This weekend, the Urban Lens Film Festival will arrive in Mumbai for the first time, bringing its layered conversation surrounding the urban experience for Mumbaikars to delve into. Organised by the Indian Institute of Human Settlements’ (IIHS) Media Lab in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut, the festival’s fourth edition travelled successfully to Bengaluru and Delhi this year, and will be screened at Vikhroli’s Godrej India Culture Lab in a more compact encasement here.
“It is important to understand the idea of the city and what it produces,” explains the Media Lab’s Head, Subasri Krishnan, “and, in particular, [in] films.” For Mumbaikars feeling like they missed out on what the festival had to offer in the last few years, the upcoming Urban Lens screenings will consist of their best films from all the previous editions – including this year’s selections at Bengaluru and Delhi.
The festival aims to discuss the lived experiences in the cities by pushing the conversation beyond their skylines and cityscapes, and exploring the way in which individuals and their urban surroundings are spliced and influence each other to create narratives. “[It’s] not just [about] the physicality of cities… [but] this interaction between the human and architectural,” says Parmesh Shahani, Head of the Godrej India Culture Lab. “Cinema is a great place to explore these intersections… between our own personal histories, and the geographies of the places we inhabit.”
The Urban Lens Film Festival fits snugly in the timeline of the Culture Lab’s events, considering their first was a conference titled, Urban (Re)Imagination. It looked into the re-imagining of history, geography and community in urban cities, with a focus on Mumbai. While the film fest is a “travelling package” that looks at urban experiences around the globe, Shahani believes it will take on a unique meaning in Mumbai. “I think Mumbai is such a megapolis,” he points out, “that [even in] films about other cities we find something which resonates. We are the maximum city.”
While Krishnan feels that ascribing a theme to any edition is limiting, she asserts that the fest endeavours to deal with a wide range of preoccupations and an expanding array of urban experiences. “We have films from India, Egypt and South Africa. Films that are basically from the global south,” she says. This particular setting lends itself to unique facets and conflicts of socio-political, cultural and economic topics.
Take, for instance, Pablo Pinedo Bóveda’s Noma (2016). The South African documentary follows a young, single mother of two, whose life provides a gateway into how many of the youth in post-apartheid South Africa survive. Or the documentary called India Cabaret (1985) – one of Mira Nair’s earliest films. With two striptease dancers from a Mumbai cabaret at its centre, Nair’s documentary looks at the paradoxes within a deeply patriarchal society that boxes its women into neat compartments of the decent and the depraved. There is also Ahmed Nour’s documentary called Waves (2012) that reflects on the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 and its failure. Nour uses a blend of live-action and animation to share a personal account of the city of Suez and its inhabitants’ unrest during the period.
The festival will also include talks by filmmakers in between screenings, like Nishtha Jain, director of City of Photos (2004) and Tangella Madhavi, the director of Chasing Tails (2015). While Jain’s film explores the interesting juxtaposition of a gritty city experience and the fantasies ensconced in their tiny photo studios, Madhavi’s film follows Muneera Shaikh who walks the city’s Western Express Highway to feed stray dogs and cats at night. A panel discussion titled “Development in a choking City” will follow the screening of Avijit Mukul Kishore’s Vertical City (2011): a critique of slum rehabilitation that shares the contradicting promise of development and the reality of their degenerating spaces. Also on display will be a photo exhibit by photographer Ritesh Uttamchandani that examines the afterlife of political propaganda posters.
While the films assemble a diverse set of urban experiences around the world, Shahani stresses on the particular contexts each city lends to the relevance of the topics discussed. Referring to discussions surrounding recently released Mumbai’s Development Plan, Shahani says, “I think our timing is very interesting.”
The Urban Lens Film Festival is from December 2-3 at Godrej One, Vikhroli (East). Entry is free but RSVP at indiaculturelab@godrejinds.com.
