Films This Month

WOMEN ON WOMEN – IN CELEBRATION OF INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY
A cross-section of powerful films directed by women
in celebration of womanhood, from different countries
Date Time Film
3rd Wed 7:00pm Schwestern oder Die Balance des Glücks (Sisters or The Balance of Happiness) (German/1979/95mins) Dir. Margarethe von Trotta
Sisters Maria and Anna live together. Maria is a most proficient executive secretary, encouraging Anna to finish her studies and start a career. Anna broods, threatens to quit university, takes pills, and keeps a diary. When Maria's relationship with Maurice, the son of her boss, starts to lead to love, Anna takes a selfish and drastic step that plummets Maria into solitude. No longer able to connect with Maurice, Maria does establish a relationship with Miriam, a typist at her office who becomes a surrogate younger sister. But Maria is intrusive as well as helpful. Can this or any relationship work out for this talented woman whose past seems to choke her soul?
Collab: Goethe institut / Max Mueller Bhavan
8th Mon 7:00pm Rudali Dir. Kalpana Lazmi. (Hindi/1993/128mins)
A Rudali is a female professional mourner at a funeral ceremony. After her husband's death, Sanichari has lost hope in life. The seasoned Rudali Bikni instills new hope in Sanichari's life...
Courtesy: National Film Development Corporation
9th Tue 7:00pm Brodeuses (A Common Thread) (French/2004/90mins)
Dir. Éléonore Faucher
When Claire learns that she is five months pregnant at the tender age of 17, she decides to give birth anonymously. She finds refuge with Madame Melikian, an embroiderer for haute couture designers. And, day by day, stitch by stitch, as Claire's belly grows rounder, the threads of embroidery create a filial bond between them.
Collab: Embassy of France
12th Fri 7:00pm Lola (Spanish/1990/92mins) Dir. Maria Novaro
Lola, a young mother is abandoned by the rock singer who fathers her daughter. Lonely and trapped in a life she does not choose, Lola vacillates back and forth between guilty responsibility and careless denial.
Collab: Embassy of Mexico
15th Mon 7:00pm FILM CLUB DISCUSSION Group meets to discuss Samt el qusur (Silences of the Palace) (Arabic/French/1994/125mins)
Dir. Moufida Tlatli
The film is a powerful testimony to a woman’s mother. As Alia, the daughter of a beautiful servant Khedija, grows up in the Kings Palace at the end of the French colonial rule in Tunisia, she realizes the “favours” required of her mother and other servants. The film remembers the body, the work and the histories of women through Alia, daughter of Khedija. Research Scholar at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, JNU, Vebhuti will introduce the film and facilitate the discussion.
23rd Tue 7:00pm Little Vilma - The Last Diary (Hungarian/2000/104mins)
Dir. Márta Mészáros
 After her idealist father gets swept away with Soviet propaganda about a socialist Eden, young Vilma gets packed off to Kirgizstan along with her family. Instead of finding paradise, however, they discover only totalitarian oppression and political murder. One by one, her family is killed for trumped-up charges as a part of Stalin's purges until she is left alone to fend for herself.
Collab: Hungarian Centre
25th Thu 7:00pm The Piano (English/1993/121mins) Dir.Jane Campion
It is the mid-nineteenth century. Ada is a mute who has a young daughter, Flora. In an arranged marriage she leaves her native Scotland accompanied by her daughter and her beloved piano. Life in the rugged forests of New Zealand's South Island is not all she may have imagined and nor is her relationship with her new husband Stewart. She suffers torment and loss when Stewart sells her piano to a neighbour, George. Ada learns from George that she may earn back her piano by giving him piano lessons, but only with certain other conditions attached. At first Ada despises George but slowly their relationship is transformed and this propels them into a dire situation.
Collab: Enlighten Film Society
26th Fri 7:00pm The General (Silent/1927/75mins)
Dirs. Clyde Bruckman & Buster Keaton
Johnnie loves his train ("The General") and Annabelle Lee. When the Civil War begins he is turned down for service because he's more valuable as an engineer while Annabelle thinks it's because he's a coward. However, when Union spies capture The General with Annabelle on board, Johnny must rescue both his loves.
Collab: Enlighten Film Society

OTHER FILMS
Date Time Film
3rd Wed 6:30pm DOC FILM|Public Service Broadcasting Trust continues with its monthly series Buru Garra Dir. Shriprakash & A Fight to Dance Dir. Anish Patel
4th Thu 7:00pm DOC FILM|Ten Women, Ten Lives, Ten Concerns (DVD/Eng/2006/47mins) Dir. Vishnu Mathur. Prod. C. S. Lakshmi, SPARROW. A film covering the themes of ten films made on women’s scholarship and action for the Global Feminism's project. Collab: University of Michigan
10th Wed 7:00pm On the occasion of the National Day of Bulgaria. After The End Of The World (Bulgaria/1998/104 mins) Dir. Ivan Nichev
The film is a sentimental journey into the past and present of Bulgaria. After more than forty years of absence, a well-known Bulgaria-born Israeli professor, Albert Cohen-Berto, returns to Bulgaria for a scientific conference that is being held in his native city, Plovdiv, in the early 1990s. There he meets the love of his life, Araxi, and together they revisit their childhood.
Collab: Embassy of Bulgaria
11th Thu 7:00pm DOC FILM|A Tale of Two Writers - Ismat and Annie (English/2009/30mins) Dir. Juhi Sinha. A documentary on the life and works of Ismat Chugtai and Qurrat-ul-Ain Haider, who bold and ahead of their times, broke with traditions and wrote about their world, holding a mirror to the society they lived in. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion.
Collab: PD Division, MEA
21st Sun 6:30pm DOC FILM | The Glory Unfolds A film on the murals of the First Millennium by Benoy K. Behl. Prod. Doordarshan
22nd Mon 7:00pm Sthaniya Sambaad (Spring In The Colony) (Bengali with English subtitles/2010/105mins) by Arjun Gourisaria & Moinak Biswas
The film tells a love story, with the protagonists’ search for love covering his escape from the scene of battle. The directors will be present for an interaction post screening.
Film schedules are subject to last minute changes.
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Films This Month