From dak at sarai.net Sat May 3 20:00:49 2003 From: dak at sarai.net (The Sarai Programme) Date: Sat, 3 May 2003 20:00:49 +0530 Subject: [Sarai Newsletter] MAY 2003 Message-ID: <200305032000.49440.dak@sarai.net> CONTENTS : MAY 2003 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- PRESENTATION @ SARAI May 5 ELECTROSIA: electronic music & poetry by Mexican poets & sound artists FILMS @ SARAI May 16 Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler (1922), Directed by Fritz Lang, Germany May 17 Ivan the Terrible Part I (1943), Directed by Sergei Eisenstein, USSR May 18 Night of the Hunter (1955), Directed by Charles Laughton, USA May 19 Sansho the Bailiff (1954), Directed by Kenzi Mizoguchi, Japan May 20 Imitation of Life (1959), Directed by Douglas Sirk, USA May 22 Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Directed by Jean Luc Godard, France May 23 Images of the World and the Inscription of War (1989), Directed by Harun Farocki, Germany May 24 Jagte Raho (1957), Directed by Shombhu and Amit Maitra, India May 25 Subarnarekha (1962), Directed by Ritwik Ghatak, India May 26 Amores Perros (2000), Directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Innurita, Mexico WORKSHOP REPORT: First National Indic-Font Workshop ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear Friends, This May we take a break from the regular Friday film screenings to focus on the “Introduction to Film Studies Lecture Series" in the second half of the month. The ten days (May 16-26, with a break on May 25) will be filled with illustrated lectures, film screenings and discussions. Registration for the series close on May 5. Evening film screenings, scheduled an hour later than our regular screening time, at 5:30 pm, will be public. But the month starts with an exciting evening of electronic music and poetry. Read on... PRESENTATION @ SARAI Monday May 5, 2003, 5 pm ELECTROSIA: electronic music & poetry by Mexican poets & sound artists Presented by Carla Faesler, Mexican poet Electrosia (electronic music & poetry) is an ongoing project undertaken by Mexican poets, sound artists and DJ's, as a way to experiment with new means through which poetry can be delivered. The project started in 2002, and gathers the work of Mexican poets from the 60's and 70's generations, as well as those of the main underground collectives of the contemporary electronic music scene in Mexico City. Electrosia's aim is to produce a CD that will offer an alternative channel to the traditional ways in wich poetry is divulged in Mexico. Carla Faesler has authored books of poems including 'No tu sino la Piedra'. Her poetry has appeared in literary magazines in Mexico and is part of 'Sin Puertas Visibles', an anthology of contemporary poetry written by Mexican women. She lives in Mexico City and works as a jounalist and editor advisor. The presentation is in collaboration with the Embassy of Mexico in India. FILMS @ SARAI As part of the "Introduction to Film Studies" Lecture Series Sarai will screen classics of World Cinema every evening between May 16 to May 26. All screenings are at 5:30 pm, at the Seminar Room, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi -110054. The films are listed in the order of screening. This schedule is subject to last-minute changes. Screenings for May 21 will be announced later. Friday May 16, 2003, 5:30 pm Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler (1922), 130 minutes Directed by Fritz Lang, Germany In 'Dr Mabuse: The Gambler' Fritz Lang evokes the soiled and shoddy world of crime-infested and inflation-racked post World War I Berlin. Employing his supreme powers of disguise and hypnosis, Mabuse surrounds himself with loyal servants and criminal henchmen who assassinate his rivals, manipulate the stock market and seduce wealthy citizens out of their riches. In a seedy underground cabaret, Mabuse, with the help of beautiful dancer Cara Carozza, hypnotizes a bored, wealthy man named Hull. After losing large sums of money to a disguised Mabuse, Hull is warned by police detective Wenk that he has been the victim of a master criminal. Hull ignores the warning as he has been seduced by Cara into thinking it was an honest game. Meanwhile, Wenk solicits the assistance of rich Countess Told in his endless attempts to capture Mabuse and his gang. When Cara is arrested, Mabuse retaliates by kidnapping Countess Told and eluding Wenk and the police once again. Using special effects, complex editing, fade outs, animation techniques and superimpositions, Lang took the lessons he learned in the supernatural films of German expressionism and applied them to this epic story of the underside of Germany. Saturday May 17, 2003, 5:30 pm Ivan the Terrible Part I (1943), 94 minutes Directed by Sergei Eisenstein, USSR Originally conceived as a historical epic in three parts, Sergei Eisenstein's biography of Czar Ivan IV, the murderous 16th-century unifier of the Russian people, was truncated by the director's death in 1948, as he was about to begin part three. Starring Nikolai Cherkassov as the eponymous ruler, Part I opens with the 16-year-old's opulent coronation in 1546. He breaks with the custom of marriage to a foreign princess by marrying a Russian girl, Anastasia Romanovna, thereby offending the nobility. In an effort to expand his territory eastward, he leads an army of 100,000 to seize Kazan, succeeding only after a long and bitter campaign. After contracting a seemingly fatal illness, Ivan summons the Boyars, led by his aunt Euphrosinia, but they refuse his demand to swear allegiance to his one-year-old son, greatly angering the czar. When Ivan miraculously returns to health, he begins to consolidate power in opposition to the Boyars. Set against a 16th century backdrop, the spectucalrly ornate set design and costumes, along with a performance style influenced by Russian classism, grand opera and Kabuki theater, and huge close-ups combine with Prokofiev's choral music to make this film one of the classics of Russian cinema. Sunday May 18, 2003, 5:30 pm Night of the Hunter (1955), 93 minutes Directed by Charles Laughton, USA The Night of the Hunter (1955) is a classic thriller-fantasy, and the only film ever directed by the great British actor Charles Laughton. The disturbing, complex story was based on a popular, best-selling novel set in the Depression era. The protagonists are children remorselessly pursued by an obsessive, homicidal, and misogynous preacher who, having murdered their mother, seeks to steal from and kill them too. One of them at least knows that the word "hate", written on the fingers of the preacher's left hand, is more appropriate than the word "love" tattoed on his right. From dak at sarai.net Wed May 28 18:26:56 2003 From: dak at sarai.net (The Sarai Programme) Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 18:26:56 +0530 Subject: [Sarai Newsletter] Film@Sarai - May 30, 2003 Message-ID: <200305281826.56011.dak@sarai.net> Dear Friends, Sorry for the short notice. This Friday we will be screening Memento by Christopher Nolan. The synopsis is below. Do come. Cheers, Ranita The Sarai Programme Centre for the Study of Developing Societies 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 Tel: (+91) 11 23960040 (+91) 11 23951190 Fax: (+91) 11 23943450 www.sarai.net ---------------- Memento (2000) Director: Christopher Nolan Duration: 109 Minutes on Friday, May 30, 2003, 4:30 pm at the Seminar Room, Sarai-CSDS, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110054. Christopher Nolan's Memento is a unique and intriguing thriller that begins with the ultimate act of revenge and backtracks through time to reveal the shocking and provocative reasons behind it. Leonard Shelby (Guy Pierce) remembers everything upto the night his wife was brutally raped and murdered. But since that tragedy, he has suffered from short-term memory loss and cannot recall any event, the places he has visited or anyone he has met just minutes before. Determined to find out why his wife was killed, the only way he can store evidence is on scraps of paper, by taking Polaroid photos and tattooing vital clues on his body. Throughout his investigation he appears to have the help of both the bartender Natalie(Carrie-Ann Moss), who may have her own secret agenda and police officer Teddy (Joe Pantoliano) whose friendship is always suspect. As Shelby's fractured memory tries to piece together a chilling jigsaw of deceit and betrayal in reverse, breathtaking twists and surprising turns rapidly occur in one of the most challenging, original and critically acclaimed thriller in years. -