Gangor
Directed by Italo Spinelli
India, Italy 2011. 1 hr 23 mins. English
Cast: Seema Rahmani, Samrat Chakrabarti, Priyanka Bose, Adil Hussain & Tillotoma Shome
Screening Partner: Breakthrough.

Gangor is an Indo-Italian project, which is based on the poignant short story 'Choli Ke Peeche' by Magsasay Award and Padma Vibushan Award winning writer Mahasweta Devi. It was screened at Cannes in 2011. The film unravels with migrant labourer Gangor's statuesque breasts that excite the attention of ace photographer Upin Puri, and become the objects of obsession and oppression triggering off a train of violence that ends in tragedy. Upin, a photo journalist, is sent to Purulia to cover a story on the exploitation of tribals. There he comes across a woman called 'Gangor', who he thinks is the epitome of ancient Indian beauty. He is fascinated with Gangor's breasts and clicks pictures of her while she is feeding her child. The picture then appears in the newspaper in an article written by Upin. What happens in their respective lives after this article forms the crux of "Gangor".

Italo Spinelli has directed films and plays and made numerous television programs. He is the Founder and Director of Asiatica Film Mediale Incontri Con Il Cinema Asiatico, a festival of Asian films held every year in Rome since 2000, and is currently the advisor on Asian cinema for the Rome Film Festival. Italo Spinelli teaches cinema and theatre at the University of Siena. In 2002 he edited a book entitled Indian Summer: Films, Filmmakers and Stars between Ray and Bollywood, for the Locarno Film Festival. He is also the author of several essays on Indian cinema and literature. In 2005 he programmed a retrospective of Indian films called 'Indian Visions' at the Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome. Some of his films are Danzando in Cambogia in 1998, Corsica in 1992 and Roma – Paris – Barcelona in 1992.

Screening Partner:  Breakthrough

With

Aashpordha by Anirban Roy
Directed By: Anirban Roy
Cast: Preeti Singh, Sankar Debnath, Kanchan Mullick, Manasi Sinha, Trishna Choudhury, Shombhu Chakraborty
India. 2011. 14 mins. Bengali (with English subtitles).

It starts out over a song and ends up where no one could have expected. A thirteen- year-old Indian girl has her first real confrontation with authority when her father forbids her to play the Western dance music she loves. When she decides to get back at him, the situation escalates to become a neighborhood scandal. Shot in the style of 60's and 70's Indian neo-realism, Aashpordha is a dark comedy about parental authority, teenage rebellion, curry, whiskey and house music.

Anirban Roy was born in India and moved to Los Angeles in 1993. After earning a Masters degree in documentary production from the University of Southern California, Roy began his career as an editor for network television shows. Over the next 11 years he went on to direct award-winning documentaries like Pepino Mango Nance, Six Weeks and Taking the Heat. Each of Roy's films has examined the lives of marginalized human beings. Pepino chronicles the life of an illegal immigrant in Los Angeles. Six Weeks explores a rehabilitation program for at-risk youth in crime-ridden Compton, California. Heat, narrated by Susan Sarandon, is an exposé documentary about what the first women firefighters of New York City had to endure at their workplace. All of Roy's works have been televised. Heat, his most recent film, was telecast nationally on the Emmy-winning PBS series Independent Lens. It was subsequently broadcast in several countries, such as the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Aashpordha, Roy's first Indian film since he moved to the US, was just picked up by SBS Australia for national telecast beginning in August, 2012.

Screening Partner:  Breakthrough


Video: Gangor



Video: Aashpordha by Anirban Roy