the root reel – The Metrognome

…is coming to your city, every weekend, starting tomorrow, as part of the Dharamshala International Film Festival’s ‘best documentaries package’.

by Medha Kulkarni

The Dharamshala International Film Festival (DIFF), in association with The Root Reel and Blue Frog, is presenting ‘The Best Documentaries Package’, in which some of the best documentaries will be screened for Mumbai audiences, every weekend. The initiative starts tomorrow.

The first film to be showcased tomorrow, August 4, is the highly acclaimed film 5 Broken Cameras. It is a deeply personal, first-hand account of life and non-violent resistance in Bil’in, a West Bank village surrounded by Israeli settlements. Shot by Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat, who bought his first camera in 2005 to record the birth of his youngest son, Gibreel, the film was co-directed by Burnat and Guy Davidi, an Israeli filmmaker. Structured in chapters around the destruction of each one of Burnat’s cameras, the filmmakers’ collaboration follows one family’s evolution over five years of village upheaval.

As the years pass in front of the camera, we witness Gibreel grow from a newborn baby into a young boy who observes the world unfolding around him with the astute powers of perception that only children possess. Burnat watches from behind the lens as olive trees are bulldozed, protests intensify and lives are lost in this cinematic diary and unparalleled record of life in the West Bank. In the current climate, with constant upheavals in the Middle East, this film is a telling reminder of how life changes in a seeming instant.

5 Broken Cameras is the first-ever Palestinian film to be nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the Academy Awards. Watch the trailer here:

About the initiative:

As filmmakers based in Dharamshala, Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam of White Crane Films, have long believed that the town’s unusual profile would make it a perfect destination for an international film festival. The inaugural edition of DIFF was held in November 2012, showcasing 26 contemporary features, documentaries and shorts, curated from the best of international independent cinema.

The second DIFF will take place over four days in 2013, from October 24 to 27, 2013. The aim is to build and expand on the blueprint of the first edition and establish DIFF as a world-class film festival, where filmmakers and film lovers can interact in an intimate, creative and informal way.

The Root Reel is a Mumbai based organisation whose main objective is to be a mirror, reflecting upon stories around us and try bringing them closer to the urban audience.

Entry is free and on a first-come-first-seated basis. Head to Blue Frog, Zeba Centre, Mathuradas Mill Compound, Lower Parel, tomorrow at 7.30 pm. Call 098200 95432 for details.

(Pictures courtesy rabble.ca, www.newwavefilms.co.uk)

A great idea takes Root

The Root Reel, an initiative to bring good documentary films and discourses on them to the public, turns one today.

by Medha Kulkarni

It started off as a simple idea born out of sheer love for good documentary films and after 12 months, incredible documentaries, critical engagements, passionate debates and discussions, The Root Reel celebrates its first anniversary today.

Part of The Root, which was conceived as a platform to facilitate discourses and expression on social and environmental issues through workshops, music, film (whether animation, documentary or short film), and other cultural avenues, The Root Reel deals specifically with films. In the course of the last year, The Root has set up various forums that saw the exchange of ideas and thoughts and encouraged a critical engagement with the issue at hand.

The Root Reel has been organising documentary film screenings once a week at the Alliance Francaise Auditorium, either in collaboration with another organisation or by themselves. This weekend’s film screening is extra special as it marks a milestone in the life of The Root Reel and has been organised in conjunction with the Indian Documentary Foundation (IDF). The film being showcased is Whores’ Glory and it is being shown on a first-come-first-seated basis.

Prior to this, The Root Reel has showcased such films as Megacities, Between The Lines, NEXT: A Primer On Urban Painting and Blood In The Mobile.

Those of you that can get out of work by 6 pm today, head to the Alliance Francaise Auditorium, Theosophy Hall, near Nirmala Niketan, Churchgate, to watch this film and stay back for a bit and participate in the discussion thereafter. The film is directed by Michael Glawogger and is 90 minutes long. Entry is free.

About Whores’ Glory:

Whores’ Glory is a cinematic triptych on prostitution: three locations, three languages, three religions. Paradise, the world and the hereafter merge in prostitution to create an image of the relationship between men and women. In Thailand, women wait for men behind glass panes, staring at reflections of themselves. In Bangladesh, men go to a ghetto of love to satisfy their unfulfilled desires on trapped girls. And in Mexico, women pray to a female death so as not to see and feel their own reality. Where the most intimate becomes a commodity, the product is expensive and fiercely contested.

Look for more details on The Root and their events here.