The third week of our quarantine film showcase included 6 films. Both fiction and documentary, these films show a creative take on what the quarantine can mean for different people, in different situations. Mitesh Take shows us his take on how women's lives can be affected during lockdown, Caleb Lee documents his experience of the quarantine in Singapore, one of the world's most prepared places to deal with the pandemic, Amen Jafri shares her dream of the quarantine in a visual poem, Anayis N. Der Hakopian and Stephen Quenet created their own space for dealing with being stuck indoors, Adithyaa Sadashiv documents what is around him during the lockdown in India, while Hsuan-Yu Pan brings together filmmakers from all around the world to show a broad experience of the quarantine.
"Black" by Adithyaa Sadashiv.
A Documentary Filmmaker, Editor and an Artist from Bengaluru, India, Adithyaa is a graduate in Visual Communication from St Joseph's college, Bengaluru. He has been trained under well-known cinematographer A S Kanal in Film Direction and Editing. In 2018 he started his own Production and Editing studio Vinyas Studios which focuses on unheard and unseen stories of creative and unique personalities around the state of Karnataka. Portrait of a Poet is his first Short-Documentary based on the Poet and Padma Shri awardee, Dr Doddarange Gowda. Naati Beeja (Organic Seed) is his debut Feature Documentary on the social Reformer and Progressive farmer G H Kashinath. In 2020 he made Adi Tala - A Short Documentary Film on one of the oldest Mridangam makers of Bengaluru Having had his first solo exhibition in Goa at The Goa State Museum in 2020, he has constantly been involved in the field of Art and Art Literature. In 2019 he illustrated a children's novel, Yaksha a book on the art of Yakshagana. He published his first book A-Z Artists - A Handbook for Beginners in 2017.
He discusses "Black":
The lockdown has affected each and every one of us. While a few are made to work from home, the daily wage workers have been suffering the most because the activities in the entire country have come to a standstill. As a filmmaker it has made me observe a few nuances in my everyday life that go unnoticed. Black is an experimental film which captures many activities happening around me during the lockdown which has made me contemplate about the changes that happen around us. The film has been shot in and around my house, some of them which are intended the way it is while the others have happened with mere coincidence. The film has been in named Black, not because it is in Black and White but represents the dark times that we are living in currently.
"Dreaming in COVID" by Amen Jafri
Amen Jafri is a self-taught documentary filmmaker and producer. A late bloomer, she kickstarted her film career as an intern on the feature thriller Penthouse North with Michael Keaton and Michelle Monaghan and since then has also worked at the Cable Public Affairs Channel, the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network and Alibi Content. She has mentored other emerging filmmakers through the DOC Institute and Arts Network Ottawa. Her work has been shortlisted for the TVO Short Doc Contest and screened for TVO, CBC, the American Documentary Film Festival, Brooklyn Web Fest, The Pilot Light TV Festival and more. In 2018, she directed the Wingd/Bell Media production, Creatorland and was named a fellow for the Hot Docs Doc Accelerator Lab, as well as an IAWTV Award Winner and a participant in WIFT's IDM Fund Futures Program. This is her first experimental film.
She says: "In April, a few weeks into the COVID quarantine, I awoke crying from the beauty and intensity of a vivid dream. I immediately scratched out what I had experienced into my notebook, but I knew I had to find another way to visually honour what I had just experienced. This is my ode to that dream and my first experimental film; it was completed in just under two weeks through remote collaboration."
"XOXO" by Anayis N. Der Hakopian and Stephen Quenet
Anayis N. Der Hakopian (Creator of Fred's Night Out) and Stephen Quenet (Robin Of The Wood) are two recent graduates from Middlesex University's BA Animation course. Anayis is a mixed-medum animation director soon to begin studying at the RCA, while Stephen is looking to become a producer for animation. Follow @anayis.siyana and @stephenquenet on Instagram to see more of their work
About the film: It's the pandemic lockdown of 2020, two people are stuck inside with only pens, paper and each others company, so they turn to the tried and tested game of noughts and crosses for entertainment. Things however quickly get out of hand. A traditional animation created in a day on a living room table.
"Durga's Lockdown" by Mitesh Take
Mitesh is a 48 year old farmer from India. He is also an actor, designer, poet, film blogger and social worker. This is his first film shot on an 8 megapixel smartphone in lockdown.
About the film:This is a 2 minutes silent experimental film about domestic violence. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, a married middle-class Indian couple is in a lockdown situation. The wife stands against domestic violence and becomes a DURGA - the goddess of war.
DURGA (Sanskrit: दुर्गा, IAST: Durgā): identified as Adi Parashakti, is a principal and popular form of the Hindu Goddess. She is a goddess of war, the warrior form of Parvati, whose mythology centres around combating evils and demonic forces that threaten peace, prosperity and Dharma the power of good over evil.
"Alone Together: Prelude" by Hsuan-Yu Pan
Originally from Taiwan, New York City-based documentary filmmaker Hsuan-Yu Pan loves to explore human stories through her camera lens. Her film projects include SMILE HIGH (2013), which screened at Coney Island Film Festival, and SHINOBU (2018), which toured internationally in Europe, Asia and North America. Her latest short documentary MY MOTHER'S TABLE (2019) was an official selection at American Documentary Film Festival in 2020.
From the filmmaker: "It's the MV version of my work-in-progress short doc ALONE TOGETHER. In late 2019, China had its first confirmed case of Covid-19. With lots of confusing and false information hitting news headlines, Covid-19 hit one country after another globally. I reached out to my network right after NYC became the new epicenter of the pandemic, and my friends from more than eight countries responded and wanted to collaborate in the project."
"The Broken Circuit" by Caleb Lee
By day, Caleb Lee a Computer Science undergraduate in Singapore University of Technology and Design. By night, he likes to dive into the creative world and has picked up Videography as a side passion. He aspires to find the intersections between art, science, and human condition one day. Just like Computer Science, he believes in the power of Film media and Communications to connect the dots across different fields and has the ability to radically impact the lives of others. In a form similar to a diary, the film "The Broken Circuit" follows the day-to-day happenings and paradigm shifts, based on his experience adjusting to this disruption, which would perhaps shed greater light on the collective perspectives in this nation.
About the film: "A nationwide lockdown in a well-oiled metropolis, that is Singapore. We started a new decade with a global pandemic. But this was not enough to stop the well-oiled metropolis that is Singapore. We continued with our daily lives – meeting deadlines at work and our friends after, rushing here and there and everywhere. Our busy lives were our pride. But as COVID-19 cases soared, a nationwide lockdown began on the 7th of April. And with that, life as we knew it came to a stop. What remained was an unsettling sense of stillness, a struggle with simplicity, and a chance to rethink our lives. "
Comments