---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: The Sarai Programme <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Feb 20, 2006 3:42 PM
Dear Friend The Delhi Film Archive and Films for Freedom, in association with Max Mueller Bhavan and the Sarai Programme at CSDS, Delhi take pleasure in inviting you to "Free Speech & Fearless Listening: The Encounter with Censorship in South Asia". The three day roundtable to discuss the challenges confronting cultural producers in the South Asia region will be held at the Max Mueller Bhavan (Goethe Institute), Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi from February 22-24, 2006. This will be preceded by a 'curtain raiser' called "Interrogating Censorship" on February 21 at 4 :00 pm at Sarai. Independent documentary filmmakers, journalists, writers and other professionals have struggled to create spaces for images, words and ideas that find little support with governments or market-driven corporations. Meanwhile the transformed nature of information flows at the cusp of the late 20th and early 21st Century has rendered inadequate national territories as exclusive sites of study or debate. As newer technologies of production and dissemination generate an unprecedented amount of information, there are simultaneously greater demands for restrictions on speech from state, non-state and corporate players. The proposed 'roundtable' is an attempt to acknowledge and understand the circulation and curtailment of speech in the South Asia region and will attempt to engage with the transformed mediascape to understand how images and information are being created or erased. We look forward to your participation and contribution in what we hope will be an on-going conversation. Please find attached the Proposed Schedule and List of Participants. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us at <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For the Delhi Film Archive - Amar Kanwar / Anupama Srinivasan / Atul Gupta / Gargi Sen / Gurvinder Singh/ Kavita Joshi/ Nakul Sood / Rahul Roy / Raj Baruah/ Ranjani Mazumdar/ Saba Dewan / Samina Mishra / Sanjay Kak / Sanjay Maharishi / Sabeena Gadihoke / Sameera Jain/ Sherna Dastur/ Shikha Jhingan/ Shuddhabrata Sengupta / Shohini Ghosh / Shubhradeep Chakravorty / Uma Devi) Feb 22-24 Max Mueller Bhawan, Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi / tel 23332 9506 Feb 21 Sarai Programme / CSDS, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi / tel 2396 0040 Information: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------- Schedule of Events Day 1 : 21 February 2006 Tuesday Sarai CSDS, Rajpur Road 4:00 - 7:00 P.M. : Interrogating Censorship Andres Veiel (Berlin) Jitman Basnet (Kathmandu/ Delhi) Malathi Maithri (Pondicherry) Sudhir Pattnaik (Bhuvaneshwar) Vinod Jose (New Delhi) Chair Shuddhabrata Sengupta ************** Day 2 : 22 February 2006 Wednesday Max Mueller Bhawan, Kasturba Gandhi Marg 9:30 - 10:00 A.M. : Opening Remarks Rahul Roy / Delhi Film Archive 10:00 - 11:30 A.M. : Reports from the Region Hassan Zaidi (Karachi) Jitman Basnet (Kathmandu/ Delhi) Prasanna Vithanage (Colombo) Tanvir Mokammel (Dhaka) Tenzin Tsundoe (Dharamsala) Video Intervention: May Nyein (Burma) presented by Nem Davies Chair Amar Kanwar 12:00 - 1:30 P.M. : Framed by The Law Lawrence Liang (Bangalore) Sara Hossein (Dhaka) Discussants: Jitman Basnet / Prasanna Vithanage / Hassan Zaidi Intervention: Shahid Amin (Delhi) Chair TBA 2:30 - 4:00 P.M. : Court Encounters PA Sebastian (Mumbai) Sara Hossein (Dhaka) Discussants: Lawrence Liang / Prasanna Vithanage Chair Prashant Bhushan 4:30 - 6:00 P.M. : Silences from Srinagar & Shillong Aijaz Hussain (Srinagar) P G Rasul (Srinagar) Robin S Ngangom (Shillong) Tarun Bhartiya (Shillong) Intervention: Parvaiz Bukhari (Srinagar) Chair Sanjay Kak 6:00 P.M. : Screening Black Box Germany (102 min) dir: Andres Veiel (director present) discussant: Shuddhabrata Sengupta ************** Day 3 : 23 February 2006 Thursday Max Mueller Bhawan, Kasturba Gandhi Marg 10:00 - 11:00 A.M. : "Private" Censorship Andres Veiel (Berlin) Chair Shuddhabrata Sengupta 11:30 - 1:30 P.M. : Locating Hate & Censorship Deepak Mehta (Delhi) Sara Hossein (Dhaka) Shohini Ghosh (Delhi) Intervention: Arundhati Roy (Delhi) Shuddhabrata Sengupta (Delhi) Jawed Naqvi (Delhi) Chair Dilip Simeon 2:30 - 4:00 P.M. : Writing The Body and Mind Malathi Maithri (Pondicherry) Sanjay Srivastava (Delhi) In Conversation: Shuddhabrata Sengupta & Shohini Ghosh Chair TBA 4:30 - 6:00 P.M. : Fiction in The Censor's Web Anurag Kashyap (Mumbai) Prasanna Vithanage (Colombo) Tanvir Mokammel (Dhaka) Vimukthi Jayasundara (Colombo/Paris) Chair Ranjani Mazumdar 6:00 P.M. : Screening Sulanga Enu Pinisa (The Forsaken Land) dir: Vimukthi Jayasundara (director present) ************** Day 4 : 24 February 2006 Friday Max Mueller Bhawan, Kasturba Gandhi Marg 10:00 - 11:30 A.M. : Voices made invisible Anil Chamadia (Delhi) Ravi Kumar (Chennai) Sudhir Pattnaik (Bhuvaneshwar) Intervention: Vimal Thorat Chair Gargi Sen 12:00 - 1:30 P.M. : The Business of Censorship CP Chandrashekhar (Delhi) Jawed Naqvi (Delhi) Najam Sethi (Lahore) Paranjoy Guhathakurta (Delhi) Chair TBA 2:30 - 4:00 P.M. : Towards a "Counter Culture" Amar Kanwar (Delhi) Hassan Zaidi (Karachi) Sudhir Pattnaik (Bhuvaneshwar) Mukul Mangalik (Delhi) Chair Saba Dewan 4:30 - 6:00 pm : Open Space 6:00 P.M. : Screening Purahanda Kaluwara (Death on a Full Moon Day) dir: Prasanna Vithanage (director present) ------------------------------------------------ List of Speakers and Panelists Aijaz Hussain, Srinagar currently writes on politics and business for India Today and Business Standard from Srinagar. Before this, he wrote for about four years for the Daily Excelsior, a regional newspaper published from Jammu. He has also worked briefly for CNBC-TV18 television network. Besides these he has been reporting on assignment for Associated Press. Aijaz Hussain has an MA in Mass Communication & Journalism (1999). Andres Veiel, Berlin is one of Germany´s most important documentary filmmakers. His breakthrough documentary Balagan (1993), was a portrait of a controversial Israeli theatre group. His subsequent film, The Survivors (1996) investigates the suicides of three young men. His highly acclaimed Black Box Germany (2001) received the European Film Award for best Documentary, and was released in numerous German movie halls. His latest film Addicted to Acting (2004) won the Panorama Audience Award at the Berlin International Film Festival. Anil Chamadia, New Delhi is a writer and columnist, who has been a commentator on political and social issues for almost all the major Hindi dailies - Jansatta, Navbharat Times, Hindustan, Amar Ujala and Dainik Bhaskar. He also writes a column on the electronic media for the literary magazine Kathadesh. As a Special Correspondent/Writer with Business India Television's TVI channel, he has also produced more than 1000 news bulletins for prime-time news. Anurag Kashyap, Mumbai is a writer turned director and his writing credits include several Hindi films like Paisa Vasool (2004), Jung (2000), Kaun (1999) and Satya (1998). He has written dialogues for Main Aisa Hi Hoon, (2005), Yuva (2004), Nayak : The Real Hero (2001) and Shool (1999). Anurag Kashyap¹s directorial debut Paanch (Five) (2003) has been twice refused a clearance certificate by the censor board. His film Black Friday (2004) on the Mumbai blasts has also run into censor problems. Arundhati Roy, New Delhi is a writer, and the author of the novel, The God of Small Things. Collections of her political essays have been published in India as The Algebra of Infinite Justice and The Ordinary Person¹s Guide to Empire. C.P.Chandrashekhar, New Delhi is Professor, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi. He has taught at the Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He is an economic columnist for Frontline and Business Line. His publications include Crisis as Conquest: Learning from East Asia (Tracts for Our Times 12, Orient Longman, New Delhi, 2001) and The Market the Failed: Neoliberal Economic Reforms in India, (Leftword Books, New Delhi, 2002/2004) both co-authored with Jayati Ghosh. Deepak Mehta, Delhi is a Reader in the Department of Sociology, University of Delhi. He is the author of Work, Ritual, Biography: A Muslim Community in North India (OUP 1977). Since 1994 he has been researching on violence between Hindus and Muslims in Bombay. Dilip Simeon, Delhi taught at the History Department of Ramjas College, Delhi from 1974 till1994. His work on the labour movement of southern Bihar was published as The Politics of Labour Under Late Colonialism (1995). As part of the Sampradayikta Virodhi Andolan (Movement Against Communalism) he participated in a campaign for communal harmony and justice for the victims of the 1984 carnage in Delhi. Dilip has been a visiting scholar at the universities of Surat, Sussex, Chicago, Leiden and Princeton. From 1998 till 2003 he worked as senior research fellow on conflict issues with Oxfam (India) Trust in Delhi, and is now chairperson of the Aman Trust, which works to understand and reduce violent social conflict. Hassan Zaidi, Karachi is an award winning journalist and filmmaker, who has been associated with the Pakistani monthly Herald, Geo TV, Singapore's Channel News Asia, and Star News. He currently works as a producer-correspondent for NBC News and writes for a number of international papers (including India Today) and has produced radio packages for the BBC's Urdu service. He has directed a number of documentaries, music videos and shorts, and the feature film Raat Chali Hai Jhoom Ke. He is currently Director of the KaraFilm Karachi International Film Festival. Jawed Naqvi, New Delhi is a former Chief Reporter of Gulf News and News Editor of Khaleej Times, and a veteran journalist who has also worked for many years with Reuters in Delhi. He has covered wars from frontlines in Iran, Iraq, Western Sahara, Lebanon, Yemen, Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Jaffna. After the nuclear tests of 1998, he embarked on a mission of cross-border journalism, campaigning against nuclear madness and human rights abuses. He writes as a freelance journalist for the Karachi Dawn and the Dhaka New Age. Occasionally writes for Tehelka and appears as an analyst for TV channels Jitman Basnet, Kathmandu is a lawyer and journalist by profession, and has been editor and publisher of Sagarmatha Times a national monthly magazine published from Kathmandu, and Cine Hotline. In Sep 2002, he was arrested by the Maoists but eventually released. In Feb 2004 Jitman Basnet was arrested by the Royal Nepal Army and was in detention for about 10 months. The reason for his arrest was an article that he had written about the army¹s violation of human rights. Subsequent to his release he was forced to escape from Nepal, and at present lives in exile in Delhi. Lawrence Liang, Bangalore is a researcher at the Alternative Law Forum a collective of lawyers who work on various aspects of law, legality and power. Lawrence has been working on a research project on the politics of intellectual property in collaboration with Sarai/CSDS, and is also very interested in the intersection of law and culture. He has recently completed a monograph on censorship and cinema in India called The Public is watching (for PSBT). Malathi Maithri, Pondicherry is a Tamil poet (and activist) whose poems are considered highly inventive in the Tamil context. Her published collections include Sankaraabarani 2002, Neerindri Amaiyaathu Ulagu 2003, and Neeli 2005. Her articles, serialized in the magazine Theranathi, encouraged many young woman writers to identify and articulate their silenced voices and are published as Viduthalai Ezhuthuthal (Writing the Freedom) 2004. With her fellow poet Kirushangini she published an anthology of modern women¹s poems Paratthal Athan Suthanthiram. She is the founder secretary of Ananku, a forum for feminist activities. Najam Sethi, Lahore is an eminent Pakistani journalist, editor, and news media personality and Editor-in-Chief of The Friday Times and The Daily Times. An aggressively independent journalist, Najam Sethi and his publications are often in trouble with Pakistani governments. He was imprisoned by then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, a case that evoked an international outcry that eventually pressured the government to release him. P.A.Sebastian, Mumbai is a lawyer working in the field of civil liberties and democratic rights of the people since 1977. In the Bombay textile strike he filed 28 writs of Habeas Corpus to secure the release of trade union workers. He has also fought a celebrated case of illegal land allotment to Judges of the Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court. He has written articles for several journals including the Economic & Political Weekly. Prashant Bhushan, Delhi is a public interest lawyer and activist who has been involved in Public Interest Law and activism involving issues of corruption and accountability, the environment, and human rights. He has been on the governing bodies of several public interest organisations including the National Campaign for People's Right to Information, the People's Union for Civil Liberties, the Committee on Judicial Accountability, and the Citizen's Forum against Corruption. He has also authored The case that shook India Bofors: the selling of a nation, and writes in various publications on issues of public interest. P.G.Rasool, Srinagar has been writing in Urdu for the past fourteen years, in a weekly column on current affairs in Kashmir Uzma (Greater Kashmir) the Urdu weekly published from Srinagar. He has also authored a book titled Kashmir 1947 (Urdu). The book looks at the events of 1947 and the origins of the Kashmir issue. Rasool is widely respected for his probing and dispassionate analysis of events and political commentary. P G Rasool is a postgraduate in Mass Communication & Journalism from the University of Kashmir. Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Delhi started his career as a journalist in June 1977 and has worked with Business India, BusinessWorld, The Telegraph, India Today and The Pioneer. And with TV18 for almost six years where he anchored a daily interview and discussion programme called ³India Talks² on the CNBC channel. He has also directed a number of documentary films including Idiot Box or Window of Hope and University of Delhi: A Haven of Learning. He is co-author (with Shankar Raghuraman) of A Time of Coalitions: Divided We Stand, (Sage India 2004). He is currently Director of the School of Convergence. Prasanna Vithanage, Srilanka directed his first film Sisila Gini Gani (Ice on Fire) 1992 won nine OCIC (Sri Lanka) Awards including Best Director, Best Actor and Best Actress. His second feature Anantha Rathriya (Dark Night of the Soul), 1996 won a Jury's Special Mention at the First Pusan International Film festival. Pawuru Walalu (Walls Within) 1997 won the Best Actress Award at the Singapore International Film Festival 1998. His feature Purahanda Kaluwara (Death on A Full Moon Day) 1997, won the Grand Prix at the Amiens Film Festival. Initially banned by the government of Sri Lanka, it has since become the most successful film in the half century long history of cinema in Sri Lanka. Prasanna has just completed his fifth film ŒIra Madiyama¹. Ravi Kumar, Pondicherry is a writer, essayist and translator, who started the critical magazines Nirapirikai (The Spectrum) and Dalit, which does not limit itself to dalit literature or dalit issues, but focuses on other writings/cultures. He is the editor of Bodhi, the Tamil dalit history quarterly. He also wrote the life of Malcolm X in a serialized form for Dalit Murasu (run by the Dalit Media Network) and the revived history of the so-called untouchable poet, Nandanar, which is carried in serialised form in Thai Mann (run by Dalit Panthers of India). In association with the journalist S.Anand, he has recently started the alternative publishing house, Navayana. He is a former President of the People¹s Union for Civil Liberties, Pondicherry and Tamil Nadu. Robin S Ngangom, Shillong is a Manipuri English poet and a translator of Manipuri writing. He has published two volumes of poetry, and edited Anthology of Contemporary poetry from North East. His latest collection of poems is being published by Chandrabhaga Press. He currently teaches in Shillong Sanjay Srivastava, Delhi is a social anthropologist, currently on leave from Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. His key publications include 'Constructing Post-colonial India. National Character and the Doon School' (1998), 'Asia. Cultural Politics in the Global World' (2001, co-author), 'Sexual Sites, Seminal Attitudes' (2004, contributing editor), and, 'An Education of the Passions. Sexuality, Consumption and Class in India' (In Press). Sara Hossain, Dhaka is a lawyer practicing in the high court division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh. She is actively involved with Ain o Salish Kendra [law and mediation centre], and the Bangladesh Legal Aid & Services Trust, a national legal services organisation. She earlier worked with Interights, and International Human Rights Law Centre, London. Her publications include Honour Crimes, Paradigms and Violence against Women (co-edited with Lynn Welchman), Zed Press, London 1995. She has acted in a number of cases involving the censorship of films, or banning of publications Shahid Amin, Delhi received his D.Phil. from Oxford University and is currently Professor of History at the University of Delhi. Among his publications are Event, Metaphor, Memory: Chauri Chaura, 1922-1992 (1995) and Writing Alternative Histories: A View from India (2002) as well as several seminal essays in Subaltern Studies - of which project he is one of the founding editors. He is the editor of A Concise Encyclopaedia of North Indian Peasant Life (2005), the co-editor, with Gyan Pandey, of Nimnvargiya Itihas, Bhag Ek, Bhag Do (1994, 2001), and has also written the Hindustani dialogues of the feature film Karvan directed by Pankaj Butalia. He has been a Visiting Fellow at Stanford, Princeton, and Berlin. Sudhir Pattnaik, Bhuvaneshwar, is Editor of Samadristi an Oriya fortnightly news magazine and is Chairman of Independent Media - an alternative media group consisting of filmmakers, writers and journalists who work for developing alternative media initiatives in Orissa. Tenzin Tsundoe, Dharamshala is a writer-activist born to a Tibetan refugee family in India. After graduating from Chennai, he crossed the Himalayas on foot to enter Tibet, where he was arrested by the Chinese border police, and after three months in prison in Lhasa, was pushed back to India. He has been widely published in a range of Indian and foreign publications and has won the first-ever Outlook-Picador Award for Non-Fiction in 2001. Since 1999 Tsundue has worked with Friends of Tibet (India) in 1999 as its general secretary. In January 2002 he scaled the scaffolding to the 14th floor of the Oberoi Towers in Mumbai to unfurl a Tibetan national flag and a banner which read "Free Tibet" down the hotel's façade while China's Premier Zhu Rongji was inside addressing a conference of Indian business tycoons. In April 2005, he repeated this feat during the Bangalore visit of the Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jia Bao. Tarun Bhartiya, Shillong is an activist with the freedom project Shillong. A Hindi poet with published work in Samkalin Bhartiya Sahitya, Pahel, Hans, Akshar Parv, and the Sarai Reader. Tarun is also a filmmaker whose work in progress is called Tourist Information for Shillong (four parts done - fifth being thought about). He has worked for NDTV and Campkins Camera Centre (a camera shop). Currently Tarun Bhartiya is founding-member of alt-space, an open space for culture and politics in Shillong. Tanvir Mokammel, Dhaka is a filmmaker with several award winning documentaries and feature films to his credit. His features include Nadir Nam Modhumat (The River named Modhumati) 1995 which received three national awards and Chitra Nadir Pare (Quiet Flows the river Chitra) 1998 a feature film on the destiny of a Hindu family in East Pakistan after the partition of India in 1947. It received seven national awards including best film, best story, best script writing, best art direction and best director of the year. Lalsalu (A tree without roots) 2001 centers on the life of a Mullah who establishes a false shrine in a remote village in Bangladesh and received eight national awards including the best film, best script writing, best cinematography, best sound and best director of the year. His latest feature Lalon 2004 is based on the life and persona of the mystic song-composer Lalon Fakir. His documentaries include Hooliya (Wanted), Smriti Ekattor (Remembrance), Achin Pakhi (The unknown bard) and Karnaphulir Kanna, (Teardrops Of Karnaphuli), a documentary on the plight of the indigenous people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, a film that has been banned by the Government of Bangladesh. Tanvir Mokammel is a prolific writer who has taught film and film appreciation at the Viswa Sahitya Kendro and Standford University. He is the Director, Bangladesh Film Institute. Vimal Thorat, Delhi is a well-known writer in Hindi who teaches the language at the Indira Gandhi National Open University. She is deeply concerned with issues of marginalisation, and deprivation of the dalit people and her pioneering work has brought to the forefront the special deprivation and status of Dalit women . She was the President of the Dalit Writer's Association and gave the fledgling group a dynamic direction. She is associated with many national and international human rights organisations. Vimukthi Jayasundara, Srilanka As a 28-year-old Vimukthi became only the second filmmaker from Sri Lanka to compete for an award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2005. Jayasundara¹s film Sulanga Enu Pinisa (The Forsaken Land) competed in the Un Certain Regard section and received the Caméra d¹Or, Cannes¹s award for first-time filmmakers. Jayasundara worked in the advertising industry and wrote film reviews before studying at the Film and Television Institute of India from 1998 to 2001. Returning to Sri Lanka, he joined the Government Film Unit and made The Land of Silence, a black-and-white documentary about the victims of Sri Lanka¹s civil war. In 2001, he received a grant to continue his film studies in France at Le Fresnoy. As a student there Jayasundara made Empty for Love (2002), a short film that was selected for Cinéfondation, the student category at Cannes. Amar Kanwar Rahul Roy Ranjani Mazumdar Saba Dewan Sanjay Kak Shohini Ghosh Shudhabhrata Sengupta are film-makers and members of the Delhi Film Archive -------- Anivar Aravind GAIA --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ greenyouth mailinglist is the activist support mailinglist for kerala run by Global Alternate Information Applications (GAIA) To post to this group, send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
