife Devuben walks across the bare, trackless desert to chop firewood. They buy the family’s water supply from a private tanker that comes once a week…’

Watch the trailer of the film here:

 

The film is the journey of Chhanabhai and his family who live without water, electricity or provisions for eight months of the year – tirelessly extracting salt from this desolate landscape. Under the blinding glare of the sun, they work on the salt fields until large crystals have formed. Their labour is rhythmic, a dance that mirrors the dance of the mirages on the burning horizon.

Written and directed by Farida Pacha, the film has won several awards at international film festivals.

Admission is on a first-come-first-served basis. NCPA members will get preferential seating till 6.20 pm. The film begins at 6.30 pm and is 92 minutes long.

(Picture courtesy mynameissalt.com)

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Event

Go for COFFI

Short Film festival invites entries from new filmmakers and film institutes; six prizes are up for grabs in three categories.
by The Diarist | thediarist@themetrognome.in

If you’ve made a short film and are looking for a good competition to enter it in, you just got lucky. Or, putting it in another way, if you’ve made a short film and are still readying it for competition, you’re cutting it extremely fine.

The Conference on Film Finance (COFFI) and Awards is giving you the chance to show your film to those who matter the most – filmmakers, producers, film investors and lenders – by bringing the Short Films Contest 2012. The finalists’ films will be screened at COFFI and the winning films will be screened at Shamiana Club. The Awards night is scheduled for December 18, 2012.

The competition has three categories – Short Films, Animated Films and Documentaries, all with a running duration of not more than 15 minutes. Last submission date is December 3, 2012, and if you’re a student submitting a film, your entry fee would be Rs 1,000. For others, the fee is Rs 1,500.

For more details on the competition, list of conference attendees and prizes for winners, log on to coffi@sixsigmafilms.com.

(Picture courtesy astro.temple.edu. Picture used for representational purpose only) 

 

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