Film Festival, September 2021
The film festival is organized by the Department of English, Rani Birla Girls’ College.
During the course of the festival, the films will be screened everyday at 2 PM and will be available to watch till 10th September.
You can register for the film festival here.
To watch the films and to know more about each film, click on each film’s title below. This will take you to the individual page for each movie. Around 2 PM on the scheduled day, each film will be screened on its individual page. All films screened during the festival will have English Subtitles which can be enabled by clicking/tapping the “CC” icon.
6th September: Jojo Rabbit by Taika Waititi
Jojo Rabbit is a 2019 comedy-drama film written and directed by Taika Waititi, adapted from Christine Leunens’s 2008 book Caging Skies.
The title character, Johannes “Jojo” Betzler, a ten-year-old Hitler Youth member finds out that his mother is hiding a Jewish girl in their attic. He must then question his beliefs while dealing with the intervention of his imaginary friend , a fanciful version of Adolf Hitler with a comedic stance on the politics of the war. Watch the film here…
7th September: Agantuk (The Stranger) by Satyajit Ray
Agantuk (‘The Stranger’) is a 1991 Bengali-language drama film written and directed by Satyajit Ray.
The plot depicts a well-off family which is paid an unexpected, and rather unwanted, visit by a man claiming to be the woman’s long-lost uncle. Anila receives a letter from a long-lost uncle she last saw 35 years ago, who hopes to stay at her family home in Calcutta, India. Her husband, Subhindra, immediately suspects that this “uncle” may be an impostor. So when the stranger arrives, he’s given the third degree by husband, friends and even the family lawyer. He’s only accepted by Anila’s young son, who is in thrall to his stories of global travel. Watch the film here…
8th September: Avatar by James Cameron
Avatar (often called James Cameron’s Avatar) is a 2009 American epic science fiction film directed, written, produced, and co-edited by James Cameron. The film is set in the mid-22nd century when humans are colonizing Pandora, a habitable moon in another solar system, in order to mine the valuable mineral unobtanium. The expansion of the mining colony threatens the continued existence of a local tribe of Na’vi – a humanoid species indigenous to Pandora.
Avatar is widely celebrated for its politically and culturally sensitive critique of the “West’s” neocolonial wars and exploitation of the “global south” – an allegory for (neo)colonialism – and for highlighting the plight of tribal communities throughout the world (for instance, the case of the Dongriah Kondh tribe of India). Watch the film here…
9th September: Suffraggette by Sarah Gavron
Even through the architects of the Indian Constitution ensured voting rights to women from the moment of Independence, it is fact that until only around 100 years ago, women did not have the right to vote in most countries (including countries like the USA, UK and most other European Countries). In the absence of the right to vote, the lives of women were entirely dictated by the will of men. Suffragette documents the struggles of women to win their right to vote – the right to have a say in their own lives, to be treated a equals.
Suffragette is a tart reminder to those who are casual about democratic gender equality that votes for women were not something that naturally evolved due to the ruling class’s innate decency; they had to be fought for. Watch the film here…
10th September: Ran by Akira Kurosawa
As Kurosawa’s last epic, Ran has often been cited as among his finest achievements and is widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made. With a budget of $11 million it was the most expensive Japanese film produced up to that time.
Shawn Levy, of the Portland Oregonian wrote, “In many respects, it’s Kurosawa’s most sumptuous film, a feast of color, motion and sound.” Apart from the fact that the film is a feast of color, motion and sound, Kurosawa’s interpretation of Shakespeare in the Japanese context remains one of the greatest achievements of adaptation in film history. Watch the film here…