THE BELOVED WITNESS

Directed by Dwaipayan Banerjee.
USA,2010, 20 min. NY Premiere.

Synopsis
 
The poetry of Agha Shahid Ali is acknowledged to be one of the most powerful representations of the war-torn region of Kashmir. Shahid lived in a condition of exile, traveling between America and Kashmir after the region fell into devastating conflict in the late 1980s. His singular poetic voice bore witness to the condition of a poet in exile, converging with the voices of other writers such as Russian Osip Mandelstam and Palestinian Mahmood Darwish. 'The Beloved Witness' captures a few moments from Shahid's work and life during his last years in America, while beginning to chart the indelible impression he has left on the American artistic scene. This short is a work-in-progress, one that will grow into a longer project that documents how Shahid's poetry continues to influence the work of artists, writers and poets in the contemporary world.