Screening of Films on Theatre and Heritage by Ramchandra P. N.

Toto Funds the Arts

is pleased to invite you to a screening and discussion of

Films on Theatre and Heritage

by Ramchandra P.N.

Miyar House || B.V. Karanth: Baba || Rice and Rasam 

Dates: Saturday, 18 February & Sunday, 19 February 2017

Time: 5.00 p.m. on Saturday and 2.30 p.m. and 5.00 p.m. on Sunday

Venue: Venkatappa Art Gallery, Kasturba Road

Bengaluru-560 001 

Ramchandra PN is an award-winning Mumbai-based filmmaker. A 1991 graduate of FTII, Pune, he has been making documentaries, features, short films and TV programmes. Nomads, migrant workers, refugees, ‘untouchables’ and HIV-Aids have been some of the subjects of his films. His first feature, Suddha (The Cleansing Rites), won him the Best Indian Film at the Osian Cinefan Festival of Asian Films in 2006. It also won the Hubart Bals Distribution Grant, following which he screened the film in about 100 villages in coastal Karnataka. His second feature Putaani Party (The Kid Gang) won the National Award for Best Children’s Film in 2009.

ABOUT THE FILMS 

MIYAR MANE (MIYAR HOUSE) (2011) 

The filmmaker’s 200-year-old ancestral house in a remote village of Miyar in Karnataka is dismantled, giving him an opportunity to undertake a journey into a past that he shares not only with his extended family but also with successive generations of rural Indians. A realisation of the inevitability of a transition marks this journey, which could well be the journey of a country that has propelled itself into modernity. As plans are on for the house to be reconstructed in an open-air museum, divorced from its original context, the fossilisation seems to be complete.

ANNA SAARU (RICE AND RASAM) (2012) 

The film captures the daily struggles, routines, joys, conflicts, and the nomadic lives of an ensemble of professional artists of two units of a touring theatre company in Karnataka, as they struggle to remain relevant and survive amidst dwindling audiences, and in the face of rapidly changing economic, cultural and political contexts. Asserting the unique ‘live experience’ that only his theatre can provide, and holding these two units together is Rajanna Jewargi and his extended family. Also featured is Nagesh Gubbi, who had managed the most famous theatre company in Karnataka, the Gubbi Company, that later collapsed.

B.V. KARANTH: BABA (2012) 

The film traces B.V. Karanth’s journey from the village of Babukodi in Mangalore to professional theatre in Mysore under the then famous Gubbi Company, to his musical tutelage in Varanasi and then to the national arena in New Delhi at the National School of Drama, from where he hopped onto the cultural bandwagon of Bharat Bhavan in Bhopal before returning to his roots as the head of Rangayana in Mysore. The thoughts and experiences of this man who influenced the history of modern Indian theatre have been captured in his own words in an autobiography compiled by eminent Kannada writer Vaidehi, on which the film is based.

Programme

18 February, Saturday, 5.00 p.m. 

Miyar Mané (Miyar House) (76 minutes)

Moderator - Basav Biradar

Discussants - Meera Iyer, Saparya Varma, Sundar Sarukkai, Ramchandra P.N.

19 February, Sunday, 2.30 p.m.

Anna Saaru (Rice and Rasam) (52 minutes)

Moderator - Basav Biradar

Discussants - Sreepathi Manjana Baliu, Sharada G.S., Karthik V. Gowtham,

Ramchandra P.N.

19 February, Sunday, 5.00 p.m.

B.V. Karanth: Baba (93 minutes)

Moderator - Basav Biradar 

Discussants - Laxmi Chandrashekhar, Mangala Nagaraj Rao, Sathwik N. N., Ramchandra P.N.