The doc­u­men­tary fol­lows Khur­ram Muraad’s jour­ney to uncov­er the trau­mat­ic mem­o­ries of Hyder­abad’s annex­a­tion (Police Action) in 1948. Through the frag­ment­ed mem­o­ries of his grand­moth­er, Gulnar, he forges a con­nec­tion to a vio­lent past, one he had pre­vi­ous­ly known only ever heard about in pass­ing. As Gulnar pieces togeth­er the haunt­ing rem­nants of a for­got­ten chap­ter in Indian his­to­ry, the bound­aries between past, present, and future blur. As her sto­ry­telling brings light to the emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal scars left by the annex­a­tion, the film embod­ies a med­i­ta­tion on resilience and the con­ti­nu­ity of cul­tur­al memory passed down through generations.

Thoufeeq K is a lens-based artist, researcher, and doc­u­men­tary film­mak­er based in Kerala, cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing a master’s in Visual Anthro­pol­o­gy. He spe­cial­izes in mul­ti­me­dia projects that blend text, sound, and image, focus­ing on the inter­sec­tions of visual arts, anthro­pol­o­gy, and religion.

Khur­ram Muraad is a poet, researcher and doc­u­men­tary film­mak­er based in South India. He com­plet­ed his master’s in lin­guis­tics at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Hyder­abad. His inter­ests include lan­guage, lit­er­a­ture, and lit­er­ary cultures.

The film unfolds as a poignant explo­ration of the film­mak­er’s jour­ney toward under­stand­ing and accept­ing the pro­found sense of belong­ing tied to space and time. It chron­i­cles the moth­er’s expe­ri­ence fol­low­ing an unex­pect­ed turn in the remote land of Sadiya, reflect­ing upon the ways it impact­ed both mother and son. The region is divid­ed and detached from the rest of Assam, with the only access being a cross­ing over the Brahma­pu­tra River - mark­ing the begin­ning of Assam and a tip that was never truly con­nect­ed to the main­land. Through the moth­er’s voice and her deep con­nec­tion to the for­mi­da­ble Brahma­pu­tra, the nar­ra­tive delves into a search for iden­ti­ty, reveal­ing events that have shaped and will con­tin­ue to shape their future.

Ayon Pratim Saikia is a film­mak­ing stu­dent orig­i­nal­ly from Sadiya, sit­u­at­ed on the border of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, India. He holds a BA in Eng­lish lit­er­atur from Tezpur Cen­tral Uni­ver­si­ty, Assam, and is cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing a MA in Design at Nation­al Insti­tute of Design in Ahmed­abad. His vision is to create with empa­thy and kind­ness and wishes to under­stand things beyond as he grows.

Three women living in Uttar Pradesh, India, are bound by the rules of patri­archy within their vil­lage. They work hard during the day while eager­ly await­ing the evening, which brings with it the oppor­tu­ni­ty to step out and tem­porar­i­ly escape into a world of their own imag­i­na­tion. Through walks around the vil­lage out­skirts, pass­ing farms, streams, and rail­way tracks, the film­mak­er fol­lows them with the aim of explor­ing the free­dom of expres­sion these women exhib­it in both pri­vate and public spheres. She takes a simple yet effec­tive approach by join­ing them on an evening stroll, turn­ing what should be ordi­nary into joyful moments shared by three friends and one of their daugh­ters — who is also the filmmaker.

Payal Chauhan, orig­i­nal­ly from a vil­lage in Uttar Pradesh, India, is cur­rent­ly a stu­dent of Film and Video Com­mu­ni­ca­tion at the Nation­al Insti­tute of Design in Ahmed­abad, India. She strong­ly believes in the power of sto­ry­telling and self-expres­sion; as a result, her film projects are deeply per­son­al, often inspired by her own expe­ri­ences and focused on women, chil­dren, and spaces.

Hun­dreds of thou­sands of Indian farm­ers flee out of eco­nom­ic des­per­a­tion into sui­cide. They leave behind their wives with a moun­tain of debt, social exclu­sion and con­demned to slav­ish labor. For his first fea­ture-length doc­u­men­tary film, direc­tor Kin­shuk Surjan has ini­ti­at­ed a sup­port group for such widows. San­ji­vani, wid­owed for 7 years with two chil­dren, becomes his main pro­tag­o­nist. She con­ceals her par­tic­i­pa­tion in the group in front of her broth­er-in-law’s family where she lives, and who are strug­gling with poor har­vests and falling prices them­selves. The young mother is deter­mined to become self-suf­fi­cient through fur­ther edu­ca­tion and work.

The film cap­tures San­ji’s every­day life with almost fea­ture film-like inten­si­ty. The camera makes her face speak, cap­tures beau­ti­ful­ly her close­ness to her chil­dren. Clev­er­ly chosen obser­va­tions local­ize her role in her broth­er-in-law’s family. How­ev­er, her fate is most impres­sive­ly reflect­ed in that of the other widows, whom the viewer expe­ri­ences through her eyes in their despair - only rarely in hope­ful moments. A scare­crow in the dry fields becomes fig­u­ra­tive­ly a ghost of the deceased.

Kin­shuk Surjan is an Indian film­mak­er, based in Brus­sels and Bhopal. He stud­ied doc­u­men­tary film at the mobile film school Doc­No­mads. His short film POLA (2013) won the Indian Nation­al Stu­dent Film Award for Best Film and Best Script in 2013. He went on as a 2nd assis­tant direc­tor on the fic­tion film ISLAND CITY (2015), award­ed at Venice Film fes­ti­val. He con­tin­ued stud­ies at the Royal Insti­tute for The­atre, Cinema & Sound, Brus­sels and made the exper­i­men­tal short DIVIDED LINES (2015). His grad­u­a­tion film THE FLANDRIEN (2017) depicts a boy in Flan­ders, who was pushed into a cycling career by his par­ents, won the Flan­ders Audio­vi­su­al Fund’s “Wild­card” and was later broad­cast­ed. His project MARCHING IN THE DARK par­tic­i­pat­ed in Berli­nale Tal­ents 2021 and received the Human Wrights Awards-Spe­cial Men­tion at CPH:Dox 2024.

Some days, the black kites lit­er­al­ly drop from the sky—the air pol­lu­tion in Delhi, India, can be so intense that flocks of the birds fall to earth. If they’re lucky, they’ll find them­selves in the care of Nadeem and Saud, two heroic broth­ers who are con­cerned about the ani­mals’ wel­fare. They’ve set up an impro­vised sanc­tu­ary for birds of prey, where they treat the ani­mals, feed them until they can fly again. 

There is no false opti­mism here. The broth­ers are some­times down­cast about the point­less­ness of their efforts, but doing noth­ing is not an option. Against the back­drop of grow­ing ten­sions that make the sit­u­a­tion increas­ing­ly desperate—particularly for the Muslim minor­i­ty to which the broth­ers belong—there is hope to be had from the simple fact that there are people who do care. (Idfa)  

SHAUNAK SEN (*1987 in India) His debut film CITIES OF SLEEP was already screened at Film­fo­rum 2017. ALL THAT BREATHES was nom­i­nat­ed for an Oscar and won numer­ous awards at Cannes and Sun­dance Film Fes­ti­val among others.   

Direc­tor: Shau­nak Sen
Cin­e­matog­ra­phy: Ben Bern­hard, Riju Das, Saumayan­da Sahi
Edit­ing: Char­lotte Munch Bengtsen
Music: Roger Goula
Pro­duced by: Rise Films, Kit­er­ab­bit Films
Dis­tri­b­u­tion: The Film Collaborative

Four strangers - same room, same cloth­ing, same city. Four people who would rarely meet in real life, enter into dia­logue. Love, money, faith and some kind of dif­fer­ence. Four times Kolkata, India. An exper­i­men­tal doc­u­men­tary about iden­ti­ty and society.

A house gives us a sense of belong­ing. It envelops us and pro­tects us. It is a symbol of the time, the cul­ture, and the beings that it inhab­its. A house has a unique iden­ti­ty, like a living, breath­ing being. Each house is dif­fer­ent, with its own perks and glitch­es. WITHERING HOUSE is an obser­va­tion­al piece about Maheshb­hai, Tarun­aben, Gan­patb­hai and their house. They have been living in a hun­dred-year-old house for the past 20 years in the heart of Ahmed­abad, but now they have decid­ed to move into a new apart­ment that was made avail­able to them under the Prime Minister’s Hous­ing Scheme. Are the chang­ing times and cir­cum­stances lead­ing towards a strange kind of uni­for­mi­ty under the shadow of ‘urban­ism’ and ‘devel­op­ment’? Or do tra­di­tion­al struc­tures fail to cater to our chang­ing needs?

Nes­tled in the Himalayan range in Uttarak­hand, India, the town of Kalap may soon have a road suit­able for motor­ized vehi­cles. Until then, the vil­lage con­tin­ues to be 10-kilo­me­ter walk uphill from the near­est road. The film delves into the lives of the people of Kalap, who for gen­er­a­tions have been nego­ti­at­ing their own path for sus­tain­able living, and Kot­gaon, a town which is already con­nect­ed with a pass­able road. Will easy access to the world beyond bring a grad­ual shift in social and cul­tur­al values across gen­er­a­tions? KAHAN KA RAASTA is an immer­sive jour­ney through time and space into the every­day real­i­ty of Kalap and Kot­gaon. It tran­spires at the pace of vil­lage life and unveils its many facets.

Why do people sing when they work? In Phek, a vil­lage in the hills close to the border between India and Myan­mar, almost all res­i­dents work togeth­er in the fields. While prepar­ing the rice ter­races, plant­i­ng seedlings, or har­vest­ing the grain and car­ry­ing it up impos­si­bly steep slopes, the rice cul­ti­va­tors of Phek sing. This oral folk music tra­di­tion, called Li, keeps their work going and cannot be sung by a single voice. It can only be ren­dered as a har­mo­nious, poly­phon­ic col­lec­tive that goes “up down and side­ways.” In group inter­views, the rice cul­ti­va­tors share the sto­ries behind the songs and talk about what the music means to them. Com­bined with impres­sive, atmos­pher­ic pic­tures that follow the rhythm of their work, UP DOWN & SIDEWAYS is a vivid por­trait that explores this rural musi­cal culture.
UP DOWN & SIDEWAYS is the first fea­ture film by the u-ra-mi-li project, which rep­re­sents a larger body of work ini­ti­at­ed by an artists’ col­lec­tive drawn to music, move­ment and rhythm in the everyday.

This film has been select­ed for the main pro­gram as well as the stu­dents’ plat­form. It is both a debut film and is out­stand­ing for its col­lec­tive development.

No Eng­lish trans­la­tion available.