Yesterday evening Ami, Kevin and I went to see two documentaries screened at a theater in Juhu. It's actually the same theater where we had tried to go see a play, but had misjudged the time it would take to get there, and so arrived after the play had started. On the last Monday of each month, this theater hosts documentary night, so we decided to go check it out.
We arrived at the theater with 20 minutes to spare this time, thank goodness. The documentaries were not screened in the same facility as where the plays are performed - instead there is a building right next to it that we were directed into. We climb up a few flights of stairs, and are stopped by two men at the top telling us that we were supposed to take our shoes off on the previous landing. We apologize and go down to remove our shoes, but in the back of my mind I'm wondering what kind of theater requires its patrons to take their shoes off. When we get upstairs, it becomes clear what the situation is: the documentaries are being screened in a small room, using a projector. There are no chairs in the room, but instead the theater has laid down some blankets on which everyone will sit. A new movie-going experience for me: picnic-style viewing! I have to admit it wasn't the most comfortable cinematic experience, but it was worth it to see the films. The theater screened two films on this particular Monday. I ended up learning a lot, since I knew absolutely nothing about the topics of both films prior to entering the theater.
The first film was called "The Stitches Speak" or something to that effect in Hindi. It was only a 12-minute film, but it was extraordinary for the style of animation that it used. Let me explain. The subject of the film was a group of textile artisans located in the state of Gujarat, which borders with Pakistan. These artisans make narrative textiles - I'd compare them to tapestries - that show stories from their lives. The stories are quite amazing, and the style of the art in which they tell their stories is distinctive, using embrodiery and applique to create these pieces of art.
The lives of people in Assam have many dark and terrible influences - war, disease, poverty. The documentary showed how theater can uplift a community and provide everything from education to comic relief in situations where both are desperately needed. I'd recommend this documentary to anyone who is interested, but unfortunately it's not yet available online. The directors of both documentaries were present at the screenings and held Q&As after the show. The director of the Assam film (which he endearingly pronounced as "flim") seemed to be a very dedicated artist - he is willing to do whatever it takes to get his films made and tell the stories that he think need to be told. On the business side of things, however, he seems completely lost. He has no clue how to get the documentaries out into the world so that people can see them. The documentary was completed in 2006, and he still is trying to figure out how to get it distributed so that people can actually hear the story that he is telling. I felt bad for the guy - he needs some help with the non-artsy side of things. He also showed us a trailer for his next film, which he's desperately looking for funding so that he can complete. The topic is on a group of people living close to the border with China, who have been involved in skirmishes between India and China but who find solace by expressing themselves through music. It's called "Guitars and Grenades" (I think) - looks like another interesting project.
The next documentary night will show a US documentary on the rape of female soldiers in the US military. Sounds uplifting! I'll let you know if we end up going to that one too.
On a separate but related note, Happy Memorial Day to all, and happy birthday to my favorite monster, Tiki!
We arrived at the theater with 20 minutes to spare this time, thank goodness. The documentaries were not screened in the same facility as where the plays are performed - instead there is a building right next to it that we were directed into. We climb up a few flights of stairs, and are stopped by two men at the top telling us that we were supposed to take our shoes off on the previous landing. We apologize and go down to remove our shoes, but in the back of my mind I'm wondering what kind of theater requires its patrons to take their shoes off. When we get upstairs, it becomes clear what the situation is: the documentaries are being screened in a small room, using a projector. There are no chairs in the room, but instead the theater has laid down some blankets on which everyone will sit. A new movie-going experience for me: picnic-style viewing! I have to admit it wasn't the most comfortable cinematic experience, but it was worth it to see the films. The theater screened two films on this particular Monday. I ended up learning a lot, since I knew absolutely nothing about the topics of both films prior to entering the theater.
The first film was called "The Stitches Speak" or something to that effect in Hindi. It was only a 12-minute film, but it was extraordinary for the style of animation that it used. Let me explain. The subject of the film was a group of textile artisans located in the state of Gujarat, which borders with Pakistan. These artisans make narrative textiles - I'd compare them to tapestries - that show stories from their lives. The stories are quite amazing, and the style of the art in which they tell their stories is distinctive, using embrodiery and applique to create these pieces of art.
An example of a tapestry made by a Kutch artisan
The documentary took artwork made by these people and animated it - imagine the animals in the photo above walking, and hte people moving their arms and legs. The script of the film came from interviews with the artisans where they were telling the stories that had inspired these pieces of art. This group of artisans were living in what is now Pakistan, when a war between India and Pakistan in 1972 came to their village. They decided to move to India, since India won the battle over their land. They pack up everything they own, load it onto carts and camels, and cross the desert until they reach the Indian border. There, the border police wouldn't let them in initially, but finally they settled them in a camp in the middle of the desert. "Camp" is a generous term here - it really was just a spot in the desert with nothing there. They arrive and set to work building homes and starting a life there. After 8 years living in the camp, they are finally given permission to settle in permanent homes in the state of Gujarat, which is how they ended up there. Since living in Gujarat, they've experienced a major earthquake which devastated their region and made their homes crumble to the ground, so they had to start from scratch again. This community is really quite incredible, and they've become known for their unique style of embroidery and have built up a nonprofit organization through which they sell their work to help build their community.
The second film was about something close to my heart - theater! Specifically, it covered an industry that has developed in Assam, which is on the northeast side of India, called "mobile theater." This industry was started in the 1960's by one guy who saw that the theater culture in the state of Assam was dying because people weren't willing to travel to cities to see a play. He decided that instead he would build a theater troupe that traveled and brought the shows to the people of Assam. He developed a stage that can be quickly set up and broken down, and put together a mobile theater troupe. Now there are dozens of these troupes that travel around Assam performing every year. Their season lasts 9 months per year, from September through May, and in that time period the average troupe will perform 200 shows in over 60 locations. I can't even imagine the logistical nightmare that planning one of these seasons would entail. What's even more incredible is how popular this industry is with the people of Assam. They embrace the theater and flock in droves to see these shows! The documentary gave the example of one town that hosts a festival with up to 6 stages at once in a weeklong period. Out of the 16,000 people who live in the town, 12,000 will attend at least one show. 8,000 will return for a second show, and of those, nearly 3,000 will return for a third. The shows are always playing to a packed house wherever they go, and the people have developed favorite actors and groups that they will return to see year after year.
Apparently there are only a handful of playwrights living in Assam, so they are all incredibly in demand to write 10-50 new plays every year. Every year!!! They have resorted to using storylines from popular Hollywood movies to create this much material. One of the most popular hits was Titanic - they showed clips of the show in the documentary, and the sets were pretty incredible. They also showed some clips from an adaptation of Jurassic Park. Another common source of material are the classics - Shakespeare in particular. These theater troupes are bringing Shakespeare to a group of people who don't own televisions, may not even know how to read! And yet the people in these communities have become serious theater buffs (and critics), as they've grown up seeing these shows. One actor told a story of a fruit vendor he met, who recognized him as an actor from the shows. The vendor asks him a question about a play they had done a few years ago based on a historical king who had a stroke - "what side of the body was left paralyzed after his stroke?" The actor thought for a minute and remembered that his colleague who played the part of the king had shown the paralysis on the left side, so he responds accordingly. The vendor then starts to argue with him - "No," he says, "the king lived for 14 months after his stroke, so if it was on his left side then his heart would not have been able to make him live that long." The actor was stunned. He told another story about a similar correction that had been brought to his attention by a fan - when an actor was signing a document on stage, he signed from left to right. However, the language that would have been used for legal documents during the era in which the play was set would have been written from right to left, so the actor should have been writing from right to left. Wow.
The documentary follows these theater groups as they do a single season. These people are all crammed together on a bus, traveling for 3/4 of their lives. Some of them fall in love and marry each other. Some people are away from their families for 9 months out of the year and miss major life events. One actor told a story of how he was given the message that his father had passed away while he was on stage. He couldn't very well leave in the middle of the show, so he gave the message for his family to proceed with the cremation without him, and went back out there and gave his performance. It's now well known within the troupe that his performance that night was one of his best and most emotional ones of his career. The troupe has to deal with severe weather sometimes too - from monsoons to blizzards. On one occasion, the show was scheduled for 6 pm, and a huge storm didn't stop until 4:30. The stage and audience areas were wrecked with broken tree limbs, piles of sleet and snow. The entire group of actors, crew members, and the entire audience banded together to clean up the area. They didn't finish until late that night, and so the show was performed beginning at 1 am, but you wouldn't have known how late it was because they played to a full house. The lives of people in Assam have many dark and terrible influences - war, disease, poverty. The documentary showed how theater can uplift a community and provide everything from education to comic relief in situations where both are desperately needed. I'd recommend this documentary to anyone who is interested, but unfortunately it's not yet available online. The directors of both documentaries were present at the screenings and held Q&As after the show. The director of the Assam film (which he endearingly pronounced as "flim") seemed to be a very dedicated artist - he is willing to do whatever it takes to get his films made and tell the stories that he think need to be told. On the business side of things, however, he seems completely lost. He has no clue how to get the documentaries out into the world so that people can see them. The documentary was completed in 2006, and he still is trying to figure out how to get it distributed so that people can actually hear the story that he is telling. I felt bad for the guy - he needs some help with the non-artsy side of things. He also showed us a trailer for his next film, which he's desperately looking for funding so that he can complete. The topic is on a group of people living close to the border with China, who have been involved in skirmishes between India and China but who find solace by expressing themselves through music. It's called "Guitars and Grenades" (I think) - looks like another interesting project.
The next documentary night will show a US documentary on the rape of female soldiers in the US military. Sounds uplifting! I'll let you know if we end up going to that one too.
On a separate but related note, Happy Memorial Day to all, and happy birthday to my favorite monster, Tiki!
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