India202043 minHindi, English with English subtitlesNorth American PremiereDocumentary, Experimental, Women Filmmakers
A mysterious tiger walks through the forest, barely revealing itself, save for a few rare and magical glimpses. This allegorical fiction begins Pallavi Paul’s description of systemic police violence in Delhi, India, based on events suppressed from official history. Using scattered but historically significant fragments of documentation, including video and audio eyewitness accounts, Paul explores the intersections of power, gender, and the narrativization of memory. The film moves across moments like the national emergency of 1975–77, and the anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984, all while remaining contemporary by alluding to recent police brutality across university campuses.
Creating a narrative from the memories and stories of collective power, resistance, and violence, Paul arrives at a coherent study of an abuse of power that is situated in Delhi, but that is easily recognizable almost anywhere in the world.
- Mariam Zaidi
OFFICIAL SELECTION
2021 International Film Festival Rotterdam
2021 Sheffield DocFest
Pallavi Paul
Video artist and film researcher Pallavi Paul works with video, installations, and performance. She started her scientific career with a study of literary science, and has now completed her PhD in film studies in New Delhi. Paul’s work has been shown at, among others, the Tate Modern in London, Contour Biennale in Mechelen, Belgium, and the Mumbai Film Festival.
10 Nov, 2021
to 19 Nov, 2021
An Active Listener will be available to offer one-on-one peer support for viewers who may find the content of this presentation triggering. More info on how to access here.
Q&A with Pallavi Paul, moderated by Bedatri Choudhury
Bedatri is a culture journalist and documentary film professional. She has managed documentary projects at Doc Society, Working Films, The Gotham Film & Media Institute, and CAAM, among others. An alumna of the NYFF Critics Academy, Sundance and SXSW Press Inclusion Initiatives, the National Critics’ Institute, and Berlinale Talents, she lives in New York City. Presently, she is the Managing Editor of Documentary Magazine and a programmer with DOC NYC.
Damascus Dreams is a reflexive documentary essay presented in a series of sections framed by voiceovers of Serri and her father. The film explores and interrogates the fraught notions of dreams, and memories of “home,” moving loosely through old video footage of the family home in Syria, interviews with Syrians who had to leave or flee because of the civil war, conversations between Serri and her father, and poetic, dreamlike sequences.
Spanning over a decade from 1984 to 1996, Shooting Indians: A Journey with Jeffrey Thomas is a portrait of Jeffrey Thomas, a self-described “Urban Iroquois” photographer, exploring the influences on his life that led him to his career.
Deep in the night, Fai and his friends are sleeping on the streets of Sham Shui Po, the poorest district in Hong Kong. The police arrive without notice and clear out their belongings, their makeshift homes reduced to roadside trash. With the help of social worker Ms. Ho, Fai takes the case to court, while he and his friends struggle to create a new home.
Founded in Toronto in 1997, Reel Asian is Canada’s largest pan-Asian film festival and a year-round cultural organization dedicated to championing Asian and Asian diasporic artists and storytellers. What began as a grassroots film festival has grown into a national platform supporting filmmakers and audiences through screenings, education, industry initiatives, artist development, and community programming presented across Toronto, the GTA, and online across Canada.
401 Richmond Street West, The Commons (Suite 448)
Toronto, Ontario, M5V 3A8 Canada
(416) 703 – 9333
info@reelasian.com
Charitable number: 870021383RR0001
