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Sudesha

Yugantar
India
30'

SUDESHA (1983) takes its name from its central figure, a female activist involved in the Chipko movement, India’s major ecofeminist protests at the foot of the Himalayas. The vibrancy of a first use of color is matched only by the fury felt by these women against deforestation, as well as against traditional roles. The happiest day of her life, a woman recalls, was when they arrested her and she no longer had to cook or wash dishes.

Thursday, September 25, 20:00

Cinema Elvire Popesco
Tickets
  • Technical sheet
  • DIRECTORS: Abha Bhaiya, Deepa Dhanraj, Meera Rao, Navroze Contractor
  • PRODUCTION: A.S. Natraj
  • SOUND: G.V. Somashekhar

Times For Radical Change - Yugantar Collective

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Sudesha

Yugantar | Duration 30'

SUDESHA (1983) takes its name from its central figure, a female activist involved in the Chipko movement, India's major ecofeminist protests at the foot of the Himalayas. The vibrancy of a first use of color is matched only by the fury felt by these women against deforestation, as well as against traditional roles. The happiest day of her life, a woman recalls, was when they arrested her and she no longer had to cook or wash dishes.

Idi Katha Maatramena

Yugantar | Duration 25'

IDI KATHA MAATRAMENA / IS THIS JUST A STORY? (1983), the only film by the Yugantar Collective that doesn't use so-called documentary images, is based on a screenplay co-written with another feminist and activist group, Sri Shakhti Sanghatana, and is dedicated to the issue of domestic violence and the often unseen effects of family life on women in India. Instead of opting for a moralistic tone or dwelling perhaps on the subject of death, the film focuses on the solidarity the main character finds in a friend.

Tambaku Chaakila Oob Aali

Yugantar | Duration 25'

The act of listening and allowing union and trade union groups to speak for themselves is also essential for TAMBAKU CHAAKILA OOB AALI / TOBACCO EMBERS (1982), in which the Yugantar Collective spends four months with the women workers of a tobacco factory in Nipani, the ground zero of one of India's most important labor strikes of the time, which involved 3,000 women. The result of this collaboration is almost like a strike manual, in which the workers discuss strategies of unionising and methods to spread their actions, as well as how they want to be represented.

Molkarin

Yugantar | Duration 25'

In MOLKARIN / MAID SERVANT (1981), Yugantar Collective's first film, reenactments of conflicts between employers and their domestic workers are mixed with interviews and images of community meetings where the workers discuss their needs and grievances. Gradually, these become resolutions, with hundreds of workers in the city of Pune coming together in a strike that succeeds in opening negotiations for new rights and a manifesto regulating working conditions, from respecting days off to providing decent pay.

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