Marupakkam Online Film Screening # 38 : Shramjeevi

Marupakkam Online Film Screening # 38

From 10 am on 14th April; for 48 hours

Film : Shramjeevi
Dir: Tarun Bhartiya; 43.50 min; Hindi with Eng subtitles; 2020; Documentary



SHRAMJEEVI narrates the hopes and tragedies of the working class lives in Kapasehra village, one of the largest settlements of migrant workers in India.

Tarun Bhartiya is a filmmaker, film editor, a poet in the Hindi language and a political activist based in Shillong.


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Marupakkam Online Film Screening # 37 : We Have Not Come Here to Die

Marupakkam Online Film Screening # 37

On 2-4 April, 6 pm to 6 pm; 48 hours

Film : We Have Not Come Here to Die
Dir : Deepa Dhanraj

On January 17th 2016 a Dalit, Phd research scholar, and activist Rohith Vemula unable to bear the persecution from a partisan University administration and dominant caste Hindu supremacists hung himself in one of the most prestigious universities in India. His suicide note, which argued against the “value of a man being reduced to his immediate identity” galvanized student politics in India.

Over the last year thousands of students all over the country have broken the silence around their experiences of caste discrimination in Universities and have started a powerful anti-caste movement. The film attempts to track this historic movement that is changing the conversation on caste in India.

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 password : sama.stories  

Marupakkam Online Film Screening # 36 : MOD (The Turn)

Marupakkam Online Film Screening # 36 

From 6.30 pm today! Till 6 pm, Monday!

Film : Mod (The Turn)
Dir: Pushpa Rawat; 69 min; Hindi with Eng subtitles; 2016



Mod is an attempt by the filmmaker at communicating with the young men who hang out at the ‘notorious’ water tank in her neighbourhood in Pratap Vihar, Ghaziabad. The water tank is a space that is frequented by the so-called ‘no-gooders’ of the locality, a place where they play cricket, play cards, drink and smoke up. When she enters the space with her camera, the boys are curious and at the same time wary of it and her. They sometimes resist, sometimes protest, and at times, open up. As the film unfolds we get a hint of the lives the boys lead and the fragile world they create for themselves at the water tank.



About the filmmaker : Pushpa Rawat has been involved in film projects in her own community in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh. She was one of the filmmakers of the 2007 short documentary Kyon, a group project around gender-based violence. Her debut film Nirnay (2012) was a deeply personal film looking at her own life and those of her women friends. It was the winner of the Pramod Pati Award for the Most Innovative Film at MIFF 2014. She is the recipient of the TISS-SMCS Early Career Fellowship and her second film Mod was made as a part of this.

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Marupakkam Online Film Screening # 35 : Foreigner in My Home Land

Marupakkam Online Film Screening # 35

FROM 6 PM TODAY!

Film : A Foreigner in My Home Land
Dir: Nishajyothi Sharma; 55 min



Nepalis (Gorkhas) of Assam are not foreigners or outsiders, except for a few who may have migrated to Assam (India) post 1971. However, the prevalent sentiment among the Assamese masses is quite contrary to what history says and the Assam Accord of 1985 has agreed to.

Through this self-reflexive film, the filmmaker (who herself is an Asameli Nepali/Gorkha) explores the notion of identity of the community in Assam.

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Marupakkam Online Film Screening # 34 - Scratches on Stone

Marupakkam Online Film Screening # 34

Film : Scratches on Stone
Dir: Amit Mahanti; 62 min; Ao, Chen, Nagamese, English; 2018

Zubeni grew up in the 1980s-90s in the midst of a 50-year war for Naga independence. She says its traces still exist today – in her memories, in the photographs she takes, in herself. Elsewhere in Nagaland, 98-year old Cheno Khuzuthrupa remembers the war through a wooden engraving outside his house, while Shoupa and Zubeni talk about an Austrian ethnologist’s photography in the area in the 1930s. Meanwhile, Zubeni’s niece, Hannah will turn 3 in a few months, and Zubeni has been wondering how to capture her image.

In Nagaland, the past lingers on, framed through photographs, casting shadows over the present.‘Scratches on Stone’ is an exploration of the textures and residue of violence in Nagaland – through Zubeni’s personal experiences; through people and images that remind us of the political violence that the place has been through; and the legacy of the anthropological photographic tradition that has always foregrounded the idea of ‘violence’ among the Naga people.

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Password : stones

Marupakkam Online Film Screening # 33 - The Battle of Bhima Koregaon

Marupakkam Online Film Screening # 33
Showing Now!

Film : The Battle of Bhima Koregaon - an unending journey 
Dir: Somnath Waghmare; 49 min; Marathi, Hindi with Eng subtitles; 2016

History speaks about great wars fought, brave warriors and clever kings and emperors. What history doesn't do is justice to the wars, warriors and leaders of the oppressed. This documentary is about the 500 Mahar soldiers (the untouchables) who offered to fight alongside their countrymen, against the colonisers. Rejected by the ruling class they joined forces with the colonisers and fought in the 'Bhima Koregaon Battle', defeating the Brahminical rule of the Peshwas. Just as history did, so do the media and ruling class today conveniently forget to acknowledge them. 

On​ the 1st of​ January, every year, 20 lakh (2 million) people gather at Bhima-Koregaon, Pune, Maharashtra to commemorate that battle. No national or local media covers the largest annual gathering in the region. The documentary captures the history of Bhima Koregaon and its relevance to contemporary Dalit issues and politics in the country. It tells the history of the​ ​Bahujans through the coverage of the events of this gathering.

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Marupakkam Online Film Screening # 32 - A Dream in their Songs

Marupakkam Online Film Screening # 32
From tomorrow / Friday, 6 pm!

Film : A Dream in their Songs
Dir: Deba Ranjan; 29 min; Odia with Eng. subtitles; 2020

Synopsis: Songs are an important part of the community life as well as their resistance to dispossession. The dream of these singers of Odisha has always been the strength of people’s struggle of saving their own lives and resources.

These singers are very much the same people who compose the songs, sing the same, participate in the rally, and encourage own people to dream. For the last few years, they have been in front of all resistance struggles in the eastern part of India.

This film is based on the life and dream of a few composers-cum-singers of such resistance struggles of Odisha/India.

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