Experimenta India: Films from the Indian Avant-Garde Program 1

I Am Micro

Los Angeles Filmforum presents

Experimenta India: Films from the Indian Avant-Garde Program 1

At the Echo Park Film Center, 1200 N. Alvarado St., Los Angeles CA 90026

Artists/curators Shai Heredia & Shumona Goel in person!

Note the change from our usual location, day, and time!

Los Angeles Filmforum is thrilled to present two distinct programs of historical and contemporary experimental Indian films curated by filmmakers Shai Heredia and Shumona Goel who will be in person from India for these two unique and rare screenings.

Despite a long and internationally celebrated cinematic tradition, the Indian avant-garde is much lesser known to American audiences than the many canonical works of Indian feature filmmaking. With generous support from the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts, Filmforum has invited Shai Heredia and Shumona Goel to present their own acclaimed works along with a specially curated selection of short films that will attempt an abbreviated survey of India’s experimental cinematic landscape. Their joint visit to Los Angeles to share and discuss their and other artists’ work is an incredibly rare opportunity not to be missed!

Over two different programs, a necessarily fractional but illuminating view of the extensive and eclectic Indian avant-garde will be traced by our guests, spanning 1960s experimental classics by artists such as Pramod Pati to contemporary artists working today.

More information on the individual film lineups will be announced soon, but we are pleased to already confirm that two multi-award-winning short films by Heredia and Goel - I AM MICRO (2010) and AN OLD DOG’S DIARY (2015) - will be included in the programs.

Filmforum is also extremely pleased to once again collaborate with UCLA Film & Television Archive in presenting program 2 on Wednesday, June 28.

Tickets: $10 general admission; $6 seniors; $6 students with ID; FREE FOR FILMFORUM MEMBERS and UCLA students with ID.
Tickets available in advance at http://bpt.me/2985259 or at the door.

For more event information: www.lafilmforum.org, or 323-377-7238

Biographies

Shumona Goel is a Mumbai based artist working in film, video and photography. After finishing her BA in Film from Bard College, New York, Shumona completed her MA in Anthropology from School of Oriental and African Studies, London. She has directed and produced several documentaries, short films and commercials since.

Her films have been screened at numerous film festivals and since 2008 she has been exploring expanded forms of cinema. Shumona especially enjoys working with low-tech, outdated formats such as VHS cassettes and slide projections. She is the recipient of the Emerging Artist Award 2008 from the Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art.

Shai Heredia is a filmmaker and curator of film art. She founded Experimenta - the international festival for experimental cinema in India - in 2003 in Mumbai. Over the years, she has rapidly developed the festival into a significant international forum for artists' film and video. Shai has also curated experimental film programmes for various film festivals. Shai holds an MA in documentary film from Goldsmiths College, London. She is currently a Programme Executive at the India Foundation for the Arts, Bangalore.

---------------------------

This program is supported by the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts; the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission; the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles; and Bloomberg Philanthropies. We also depend on our members, ticket buyers, and individual donors.

ABID by Pramod Pati

1972, color, sound, 5min.
“Unlike a cartoon film, which is a rapidly moving series of photographed drawings, in pixilation, a moving object is shot frame by frame, and then through clever editing made to appear in motion. By its nature, this movement is agile, energetic and unpredictable just like the pop art movement.” [Pramod Pati]

TALES FROM PLANET KOLKATA by Ruchir Joshi

1993, color, sound, 38min.
A personal film about a city that may only exist in a film or on tv; a film about various dreams about Calcutta. It starts with a variation on the first image of Francis Ford Coppola's ‘Apocalypse Now’ and takes the spectator along through a strange file full of ideas and images of the city. Some images come from the North - Hollywood films and European television. The commentators are a local, traditional painter and an Afro-American video-artist from New York.

THIS BIT OF THAT INDIA by SNS Sastry

1972, b/w, sound, 20min.
“This Bit Of That India” is a layered refection on youth culture, diversity, progress, education, technology and sexuality. The film juxtaposes documentary moments that celebrate individual freedom with a theatrical performance of Federico Garcia Lorca’s “The House of Bernarda Alba”, as a metaphor for repression and conformity.

I AM MICRO by Shumona Goel & Shai Heredia

2012, b/w, sound, 15min.
Shot in the passages of an abandoned optics factory and centered on the activities of a low-budget film crew, I Am Micro is an experimental essay about filmmaking, the medium of film, and the spirit of making independent cinema.