Part of Winter 2008
An overgrown tree on a junction in India; people sit around it staring into the lens, at us, as if we’re not meant to be here. The camera moves backward and forward in semi-circles. The movement turns the setup into a sculpture, it seems to open a third dimension, accessible but not inviting. It dares us to enter, to walk down the village road or the mystical vision of an Indian village, which Amit Dutta’s short film Kramasha creates through moments like these, drifting pans and tracking shots, dense colours and sounds. The film, which won the FIPRESCI Award at the Oberhausen International Short Film Festival in 2007, is the centrepiece of this year’s Monitor 4 programme, SAVAC’s annual showcase of South Asian short film and video, for the first time co-presented by Pleasure Dome. Kramasha’s fairy tale village is contrasted with the very real fight for justice in rural Manipur, as documented in Kavita Joshi’s gripping Tales from the Margins, as well as an exciting selection of new videos from Kuala Lumpur, New Delhi, Lahore and Toronto including Azharr Rudin’s Majidee, Saba Khan’s Paint, Ferwa Ibrahim’s Untitled and Debashis Sinha’s Skin.
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