The Auroville Film Institute (AVFI), in partnership with the University of Ladakh, has launched the Ladakh Audiovisual Media Archive (LAMA) project that will serve as a dynamic repository of footage and other unique audio-visual markers of the history and culture of Ladakh and the Ladakhi life. The project is produced as part of the experiential filmmaking modules.
LAMA was formally launched at the conclusion of the collaborative, multi-site Open Space Documentary Arts (OSDA) programme in Ladakh. The programme evolved from a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the AVFI (a unit of Auroville Foundation) and the University, in 2023.
The curriculum, delivered in Auroville and Ladakh, includes orientation of cinematic arts with special focus on documentary arts practices, experimenting with narrative tools, techniques of cinematic articulation, and learning to translate real sites into cinematic spaces. It also has modules on editing (intensive course work), diploma project productions, exhibitions, and public screenings.
Intensive training
A group of 31 aspiring filmmakers from different parts of the country and abroad participated in the one-year PG Diploma programme and the short-term (55 day) hands-on documentary filmmaking workshop of the Ladakh chapter of the OSDA programme.
The aspiring filmmakers, with diverse cultural and professional backgrounds, hailed from eight countries. The youngest of them was 17 years old and the oldest was 69.
The call for the workshop had emphasised on how artistes and mediators grappling with an increasingly warring world riven by polarising views and oppositional principles reassess their worldviews, and was vindicated by the student film package that boldly tackled the Israel-Palestine conflict and the unrest in Bangladesh, said Richa Hushing, an AVFI Director and curriculum designer. “I am extremely proud to present these films under the AVFI banner that are a plea for world peace and human unity,” she said.
S.K. Mehta, Vice-Chancellor, University of Ladakh, said the plethora of films, footage, and audio-visual resources generated by students engaged with AVFI’s programmes in Ladakh contains unique markers of time, space, and subjects across the region that are significant in terms of their historical, anthropological, and documentary value. “This archive will be of immense academic value for the purposes of research, documentation, and creative/scholarly interpretations,” he noted.
Since its launch, the programme has produced a set of 17 films in Ladakh and four in Auroville. Last year, a couple of productions got selected for two major festivals -- the Mumbai International Film Festival and the Chennai International Film Festival.
Debkamal Ganguly, associate faculty of the programme, said the films and media artifacts produced bear a much longer life “not only to exhibit and construct discourses on culture of the said region, but also archive contemporary concerns and movements”.
Ladakh has been a thriving ground to understand the very ancient and the very contemporary co-existing stunningly in a singular frame, said Rrivu Laha, co-director of the programme.
Rev Elijah Gergan, a Ladakh-based educationist and theologist, found the films to mirror “a range of perspectives, imagination, and actualities of the geo-ecological, the archaeological, historical, political, socio-cultural, and the magico-mythical worlds in Ladakh”.
The 17 short films that give glimpses of various aspects of Ladakh, its socio-culture, heritage, and ecology went on the screening slate at the valedictory event.
Chamgon Kenting 12th Tai Situpa Rinpoche was chief guest at the screening, with Stanzin Chospel, Executive Councillor (Art and Culture) from the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC), Leh, the guest of honour.
Renowned Ladakhi filmmaker Stanzin Dorjai ya was awarded a ‘Certificate of Honour’ in the presence of dignitaries including Padma Shri awardee Morup Namgyal, Elijah Gergan, Sonam Joldan, and Tashi Morup, the AVFI said.
