Documentary is as much an art form as other forms of visual arts:Gargi Sen
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Stephen Fernandes, stevfern@gmail.com, +00919820707327
gargi sen
We met up with one of the torchbearers of the documentary film movememt–Gargi Sen .Gargi Sen heads the media arts and human rights organization: Magic Lantern Foundation (MLF) and her interest lie at the cross roads of culture, communication, cinema and academia. Magic Lantern Foundation is a non-profit group working with media and human rights.
Established in 1989, MLF has been involved with:
Production of documentary films that explore aesthetics and politics.
Campaigning with films on issues of social justice, culture and censorship.
Media education to critically assess the dominant media.
Training in the use of media and media education.
Intervening in the construction of media policy.
Dissemination of independent films.
Research on IPR in the realm of knowledge and culture production.
Curation and organisation of film festivals.
She is a documentary filmmaker, distributor, curator of film festivals and a teacher of mass communication theory and research. She has made documentries since 1989 and many of her films have won awards and have been screened in national and international festivals.
Gargi Sen says “The space for documentaries is very limited, so we are trying to bring a range of documentaries to people. Also, there are lot of misconceptions about documentaries, and the popular thinking is that documentaries are boring. Films in the festival will prove that it is not so. After all, cinema is cinema, and documentary is as much an art form as other forms of visual arts.”
Today, many stories, people and histories are becoming more and more invisible. What becomes visible tends to make many more invisible. The festival aims to address this growing invisibility of plural narratives, concerns, stories and people from the public domain by bringing ‘˜other’ pictures into limelight”, adds Gargi
Since 2005 she has set up a not-for-profit national distribution centre called: Under Construction that aims to distribute and disseminate independent films. She has also curated many international film festivals including ‘Other Worlds Are Breathing’ 2004 and 2005 for the World Social Forum in Mumbai, India and Porto Allegre, Brazil. Recently she curated ‘Persistence Resistance: a festival of contemporary political films’ a festival of international cinema aimed at locating the new and emerging documentary language.
February 9th, 2010 at 2:29 am
“Changing Global scenario has provided large landscape to new documentary film makers. But Documentary makers should have their own aspiration, own ideas, creativity and new vision to convince audience about their theme. World wide directors are going to set up forum to give guidance to new-comers in this field therefore there is no need to worry about funding” was the expression of experts during the open forum held on Feb 5, 2010 during 11th edition of MIFF2010.
Among the dignitaries who participated in the event were, Beena Paul, stated that, documentary films makers should choose such subjects which will directly touch the audience, focus on social issues related to community development. Therefore quality of documentary is required to be improved. Training for documentary makers is essential otherwise low pitch documentaries will be seen in the market..