7047

Frank Brazil presents three events marking 70 years of the partition of India, and the end of 200 years of British occupation. The partition created about·15 million refugees and over 1 million people are thought to have died. Many families of refugees have settled in east London, this small programme is in recognition of these communities.

Venue: Redbridge Central Library, York Room, Ilford Hill, Ilford IG1 2DQ. (Map: Public transport: Ilford Rail Station, Bus no: 25, 147+)

Saturday 29 July 2017 at 12:00 film screening

RABBA HUN KE KARIYE (Thus Departed Our Neighbours)

Director & Producer Ajay Bhardwaj, India, 2007, 65 minutes, Punjabi with English subtitles. + audience discussion

While India won her independence from the British rule in 1947, the north western province of Punjab was divided into two. The Muslim majority areas of West Punjab became part of Pakistan, and the Hindu and Sikh majority areas of East Punjab remained with, the now divided, India. The truncated Punjabs bore scars of large-scale killings as each was being cleansed of their minorities.Sixty years on, Rabba Hun Kee Kariye trails this shared history divided by the knife. For the first time a documentary turns its gaze at the perpetrators, as seen through the eyes of bystanders. While East Punjabis fondly remember their bonding with the Muslim neighbours and vividly recall its betrayal, the film excavates how the personal and informal negotiated with the organized violence of genocide. In village after village, people recount what life had in store for those who participated in the killings and lootings.Periodically, the accumulated guilt of a witness or a bystander surfaces, sometimes discern- able in their subconscious, other times visible in the film. Without rancour and with great pain a generation unburdens it's heart, hoping this never happens again.

"In memory of all that was lost in 1947" , Ajay Bhardwaj.

Tickets £5 - Book here

 

Saturday 12 August 2017 at 12:00

7047 - Round table discussion

August marks the end of the British occupation of India and the violent partition·of the South Asian subcontinent into Pakistan, India and later Bangladesh. This is an·invitation for members of the community to gather and remember their families and friends. We will also discuss the legacies of partition on families today and the future of the·subcontinent. If you would like to take part please book a place.

Free - Book here

 

Saturday 19 August 2017 at 12:00 film screening

WORDS ON WATER Director & writer Sanjay Kak, India, 2002, 84 minutes, Hindi with English subtitles.+ audience discussion.

Sanjay Kak For more than 15 years, people of the Narmada Valley in central India have resisted a series of massive dams on their river, and in their struggle have exposed the deceptive heart of India1s development politics. When the use of violence has become the arbiter of all political debate, Words on Water is about a sustained non-violent resistance, an almost joyous defiance, which empowers people as they struggle for their rights, yet saves them from the ultimate humiliation of violence.

Tickets £5 - Book here

 

7047 is curated by Tajender Sagoo. All are welcome, but spaces are limited so booking is required.

For enquires contact : info@frankbrazil.org T: +44 (0)7902 740964

This Land Is Ours

View video & read transcripts of the discussions on the blog.

Join us for a weekend of Sanjay Kak documentary films curated by Tajender Sagoo director of Frank Brazil at the BFI London.

Sanjay Kak is a leading figure in a generation of filmmakers that emerged in post-independence India. Urgent and uncompromising, Kak's films have reached audiences in villages and small towns, distributed and screened through India’s vast network of activist groups.

His study of the Asian community in the UK, This Land, My Land, Eng-Land! was filmed in 1990, the era of Norman Tebbit’s ‘cricket test,’ but speaks just as much to present day Brexit Britain.

Jashn-e-Azadi (How We Celebrate Freedom) is about the ongoing conflict in Kashmir, released in 2007, the people of Kashmir live in a profoundly militarised society.

Red Ant Dream is a film that critiques the idea of citizenship in a democracy as people across India protest against land grabs, under policies that evoke colonial era occupations. The film asks – are revolutions even possible anymore?

 

Sat 16 Sep 2017

This Land, My Land, Eng-Land! + Q&A with Sanjay Kak and Virinder Kalra, Professor in Sociology, University of Warwick. 
India 1990. Dir Sanjay Kak. 59min. EST

Sanjay Kak explores life with artists Rita Wolf, Parv Bancil, and Faruk and Harun Shamser of Joi Bangla Crew as they struggle for a place in the sun. Three decades after South Asians first came to Britain in the 1960s, this compelling film follows a new generation of young creatives, and examines the endless rehearsals that go into the construction of identity.

 

Sat 16 Sep 2017

Jashn-E-Azadi

How We Celebrate Freedom + intro by Sanjay Kak. India 2007. Dir Sanjay Kak. 138min. Kashmiri, Urdu with EST.

Sanjay Kak explores the many meanings of Azadi (Freedom) using
a combination of vérité, rare archive and poetry, and sets his film during the long-running conflict in Kashmir, possibly the most militarised zone in the world. It’s now 10 years since the release of his film but the words of Kashmiris continue to bear urgent witness to the unfolding trauma. ‘Start speaking about Kashmir again. Start speaking about Kashmir now,’ insists Kak.
 An informal discussion with Sanjay Kak in the Blue Room follows the screening.

 

Sun 17 Sep 2017

Red Ant Dream + intro by Sanjay Kak. India 2013. Dir Sanjay Kak. 119min. Gondi, Odiya, Punjabi with EST .

Sanjay Kak (b.1958) has been making documentaries since the mid-1980s and is part of a generation of independent Indian film auteurs who have challenged dominant narratives and who have sought alternative distribution for their work. During a richly illustrated conversation,

Are revolutions even possible anymore? asks Sanjay Kak. Armed insurrection simmers in Bastar, Chattisgarh. In Odisha, beleaguered Adivasis from the mineral-rich hills resist. In Punjab, peasant protestors rally around Bhagat Singh, icon of the anti-colonial struggle. In this state-of-the-nation film, Kak uses found footage and the rich tradition of poetry and protest songs in an urgent critique of Indian democracy. Joint ticket available with Sanjay Kak in Conversation £15, concs £12
(Members pay £2 less)

 

Sanjay Kak in Conversation

TRT 90min

Sanjay Kak (b.1958) has been making documentaries since the mid-1980s and is part of a generation of independent Indian film auteurs who have challenged dominant narratives and who have sought alternative distribution for their work. During a richly illustrated conversation, Sanjay Kak will talk about his work as an activist and filmmaker. The session will be chaired by Virinder Kalra, Professor in Sociology, University of Warwick, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask your own questions.

Programmed in partnership with the BFI

Punjab 2.1 Searching for Punjabiyat in two lands one people

Poetry, Politics, Song and Film

Recorded on 31 May 2014 at the BFI Southbank, Blue Room.

An afternoon dedicated to Punjabi identity, poetry, politics, song and film.

Dr Virinder S Kalra discussed the importance of the radical filmmaker Ajay Bhardwaj’s work and the work of renowned Punjabi poet Surjit Patar amongst others. The artist and folk singer Sara Kazmi sang the poetry from one of the pioneers of modern Punjabi literature Najam Hossain Syed and of Bulleh Shah and Madhu Lal Hussain. Writer Kavita Bhanot read an excerpt from her novel in progress "Boulton Road vale Baba". The afternoon concluded with an audience discussion about the future of Punjabi culture chaired by the writer Kavita Bhanot.

Event supported by the BFI , The Punjab Restaurant & Peanut Photography

Podcasts in order of presentation

Speaker : Sara Kazmi The poetry of Najam Husain Syed, Bulleh Shah and Madhu Lal Hussain

Speaker : Dr Virinder S Kalra Searching for Punjabiyat

Speaker : Kavita BhanotBoulton Road vale Baba” (working title) A short reading from a novel-in-progress. Set in 80’s and 90’s Handsworth, Birmingham, this is a fictional depiction of a dera community that gathers around a guru on 23 Boulton Road

Speakers : Sara Kazmi,Virinder S Kalra and Kavita Bhanot (Chair) Open discussion

Virinder S Kalra

Camera and editing David Somerset

Kavita Bhanot grew up in London and lived for many years in Birmingham before moving to India where she directed an Indian-British literary festival and worked as an editor for India’s first literary agency. Kavita is a PhD student at Manchester University, and has Masters in Creative Writing and in Colonial and Post-colonial Literature, from Warwick University. She has had several stories published in anthologies and magazines, two of her stories have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4, and she is the editor of the short story collection Too Asian, Not Asian Enough (Tindal Street Press, 2011).

Sara Kazmi has been actively involved with street theatre and folk singing since the past four years. Based primarily in Lahore, the troupe she performs with has also toured rural parts of West Punjab, and has performed Punjabi plays in Ludhiana, East Punjab as well. Her interest in these activities is rooted in the desire for discovering new forms of cultural and aesthetic politics. She is currently pursuing a Masters in History at SOAS, University of London.

Dr Virinder S Kalra is a senior lecturer in Sociology at the University of Manchester with an interest in Punjabi culture and religion. He has written extensively on the Punjabi diaspora, especially on performative culture such as music and film. His latest book is Sacred and Secular Musics: A Postcolonial Approach (Continuum) which looks at the terrain of spiritual music in Punjab.

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