This year’s festival list would see two new additions – Documentary Films and Radio feature, apart from the feature movies. Themes are diverse in nature – from terrorism to environment, from racism to Beethoven. We have films from Pakistan, Italy, USA and of course India

• Opening film: Khuda Ke Liye – In The Name of God (Shoaib Mansoor - 2007) 168 min
• Classical section: Ladri di biciclette – Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio De Sica -1948) 93 min
• Classical section: To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan - 1962) 129 min
• Animation section - Horton Hears a Who! (Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino - 2008) 88 min
• Current affair section – Dreaming Lhasa (Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam 2005) 90 min
• Indian classic section – Ghare-Baire – Home and the World (Satyajit Ray -1984) 140 min
• Finale Film - Baraka (Ron Fricke -1992) 96 min
• Documentary section: Entertaining Tibet (2008) 20 min and Homeless but at Home (2008) 20 min
• Audio Section – Life of Beethoven (a BBC production) 30 mins

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Screening I: November 15, 2008 – 10 AM

Opening film: Khuda Ke Liye – In The Name of God (Shoaib Mansoor - 2007) 168 min

Language: Urdu and English (Pakistan)

Synopsis: The film is about the difficult situation in which the Pakistanis in particular and the Muslims in general are caught up since 9/11. There is a war going on between the Fundamentalists and the Liberal Muslims. This situation is creating a drift not only between the Western world and the Muslims, but also within the Muslims. The educated and modern Muslims are in a difficult situation because of their approach towards life and their western attire. They are criticized and harassed by the fundamentalists and on the other hand the Western world sees them as potential suspects of terrorism just because of their Muslim names. This paradox is resulting in great suffering for a forward looking Muslim.

Coordinator: Kunal Majumder

Critical debate: Does media reflect the realities of time?

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Screening II: November 15, 2008 – 2 PM

Classical section: Ladri di biciclette – Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio De Sica -1948) 93 min

Language: Italian with English sub titles (Italy)

Synopsis: Antonio Ricci, unemployed for over two years, is overjoyed when he's finally given a job putting up posters. There's a catch, though - he needs a bicycle as a requirement of the job, so he pawns the family linen to get a pawned bicycle back. He goes off to his first day's work, truly happy for the first time in years - and the title of the film gives away what happens next.

Coordinator: Sumanto Majumder

Review competition on the film

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Screening III: November 15, 2008 – 5:30 PM

Classical section: To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan - 1962) 129 min

Language: English (USA)

Synopsis: Based on Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize winning book of 1960. Atticus Finch is a lawyer in a racially divided Alabama town in the 1930s. He agrees to defend a young black man who is accused of raping a white woman. Many of the townspeople try to get Atticus to pull out of the trial, but he decides to go ahead. How will the trial turn out - and will it change any of the racial tension in the town?

Coordinator: Sumanto Majumder

Presentation by each group on “Racial divide in the US vis-à-vis castes and religious divide in India”

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Screening IV: November 15, 2008 – 9:30 PM

Animation section - Horton Hears a Who! (Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino - 2008) 88 min

Synopsis: One day, Horton the elephant hears a cry from help coming from a speck of dust. Even though he can't see anyone on the speck, he decides to help it. As it turns out, the speck of dust is home to the Whos, who live in their city of Whoville. Horton agrees to help protect the Whos and their home, but this gives him nothing but torment from his neighbors, who refuse to believe that anything could survive on the speck. Still, Horton stands by the motto that, "After all, a person is a person, no matter how small."

Coordinator: Sumanto Majumder

Review competition on the film

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Screening V: November 16, 2008 – 7:30 AM

Current affair section – Dreaming Lhasa (Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam 2005) 90 min

Language: Tibetan with English sub titles (Tibet)

Synopsis: A Tibetan travels to Dharamsala to make a film about the exile community, and to escape her crumbling personal life back in New York City. She makes a connection to a disaffected local who spends his time online and chasing Western girls, as well as an ex-monk who recently escaped from political imprisonment. Together they end up on the search for a CIA-trained resistance fighter who has been missing for some time.

Coordinator: Kunal Majumder

Understanding the theme: Group Discussion
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Screening VI: November 16, 2008 – 10 AM

Indian classic section – Ghare-Baire – Home and the World (Satyajit Ray -1984) 140 min

Language: Bangla with English sub titles (India)

Synopsis: When the movie opens, a woman is recalling the events that molded her perspective on the world. Years ago, her husband, a wealthy Western-educated landowner, challenged tradition by providing her with schooling, and inviting her out of the seclusion in which married women were kept, to the consternation of more conservative relatives. Meeting her husband's visiting friend from college, a leader of an economic rebellion against the British, she takes up his political cause, despite her husbands warnings. As the story progresses, the relationship between the woman and the visitor becomes more than platonic, and the political battles, pitting rich against poor and Hindu against Muslim, turn out not to be quite as simple as she had first thought.

Coordinator: Kunal Majumder

Critical debate: Is portal of women in media faulty?
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Finale Film - Baraka (Ron Fricke -1992) 96 min

Synopsis: Without words, cameras show us the world, with an emphasis not on "where," but on "what's there." It begins with morning, natural landscapes and people at prayer: volcanoes, water falls, veldts, and forests; several hundred monks do a monkey chant. Indigenous peoples apply body paint; whole villages dance. The film moves to destruction of nature via logging, blasting, and strip mining. Images of poverty, rapid urban life, and factories give way to war, concentration camps, and mass graves. Ancient ruins come into view, and then a sacred river where pilgrims bathe and funeral pyres burn. Prayer and nature return. A monk rings a huge bell; stars wheel across the sky.
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Documentary section (Films by journalism students of AJK MCRC on Tibetans-in-exile)

Language: English

Documentary I: November 16, 2008 – 9 AM

Entertaining Tibet (2008) 20 min

Synopsis: This documentary film focuses on the booming Tibetan film and entertainment industry in India.

Documentary II: November 16, 2008 – 9:20 AM

Homeless but at Home (2008) 20 min

Synopsis: Every year many Tibetans escape into India. Among them, a major percentage consist of children, some as young as 6 months. The parents sent them to Dharamshala to get proper education under the guidance of the Dalai Lama.
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Audio Section – Life of Beethoven (a BBC production) 30 mins

Language: English (UK)

Synopsis: This BBC radio production captures the live the great music composer Beethoven through the eyes of a child. The highlights of the feature is the use of great use and narration technique.

Coordinator: Kunal Majumder

Reviewing the radio feature