The third edition of an emerging Lightcube Film Society’s festival of independent films from around the world began this Thursday at Instituto Cervantes.
Known as Transmission 3, the four-day festival that concludes on March 1, is slowly gaining ground as the one that gives space to unknown yet talented film-makers across the globe, and brings to the fore films that India does not get to see for the lack of information, especially on one platform.
Suraj Prasad, the curator of the film, explains: “The ambition of the third edition of Transmissions is to establish a platform that devotes itself specifically and wholly to the cause of independent film production and exhibition in the country. The festival will not only be a screening platform, but also act as a conference, convention and platform for an elaborate discussion on the fundamentals involved in the independent film scene in the country. It will also be a gathering of the most important independent artists working throughout the capital and other parts of the country.”
To achieve this aim, the festival is featuring a series of film screenings, a workshop, panel discussions, a set of exhibitions by emerging artistes and tributes organised to major film artistes.
The film section is divided into two sections. The first is exhibiting features from around the world as well as recent major titles from India. It includes titles such as Shaan Khataau’s The Dark I Must Not Name , Amit Dutta’s Saatvin Sair , Pushpendra Singh’s Lajwanti , Pankaj Rishi Kumar’s 3 Men and a Bulb , R.V. Ramani’s My Camera and the Tsunami , among others.
These titles intersperse with films such as Benjamin Naishtat’s History of Fear , Soon-Mi Yoo’s Songs from the North , James Fotopoulous’s There , Daniel Ziv’s Jalanan and Gina Telaroli’s Traveling Light . This section will showcase works from different corners of the world too including the USA, Iran, UK, Bosnia, Spain and Argentina.
Apart from this, the exhibition also features sketches, videos and photographs by three interesting new artists, whose work will cover topics as diverse as a sleepy haunted single screen theatre in Chennai, protests in Jadavpur etc.
The second section called Inserts includes contemporary work in the short format, experimental and video-art fields. This will range from video art from the Dominican Republic, videos from Syria, Japan and the US to a package of special home-made videos.
The exhibition space at Instituto Cervantes will be used to display archival documents, letters, articles, footage related to the work and life of cineaste, curator, programmer and film-maker Peter Von Bagh.
Adds Prasad: “Peter is an award-winning Finnish film-maker, critic, and historian. He has directed more than 60 documentaries and published over 30 books. He is the art director for two major international festivals. His iconic radio and television programmes have shaped the opinions of countless Nordic filmgoers for decades.”
The film, he adds, is an exquisite collage portrait of Finland’s capital city as captured by the country’s leading feature and documentary film-makers over a period of one hundred years, Helsinki. Forever is also an essay on Finnish culture in a broader sense, following an emotional logic that questions the ephemeral nature of history itself in the search for the heart and soul of the city.
