Imagineindia 2014 at FILMOTECA of ZARAGOZA

A part of the programme Imagineindia 2014 Madrid will be shown in Zaragoza at the Filmoteque of this city. 

5 films of the renowned russian director Marlen Khutsiyev will be heading to Zaragoza :


Marlen Khutsiyev

Marlen Martynovich Khutsiev (born October 4, 1925 in Tbilisi) is a Georgian-born Soviet and Russian filmmaker best known for his cult films from the 1960s, which include I Am Twenty and July Rain. He was named a People's Artist of the USSR in 1986.

     Khutsiev's father, Martyn Levanovich Khutsishvili (the family's original Georgian surname), was a lifelong Communist who was purged by Joseph Stalin in 1937. His mother, Nina Mikhailovna Utenelishvili, was an actress.

     Khutsiev studied film in the directing department at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography, graduating in 1952. He worked as a director at the Odessa film studio from 1952 to 1958, and worked full-time as a director at Mosfilm from 1965 onwards.

     Khutsiev's first feature film, Spring on Zarechnaya Street (1956), encapsulated the mood of the Khrushchev Thaw and went on to became one of the top box-office draws of the 1950s. Three years later, Khutsiev launched Vasily Shukshin "as a new kind of popular hero" by starring him in Two Fyodors. His two masterpieces of the 1960s, however, were panned by the authorities, forcing Khutsiev into something of an artistic silence. Since 1978, Khutsiev has taught film directing master classes at the VGIK.

His 1991 film Infinitas won the Alfred Bauer Prize at the 42nd Berlin International Film Festival. In 2014 won Imagineindia Award for Lifitime Achievement.



Programme :

Days  2 - 4 October

Vesna na Zarechnoy ulitse / Spring at Zarechnoy street, Marlen Khutsiyev , Feliks Mironer, 1956.
Cast : Nina Ivanova, Nikolai Rybnikov, Vladimir Gulyaev.

USSR. 96'.  Blu-ray.

An idealistic, sophisticated young woman meets a rough-around-the-edges, blue collar man and rejects him, only to find out later that they are destined for true love together, despite the fact that he cannot now pass his certification test after she threw him out of her adult education class.



Days 16 - 18 October
17.30 y 19.00

Mne dvadtsat let  / I am twenty, Marlen Khutsiyev, 1965. 
Cast : Valentin Popov, Nikolai Gubenko, Stanislav Lyubshin.

USSR.165'. DVD.

The film deals with three school chums, Sergei, Slava and Nikolai. Sergei is returning to Moscow from his hitch in the Army to find that "you can't go home again" Slava is married and has a toddler. Nikolai is doing research at a scientific institute. Nikolai offers to find Sergei a job at the Institute, but Sergei decides to follow in his deceased father's (killed in battle at age 21 in 1943 during the Great patriotic War, aka WWII) footsteps and work at the local power plant.


Sergei finds that his relationships to people have changed. Slava is distanced from them by his marriage and family commitments, but still tries to be "one of the boys" Nikolai works hard, and flirts shamelessly in exchange. Sergei feels alone and uncomfortable, never really sure what he should be doing. He still lives in the same flat with his mother and younger sister, he goes to work each day and studies to be an engineer at night.



Days 24 - 25 October
20.00 y 18.00

Iyulskiy dozhd / July rain, Marlen Khutsiyev, 1966. Cast : Yevgeniya Uralova, Aleksandr Belyavskiy, Yuri Vizbor

USSR.107'.  DVD.

It shows the time of the choice of a future way for the country. In fact the choice was already made in October 1964, when conformist climbers and unprincipled egotists (Volodya) took a lead of the Soviet society and eventually destroyed it. The most charming and human figure of the movie is Alik, played by the famous Russian bard Yuri Vizbor. Alik represents the honest and skeptical part of Soviet society, that didn't have much hope for the bright future and tried to enjoy the life, avoiding ranting and bargaining with the conscience.



Days 30 Oct - 1 November
18.00 y 20.00

Byl mesyats may / It was in may, Marlen Khutsiyev, 1970. 
Cast : Aleksandr Arzhilovsky, Pyotr Todorovskiy, Sergey Shakurov.

USSR.115'. DVD.

Russian soldiers are deployed on a German farm in the days in which will be signed the German surrender in World War II. The first moments of soldiers relationship with the woman of the farm are more than promising between jokes, misunderstandings with the language and dancing. Everything changes dramatically when the Regiment is ordered to inspect a concentration camp.



Days 7 - 8 November
20.00 y 18.00

Poslesloviye / Unfaded, Marlen Khutsiyev, 1983.
Cast : Rostislav Plyatt, Andrey Myagkov

USSR. 98'. DVD.

 The story is simple. A husband's elderly father-in-law comes to visit his daughter and her husband. Unfortunately the wife leaves the city on business for a couple of weeks, and her husband is working on a dissertation at home. The husband is stuck with spending time and hosting the old man. The old man is filled with life, he sings, shouts, and seems to know everything about everything: tobacco, wine. He, basically, never shuts up; but he is kind and friendly. The husband tolerates him, and is happy to make him as comfortable as possible. But the old man starts to really irritate the husband. He always thinks he's right and always goes on and on. He knows 5 languages and has traveled the world, so he has much to say. The story is narrated scarcely by the husband who says the events took place a year ago.

IMAGINEINDIA BARCELONA 2014. Programme

At Cines Girona : 

Carrer Girona, 175, 08025 Barcelona
Ph : 931 18 45 31

All the shows at 20.00h


Day 25 October


     MEGHE DHAKA TARA (Ritwik Ghatak) India. 1960. 126'

One of the most celebrated film of the indian director Ritwik Ghatak.

"Meghe Dhaka Tara" tells the tragic story of the beautiful daughter of a middle-class refugee family from East Pakistan, living in the outskirts of Calcutta under modest circumstances. Neeta sacrifices everything for her family, including her personal happiness, her money, and her health, while her achievements are hardly ever recognized by the people around her.

     DHOL GANWAR PASHU ARU NARI (Abhinav Gupta) (Films from Film and Television Institute of India, FTII) India. 2013. 20'

The film talks about the plight of women in the social structure. It is a fight they are constantly fighting against the odd - the male. It is not about the story of Tara and Phool, the characters in the film. They are mere representatives of ‘their’ people.

The film tries to deal with the intense emotional turmoil of a mother, who, having realised the odds, finds herself helpless, but still tries to fight It out leading to an unusual resolve.

Day 1 November

     AJANTRIK (Ritwik Ghatak) India. 1958. 102'

"They call me a machine, they don't understand that Jaggadal is also a human". The complex interaction between nature, mankind and the machine in the backdrop of an harsh and rocky wasteland of Bihar comes the unique story of Jaggadal. Though the name is masculine but the car is definitely feminine as illuminated in the movie. This is the masterstroke of Ritwik and could well be his defining work. No other movie captured this relationship between a man and his machine as have been done here. All later movies based on such theme will be pale including the most recent AI. Only a vagabond and an insane be so ungrateful and unemotional to something which have been making a living for him for so many years. A point proved in Ajantrik.

     WHERE RIVER MEETS THE SEA (Sumon Majumdar)(Films from Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, SRFTI) India. 2013. 26'

There was a father and his two daughters. After retirement and social responsibilities the father decides to leave home and goes to 'vanprastha'. The daughters comes close to each other and starts searching the father. When they failed they collects the memories of him and creates a dreamland.

Day 8 November


     GULABI GANG (Nishta Jain) India. 2012. 96'

The district is Banda, and the region, Bundelkhand, in UP. And an organization that has steadily been a media magnet for what it has managed to do: in the rural backwaters of North India, where years of heavy-handed, violent patriarchy has stunted the growth of women and killed the girl child, a woman has taken on all comers. ‘Gulabi Gang’, Nishtha Jain’s award-winning documentary gives us an up-close view of Sampat Pal and her gang, which dons pink ‘saris’, and hefts ‘lathis’, and fights against injustice where it is most needed.

  MOKAMA FAST PASSENGER (Subhadro Choudhry) (Films from Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, SRFTI) India. 2013. 24'

Mohan is a labour contractor, who works for a construction company. He shares a relation with Sabita in the city. On the contrary, Rakhi and her father-in-law waits in the village for Mohan to return. Occasional money order comes but Mohan doesn’t return. Rakhi finds escapade from her daily mundane life, when she goes to feed Jogi, a truck driver. They share a silent relation. One day, Mohan plans to leave the city. He takes a train to his village.

Day 15 November

      ANKHON DEKHI (Rajat Kapoor) India. 2014.  Cast: Sanjay Mishra, Seema Pahwa, Rajat Kapoor. 146'

Bauji (Sanjay Mishra) lives with his younger brother (Rajat Kapoor) in one of those cramped first floor quarters, more hovel than ‘haveli’, in Old Delhi’s Fatehpuri area. It has a ‘chhatt’ with ‘janglas’, tiny rooms adjacent to each other, a makeshift kitchen, and a common toilet. The family is joint at the hip in more ways than one, which is evident right from the first scene when Bauji’s daughter Rita (Maya Sarao ) is found to be in a relationship with an allegedly disreputable boy (Namit Das), and all hell breaks loose.

     

Day 22 November

     APUR PANCHALI (Kaushik Ganguly) India. 2013. Cast: Ardhendu Banerjee, Parambrata Chatterjee, Parno Mitra. 97'

Subir Banerjee at a tender age went on to deliver an impressionable performance as Apu in Pather Panchali which is listed amongst the 100 greatest films of all time. The boy who grew up never to act again in films has striking similarities with the journey of the ‘reel’ Apu. Many of the incidents shown from Subir’s life reflect Apu’s loss and tragedy in the film. Ardhendu Banerjee plays Subir in his dotage. The actor’s performance is earthy and honest which is much necessary to show the character’s internal conflict.

     Flashpoint (A. Lohrii Francis, Gurshimran Khamba, Mridula Chari, Shivani Gupta) (Films from Tata Institute for Social Science, TISS) India. 2013. 18'

Mohammed Ali Road and Mahim were among the more affected areas during the riots of 1992-1993. Twenty years later, this film takes the lens back to those areas to map the middle classes of those areas. Their lives, though not tangibly afflicted, were nonetheless transformed by that time enough to reflect in  their attitudes towards communalism today. Prominent writer and journalist Dilip D’Souza, draws these narratives together as we try to make sense of stereotypes that persist even today. 

Flashpoint is part of a series of films from the School of Media and Cultural Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, which seek to revisit the city of Mumbai, twenty years after the communal violence of 1992-93. In a situation where justice has been elusive and the collective amnesia profound, the series attempts to remember and reflect on the events of that tragic period and its aftermath.

     

Day 29 November

     SALMA (Kim Longinotto) Great Britain. 2013. 91'

When Salma, a young Muslim girl in a south Indian village, was 13 years old, her family locked her up for 25 years, forbidding her to study and forcing her into marriage. During that time, words were Salma's salvation. She began covertly composing poems on scraps of paper and, through an intricate system, was able to sneak them out of the house, eventually getting them into the hands of a publisher. Against the odds, Salma became the most famous Tamil poet: the first step to discovering her own freedom and challenging the traditions and code of conduct in her village.

As with her other work (Pink Saris, Rough Aunties), master documentarian Kim Longinotto trains her camera on an iconoclastic woman. Salma's extraordinary story is one of courage and resilience, and Longinotto follows her on an eye-opening trip back to her village. Salma has hopes for a different life for the next generation of girls, but as she witnesses, familial ties run deep, and change happens very slowly.

          23 WINTERS (Rajesh S. Jala) India. 2013. 30'

A film set in reality, played by a real protagonist, Bota, who lives a surreal life. A forced refugee from Kashmir, Bota is schizophrenic. This film glimpses through his traumatic past which haunts his exiled present. Nonetheless, his hopes are unvanquished.

     

Day 6 December

     CELLULOID (Kamal) India. 2013. 129'

J.C. Daniel, long been reduced to a mere footnote in movie history is finally given the treatment he truly deserves and full credit goes to Kamal for bringing this lesser known icon of Malayalam cinema to life to this generation of audience. It is a tragic tale of a man who dared to chase his dreams and as a result found his whole world falling apart, for the sole reason that he was a man way ahead of his time. We are taken through the journey of a young J.C. Daniel, known as the maker of the first Malayalam movie, "Vigathakumaran" ("The Lost Child"), cheerful and enthusiastic, with stars in his eyes, who was determined to bring the art of movie-making to the Malayali shores, but soon turns into a person disillusioned with the world and his passion, and gradually becomes a shadow of the man he once was.

     MUKHABIR (Manoj Kumar) (Films from FTII) India. 2013. 11'

A night in the life of an informer who is double crossing the police and the ganglord for money and to get the woman he craves. He slides along various facets of his personality, exposing his cold and ruthless atributes along with his vulnerabilites while having an ongoing internal dialogue.

    

Day 13 December


     PIED PIPER(Vivek Budakoti) India. 2013. 113'. Cast : Vikram Kochhar, Rajpal Yadav. 

Pied Piper is a satirical folklore of a simple laundryman, Chunnilal, who is rumored to have acquired his beloved donkey's brain in a freak accident. Charming millions with his asinine traits, Chunnilal soon rises to become the most popular and most feared hero of his time. The film traces the dynamics of his unprecedented rise and his inevitable fall along the trajectory of politics, religion, power and ideologies.

     FROM BEYOND (Rajbir Kaur) India. 2013. 10'

An Indian girl dreams of a voice. Whenever she is about to catch her sleep just disappears. The voice always asks about the meaning of life.



Day 20 December 

     HIGHWAY (Imtiaz Ali) India. 2014. 113’. Cast : Alia Bhatt, Randeep Hooda.

A girl. A city girl - young, full of life - is on the highway at night. With her fiancé. They are about to get married in four days. Suddenly, her life is swung away from the brocade and jewelery of marriage to the harsh brutality of abduction. Her life will never be the same again. The same night, the gang is in panic. The girl is a big industrialist's daughter. His links in the corridors of power make ransom out of the question. They are doomed. But the leader of this group is adamant. For him sending her back is not an option. He will do whatever it takes to see this through. But as the days pass by, the scenery changes, the light changes, the sun sets and rises and the air changes, she feels that she has changed as well. Gradually, a strange bond begins to develop between the victim and the oppressor. It is in this captivity that she, for the first time, feels free. She does not want to go back but she also doesn't want to reach where he is taking her. She wishes this journey to ...