Скачать или смотреть ThefdZone on 03 01 2015 Filmmaker interacts with the audience

THE 125th EDITION OF "THE fd ZONE" (Part II)

'THE fd ZONE' and Solaris Pictures presents
Artist Talk with filmmaker Harjant Gill

For me, making films is about casting a spotlight on urgent and often overlooked social issues, and making marginalized members of society feel less isolated and more understood. My research and films explore the intersections of gender, sexuality, religion, citizenship, transnationality, and notions of belonging with a particular focus on Indian and South Asian diasporic masculinities .... Harjant Gill

Discussion and Screening of three of his films – ‘Milind Soman Made Me Gay’, ‘Roots of Love’ and ‘Mardistaan’, all the three documentary films dealing with masculinities.

MILIND SOMAN MADE ME GAY
27 mins / 2007
In 1995, the Indian Government charged Bollywood star Milind Soman with ‘obscenity’ for appearing nude in a shoe advertisement. Under the rhetoric of preserving nation’s morality, these charges were carried-out using old colonial laws that are still evoked to restrict desire and persecute homosexuality in India today. Milind Soman Made Me Gay is a conceptual documentary about desire and notions of ‘home’ and ‘belonging’. The film employs a unique mix of visual elements along with voice over narration to juxtapose memories of the filmmaker’s past against stories of three gay South Asian men living in the diaspora. Overshadowing these nostalgic explorations of life ‘back home,’ are harsh realities of homophobia and racism in America and an on-going struggle to find a place of belonging.

ROOTS OF LOVE
26 mins / 2011
Told through the stories of six different men ranging in age from fourteen to eighty-six, Roots of Love documents the changing significance of hair and the turban among Sikhs in India. We see younger Sikh men abandoning their hair and turban to follow the current fashion trends, while the older generation struggles to retain the visible symbols of their religious identity. The film is a timely and relevant exploration of the inherent conflict between tradition and modernity, between pragmatism and faith. The choice of cutting one’s hair is one that not only concerns the individual and his family, but an entire community.

MARDISTAAN
28 mins / 2014
Mardistan (Macholand) is an exploration of Indian manhood articulated through the voices of four men from different generations and backgrounds. A middle-aged writer trying to make sense of the physical and sexual abuse he witnessed studying in an elite military academy, a Sikh father of twin daughters resisting the pressure to produce a son, a young 20-year-old college student looking for a girlfriend with whom he can lose his virginity, and a working-class gay activist coming out to his wife after twenty years of marriage. Together, their stories make up different dimensions of what it means to be a man in India today. Mardistan (Macholand) starts a conversation on critical issues including patriarchy, son preference, sexual violence and homophobia in a nation increasingly defined by social inequalities.

Harjant Gill is an assistant professor of anthropology and cultural studies at Towson University, Maryland. He received his PhD from American University in Washington DC.

His academic research examines the intersections of masculinity, modernity and migration in India. Dr. Gill is also a documentary filmmaker and has made several films that have screened at film festivals worldwide and won numerous awards. His documentary, Roots of Love explored the changing significance of hair and turban among Sikhs has being screened on BBC World News, BBC America, and Doordarshan (Indian National TV).

He is currently also the co-director of Society for Visual Anthropology Film and Media Festival.
www.TilotamaProductions.com

Date & time
3rd January 2015, Saturday, 4 pm