Vikalp@Prithvi's 5th Anniversary on 27th Feb | Watch 'The Song of Freedom'
Since February 2007, Vikalp@Prithvi has been screening selected documentaries and short films on the last Monday of each month at Prithvi House.
It has been five years since the journey began and we are celebrating our 5th anniversary with a screening of 'Muktir Gaan' ('The Song of Freedom') on Feb 27 at 7 PM at Prithvi Theatre’s lovely auditorium... This award-winning documentary film made by Bangladesh's eminent filmmakers Tareque and Catherine Masud is an affectionate portrait of travelling musicians in war-torn Bangladesh who provided a source of inspiration to the freedom fighters.
Excerpts from an article on the film by Naeem Mohaiemen: Muktir Gaan (Song of Freedom) is the first feature length documentary on the 1971 Bangladesh liberation war. In 1971, the Bengali revolt against Pakistani domination and the subsequent army crackdown, captured world headlines on an unprecedented scale. The film is the story of a singing cultural troupe travelling through refugee camps and eventually crossing the border into liberated zones of Bangladesh. Interspersed with this is invaluable documentary footage, including Sheikh Mujib's famous speech of 7th March 1971 ("This time the struggle is for freedom" -- the first time Mujib publicly echoed the radical student factions' long-running demand for total separation from Pakistan). The troupe's song performances are gems of folk history, and the enthusiasm of the refugees at various shows is captured with a minimum of intrusiveness. A standout is the kirthan-style song where Swapan Chowdhury alternately goes into a trance and dissolves the chorus into an orgy of applause. Beyond the artistic value of Muktir Gaan, the release of the film is a landmark event in a country struggling to build a coherent version of its history. Over the last two decades, every government has suppressed discussion on the liberation war to protect its own vested interests -- sometimes the civil servants who stayed in their posts through the war, sometimes army officers who feared that glamorising the war would help the Awami League, and sometimes the Islamists of Jamaat-e-Islami who had actively helped the Pakistan army by forming militia and death squads. For the entire piece: http://bit.ly/wXX743 Excerpts from Catherine Masud’s post about the making of the film: Our emphasis was the cultural troupe: their day-to-day experiences, their struggles, and most of all, their music, through which the story and spirit of the Liberation War could be conveyed to a young Bangladeshi audience for whom the Liberation War was nothing more than a confused legend. Over five long years we had toiled on this project, and seeing the finished film, we could only remember the many sacrifices and contributions of all the people behind the scenes who’d made it possible. At times during the production we had felt consumed by an obsessive desire to collect more material, to incorporate more and more elements into the film, and to perfect our work. We also had many moments of depression, when we despaired that the film would ever be finished. In the midst of our labour, it was impossible for us to gauge the impact it might have on an audience in Bangladesh. Little did we imagine the response that awaited us. And little could we imagine the struggles that awaited us even after the film was finished: the struggle against censorship, the struggle to find a distributor, the struggle to exhibit the film ourselves... To read her detailed note: http://bit.ly/wO1rKr -----
Screening Details: On Monday, 27 February, 7 PM At Prithvi Theatre, Janki Kutir, Juhu Church Road, Juhu, Bombay Entry Free, On A First-Come-First-Seated Basis
For any queries, email vikalp.prithvi@gmail.com
To RSVP online or share screening details on social media platforms: www.tinyurl.com/VikalpFilm
If you would like to put up the screening poster (made by Nitesh Mohanty) at a cafe or your office or any such spaces in Bombay, do let us know. We will cover printing costs. :)
