National Gallery of Modern Art, Bengaluru in collaboration with India Foundation for the Arts presents IFA FILM FESTIVAL

January 2- February 20, 2011

Venue: National Gallery of Modern Art, Bengaluru, Manikyavelu Mansion, 49, Palace Road, Bangalore

January 2, 2011, Sunday, 3 pm

BISHAR BLUES, 1 Hour 16 minutes

By Amitabh Chakraborty

It is a 90-minute film based on the fakirs of Bengal, exploring their music and their deeply spiritual everyday life as a living practice of radical syncretism. In this film, Amitabh Chakroborty talks about music as an integral part of their mythology and that music enshrines and expresses the philosophy of Man. This film has won the National Award for Best Non-fiction Film, Best Editing and Best Audiography.

January 8, 2011, Saturday, 3 pm

THE OTHER SONG, 2 Hours

By Saba Dewan

In 1935, Rasoolan bai, the well known singer from Varanasi, recorded for the Gramaphone a thumri that she would never sing again- ‘Lagat job anwa ma chot, phool gendwa na maar' (My breasts are wonded, don't throw flowers at me). A variation of her more famous song -  ‘Lagat Karejwa ma chot, phool gendwa na maar' (My heart is  wounded, don't throw flowers at me), the 1935 recording, never to be repeated, faded from public memory and eventually got lost. More than seventy years later the film travels through Varanasi, Lucknow and Muzzafarpur in search of the forgotten thumri. Through the story of this lost thumri sung by Rasoolan Bai, whose career as a performer overlapped with significant transitions in both the practice of music and public female sexualities, the film examines the major shifts in the hi story of the tradition.

January 9, 2011, Sunday, 11:30 am

MAYA BAZAR, 1 Hour

By K M Madhusudhanan

This is a film on Surabhi, a 120-year old travelling theatre company from Andhra Pradesh. Envisaged as a journey with the repertory company, the film, examines the everyday activities of these travelling actors and their families, rehearsals, exercises, the staging of the plays based on the epics and the puranas, the audience, sets, make-up and costume design. The film also explores the traces of Parsi theatre, silent cinema from the Phalke era and the paintings of Ravi Verma in the design of the theatre company's sets and costumes.

January 9, 2011, Sunday, 12:45 pm

OUT OF THIN AIR, 50 minutes

By Shabani Hassanwalia and Samreen Farooqui

‘Out of Thin Air' is the story of one of the most surreal and hostile landscapes in the world. This is the story of Ladakh, not through the postcards that tourists often see, but through the subterranean, local film movement that has taken such strong root here in the last six years, that it has become a voice of the people. Today, taxi drivers, grocery store owners, cops and monks are producers, directors, camerapersons and actors of one of the youngest, and most dynamic, local film industries in the world. 

January 23, 2011, Sunday, 11:30 am

CITY OF PHOTOS, 1 Hour

By Nishtha Jain

City Of Photos explores the little known ethos of neighborhood photo studios in Indian cities, discovering entire imaginary worlds in the smallest of spaces. Desires, memories and stories all so deeply linked to photographs all come together as a part of the personal journey into the city of photos.

And many more films will be screened till February 20, 2011.