Yugantar, India’s first feminist film collective, is bringing to Bengaluru cinema from the archives of the country’s feminist history. The films to be screened throw light on domestic workers and tobacco workers organising for their rights and on domestic violence.
Curated by Yugantar Film Collective in collaboration with Gamana Women’s Collective and Bangalore Film Society, the films will be screened between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. at Saswati Auditorium, NMKRV College for Women in Jayanagar on January 19, 2023.
The event will also feature a panel discussion with members of Domestic Workers Right Union (DWRU) and All India Progressive Women’s Association (AIPWA), reflecting on how the lives of women have changed in recent decades – both at home and the workplace.
Cinema and feminism
Deepa Dhanraj, a founder member of Yugantar Film Collective and a part of the direction team of the films being screened. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement/Yugantar Film Collective
Founded by Deepa Dhanraj, Abha Baiya, Navroze Contractor and Meera Rao in 1980, Yugantar produced four pioneering films in the eighties that sparked debates on political friendship, solidarity, mobilisation of women, demanding labour rights, defying violence against women and making films collectively. Three of such productions will be screened on Thursday.
Molkarin is a 1981 Marathi documentary exposing the oppressive working conditions of hundreds of domestic workers in Pune. Tambaku Chaakila Oob Aali (1982), another Marathi documentary, traces the history and strike actions of all the women trade unions of over 3,000 tobacco workers in Nipani, Maharashtra.
Idi Katha Matramena (1983) is an improvised fiction film in Telugu that dwells on dowry death and was made with the intention of broadening the political discourse around domestic violence in the 80s. Directed by Deepa Dhanraj, who is also a co-founder of the Yugantar Film Collective, all three films have a runtime of 25 minutes.
