Online film festival to celebrate works of documentarians Saba Dewan and Rahul Roy

Dewan’s films have been widely screened at major international film festivals, and includes her much celebrated trilogy of films focusing on stigmatised women performers – “Delhi-Mumbai-Delhi” (2006), “Naach” (2008) and “The Other Song” (2009), about the art and lifestyle of tawaifs (courtesans) which won the best film prize at the prestigious Pusan International Film Festival, 2009.

Leading film collectives and filmmakers have come together to “celebrate, share and discuss” the films of well-known documentary filmmakers Saba Dewan and Rahul Roy. The festival, which was launched Thursday with the screening of Roy’s 2000 documentary “When Four Friends Meet”, has been organized by Cinema of Resistance (Ghaziabad) Marupakkam (Madurai) Pedestrian Pictures (Bengaluru) People’s Film Collective (Kolkata) and Vikalp @ Prithvi (Mumbai).

The screening of the films by Dewan and Roy is followed by online discussions where the two filmmakers speak about the particular film as well as their approach to documentary film. Dewan’s films have been widely screened at major international film festivals, and includes her much celebrated trilogy of films focusing on stigmatised women performers – “Delhi-Mumbai-Delhi” (2006), “Naach” (2008) and “The Other Song” (2009), about the art and lifestyle of tawaifs (courtesans) which won the best film prize at the prestigious Pusan International Film Festival, 2009. She has also written the book “Tawaifnama”.

Roy’s work has focused on gender, masculinities, labour and culture. He has won several international awards for his films including the Basil Wright Film Prize and International Prix de la SCAM at the Cinema Du Reel in Paris. He has also written extensively, including the best-selling “A Little Book on Men” besides editing the anthology “Violence and the Quest for Justice in South Asia”. Dewan and Roy also initiated the Not in My Name campaign against hate crimes in India in 2017. They were also involved in the civil society relief works in the wake of the Covid-19 lockdown, under the banner of Gurgaon Nagrik Ekta Manch, which provided rations and cooked meals to migrant workers and daily wagers stranded without work and food in Gurgaon. Some of the films being screened at the festival include Roy’s “The City Beautiful”, “The Factory”, “Majma” and Dewan’s “The Other Song”, “Sita’s Family”, “Delhi - Mumbai – Delhi” and “Naach”..