Sthaniya Sambaad (Spring in the Colony) Directed by Arjun Gourisaria & Moinak Biswas
India, 2009, 105 Minutes, Bengali (with English Subtitles), US Premier
Cast- Anirban Dutta, Suman Mukhopadhyay
Situated on the southern fringes of Calcutta, the bustling, sunny Deshbandhu colony, a settlement of refugees from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), has a lot going on. In the evening market, two thieves swoop on Ananya's long plait and chop it away. Atin, the dreamy poet and Ananya’s secret admirer, is worried as he does not find her the next day. He seems oblivious of the fact that his home is facing demolition.
The two poachers of Ananya's plait want to sell it to raise money for a computer course. They are desperate to pursue higher education – by any means. Five boys on a roadside perch make desultory observations on the goings on. Two old men, original immigrants, sit at the local grocery philosophizing on commodities, life and desire. As Atin, along with his only friend Dipankar, sets out in search of Ananya, the story travels from the colony of the day to the neon districts of the night, and then to the ghostly New Town under construction, tracing out the map of a city through realism and delirium. Somewhere along the path, Dipankar tells Atin about Ananya's family buying an apartment in the new building that is about to raze their colony tenements to the ground.
Arjun Gourisaria studied Economics at Jadavpur University and went to the Film and Television Institute in Pune to receive training in film editing. He has been working as a director, producer and editor since then, mostly through his agency, the Black Magic Motion Pictures, a leading firm in advertisement film production. Arjun has made a number of independent DOCUMENTARIES and won national awards (Patalghar and Tanvir ka Safarnama) for his productions and editing. ‘Sthaniya Sambaad’ is the first feature film he has directed, produced and edited.
Moinak Biswas studied English at Jadavpur University and did his PhD in Melbourne. He teaches Film Studies at Jadavpur and writes on Indian film and culture. One of his recent books is Apu and After, Revisiting Ray’s Cinema (2006). Moinak co-edits Bio-Scope, Screen South Asia and the Journal of the Moving Image. He is also the initiator of the Media Lab at Jadavpur, a centre for experiments with digital art and knowledge. Moinak shot, edited and directed a Super 8 mm, 25 min. film called ‘Graffiti’ in 1983. ‘Sthaniya Sambaad’ is the first feature he wrote and directed.
With: Somewhere Directed by Vishesh Pires
USA, 2010, English, US Premiere
A 13 year old boy wakes up in a dark room only to find out he is kidnapped and being transported in a shipping container for terrorism purpose
