Screening of 'Up, Down and Sideways'

Toto Funds the Arts 

& 

Goethe-Institut  / Max Mueller Bhavan Bangalore 

are proud to present the eighth edition of

New Voices in Indian Cinema 

with a screening of the award-winning documentary

Up, Down and Sideways

directed by Anushka Meenakshi & Iswar Srikumar

Date: Saturday, 18 May 2019

Time: 6:30 p.m.

Venue: Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan 

716, CMH Road, Indiranagar 1st Stage, 

Bangalore 560 038 

About the film

Close to the India-Myanmar border is the village of Phek in Nagaland. Around 5000 people live here, almost all of whom cultivate rice for their own consumption. As they work in cooperative groups — preparing the terraced fields, planting saplings, or harvesting the grain and carrying it up impossibly steep slopes — the rice cultivators of Phek sing. The seasons change, and so does the music. Stories of love, stories of the field, stories of song, stories in song. Up, Down & Sideways is a musical portrait of a community of rice cultivators and their memories of love and loss.  It is the first feature-length film from the u-ra-mi-li project, a larger body of work that looks at the connections between music and labour. The film has been supported by India Foundation for the Arts.

About the filmmakers

Anushka Meenakshi has worked as a filmmaker, and a community video trainer. Iswar Srikumar is an actor and a lighting/sound designer for theatre. Iswar and Anushka are both members of Perch, a performance collective in Chennai comprising artists from various disciplines. In 2011, they started the u-ra-mi-li project (the song of our people), which focuses on stories about music in the everyday, through writing, photography, performance and film. A trailer of the film can be accessed on  https://youtu.be/zJsCbJfICoY 

(The filmmakers will be present for a discussion after the screening.)

What the reviewers say:

“Up Down and Sideways vividly captures the links between community, music, and food production in one of the most alluring corners of India.... Through...a shooting style that includes carefully composed long shots and lengthy takes, the filmmakers echo the rhythms of the lives of their subjects.” — Nandini Ramnath, Scroll.in

“...a musical portrait of a community of rice farmers in the village of Phek in Nagaland....The 86-minute documentary is also conversational; the camera trails the rains, the lightning, the buzz of bees and dragonflies, and the isolated raindrop on a leaf.” — Sanjana Chakraborty, Silverscreen India

Awards

— New Asian Currents Award for Excellence, Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, JAPAN

— The Directors Guild of Japan Award, Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, JAPAN

— Grand Jury Special Mention, India Gold, Mumbai Film Festival, INDIA

— Bala Kailasam Memorial Award for Innovative Use of Media for Social Change, Documentary Category, Chennai, INDIA

— Odisseias Musicais-Palco Internacional-Prémio Do Júri (Musical Odyssey, International Competition, Jury Prize), MUVI Lisboa, PORTUGAL

— Best Documentary, Cinema Planeta, MEXICO

— Best Documentary, German Star of India, Indian Film Festival of Stuttgart, GERMANY

— Best Documentary, International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala, INDIA

— Best Film, Jecheon International Music and Film Festival, SOUTH KOREA

—  Ethnomusicology Film Award, RAI film festival, UK

— Best Documentary, Karuppu award, Independent Film Festival of Chennai, INDIA