Tales from the Margins
received the Special Jury Prize at the
23rd International Medias Nord Sud Geneva 2007
It screened in Geneva during the
23rd Festival International Medias Nord Sud
ON: 5th October 2007, 04:10 PM
Bâtiment des Forces Motrices, 2, Pl. des Volontaires, Genève http://www.nordsud.ch/english/programme.html#films
TALES FROM THE MARGINS
is showing at the DOCSDF Mexico:
CINEMEX CASA DE ARTE I / September 28 / 23:30
JAIMA DOCSDF / October 1 / 22:00
CINEMANIA LORETO I / October 4 / 21:35
More here
http://www.docsdf.com/
Tales from the Margins
(short docu / 23 min / India / 2006)
will be screened on World Peace Day by KRITI
Venue: Open Palm Court Gallery, IHC, New Delhi
Date and time: 21st Sep 2007, Friday at 3:00 PM
There is ALSO a screening a SARAI
(29, Rajpur Road, Delhi)
at 4:30 PM the same day.
for more on the film, please go here.
Tales from the Margins
will be screening at the MADCAT Film Festival 2007 at San Francisco
on Fri • Sept 14 2007 • 7:30 pm
at the Artists’ Television Access
992 Valencia Street, San Francisco
(415) 824-3890
Its part of a package called “At the Margins”, which is co-presented by 3rd I South Asian Film Festival and Center for Asian American Media
Tales from the Margins received a Silver Remi at this edition of WorldFest, for films on Political / International Issues. There were more than 4,500 category entries in all film and video competitions across categories at WorldFest 2007.
WorldFest’s mission is to recognize and honor outstanding creative excellence in film & video, validate brilliant abilities and promote future filmmaking in Texas as well as enhance cultural tourism for Houston. The 10-day film festival ran to a smooth finish with 14 World Premieres, 50 Indie features and 68 award winning shorts.
WorldFest evolved into a competitive Intl Film Festival in April 1968 and has a long list of “discovered” film greats such as Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, David Lynch, Oliver Stone, Atom Egoyan, Ang Lee and many others. Multi award-winning producer/director, Hunter Todd, founded this Int’l. film festival to honor all categories of film and video production.
All award results from this year’s WorldFest competition are posted on http://www.worldfest.org/
Mail from NAPM and Sharmila’s supporters
Dear friends,
Some of us have decided to organize a solidarity fast in support of Irom Sharmila, who is in her 7th year of fast with a demand to repeal the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (for more information see below).
This solidarity fast will be organized in Imphal, Manipur where Sharmila is presently confined to the Jawaharlal Nehru Hospital, from 13th September, 2007, and will go on for 3-5 days. We invite more people from all over India and even outside to come and join this solidarity fast for as many days as you can. This is the least we can do to support one of the longest solitary peaceful struggles of our times which saddens our hearts but doesn’t move the authorities a bit.
We are confident that the truth will emerge victorious one day
READ THE REST HERE
http://manipurfreedom.org/alert_solidarity_fast_in_support_of_irom_sharmila
Irom Sharmila Chanu – Help and support her in the fight against AFSPA
Irom Sharmila continues to fast in the Security Ward, J.N. Hospital, Imphal. Confined to a solitary existence.
Dear friends,
It is now almost five months since Irom Sharmila returned to Imphal on 5th March 2007, to continue her hunger fast against the draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). The situation continues to be grim – both for Sharmila as well for all those suffering under the prolonged implication of AFSPA.
For those of you reading about Sharmila’s epic struggle for the first time – on 4th November 2000, 28 year old Irom Sharmila Chanu started her hunger fast seeking repeal of the draconian AFSPA.
This was her response to one among countless incidents of arbitrary killing by the armed forces in the north east when on 2nd November 2000, 10 civilians were killed at Malom near Imphal, Manipur.
Sharmila was jailed by the government for her non-violent protest. Over the years she has been repeatedly arrested and detained on charges of “attempting to commit suicide”! In October 2006, for the first time Sharmila left Manipur and continued her protest fast in Delhi at Jantar Mantar, and then at AIIMS and RML hospitals in New Delhi where she was kept under constant police vigil.
If you would like to support her in the fight against AFSPA, read on:
Read the rest of this entry »
This video contains images showing the mass protests that broke out in Manipur in 2004, after the custodial killing of Th. Manorama; and the brutal repression by security forces that followed. The footage has been filmed by various Manipuri camerapersons. All rights to the material are vested in them.
If the above link doesnt work, try this:
http://indiahmc.org/manipurmayhemvideo.aspx
More clips are here, on google video:
FOR COPIES / ENQUIRIES, CONTACT: kj.impulse (at) gmail.com
Tales from the Margins will be screened at the
3 Screens Film Festival at the India Social Forum in Delhi.
at 5:40 PM on 10th Nov 2006, Friday
at the Auditorium 2, Public Ka Multiplex
INDIA SOCIAL FORUM
Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium Grounds, New Delhi
ENTRY is OPEN TO ALL
(a one-time registration at the ISF entrance will be required)
duration 23 min / Manipuri w Eng Subtitles / 2006
The film’s synopsis is here
Click here
TALES FROM THE MARGINS
- a film by Kavita Joshi
[documentary / 24 min / India / 2006]
will shortly be screened at the DOK.FEST Munich in the Competition, Horizonte.
Date: Sunday May 6th at 7 p.m
and Tuesday May 8th at 5 p.m.
“The 22nd edition of the International Documentary Film Festival Munich will be held from 2nd to 10th May 2007. The festival presents premières together with the international highlights of the year, creative documentaries produced for cinema release together with the most interesting proofs of new talents from all over the world, simply a best-of-programme, a festival for documentaries and documentary filmmakers.”
Read more about the festival here.
Back home into waiting police arms
- by Robert Sapam in the Telegraph, Front Page, Monday 5th March 2007
Imphal, March 4:
A brief demonstration and an even briefer visit to the historical Kangla Fort was all that Irom Sharmila could manage in the one-and-a-half hours that she was “free” since returning to Manipur today from New Delhi.
The mascot of the troubled state’s campaign against the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act found herself in police custody the moment she entered the Kangla premises in a Maruti car. As on previous occasions, police termed it “preventive arrest” and shifted her to the security ward of the government-owned Jawaharlal Nehru Hospital.
Sharmila, who has been fasting for the past six years except during periods in judicial custody, had been prevented from returning to Imphal before the elections, lest her presence cause trouble for the Congress-led government. Read the rest of this entry »
IROM SHARMILA’S HEALTH DETERIORATES
New Delhi: 19th January 2007
The health condition of Irom Sharmila Chanu deteriorates under the arbitrary detention of Delhi police in Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital. Since 7 th October 2006 she has been detained in two different hospitals (AIIMS and RML) at Delhi. Since then she has lost 4 kgs. and her current body weight is only 37 kg.
Today, the Delhi High Court heard Read the rest of this entry »
IROM’s IRON IN THE SOUL
Young, stoic and dogged, Irom Sharmila has been on a fast-unto-death since November, 2000. She wants the repressive Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act repealed. The Act gives draconian powers to the security forces and has repeatedly been used with brazen brutality in the Northeast. For five years, she has been imprisoned and force-fed by the State for her ‘crime’. Filmmaker Kavita Joshi spoke to her in the hospital room in Imphal, her prison
An eye: piercing, intent. A nose, covered by a swatch of medical tape, as a yellow tube forces its way in. Lips, stretched tight as if in pain. A woman sits against a bare wall, huddled under a blanket, tightly hugging herself. This is my first impression of Irom Sharmila as I walk to her hospital bed. She is incarcerated at the security ward of JN Hospital in Imphal, Manipur, in custody of the Central Jail, Sajiwa. It takes her immense effort to speak, but she tries her best. “How can I explain? This is not a punishment. It is my bounden duty at my best level.”
Irom Sharmila has not eaten for over five years now. For this, she has been locked up in jail by the government under very dubious charges and is being forcibly nose fed. Since November 2000, Sharmila has been on a fast-unto-death, demanding the removal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act 1958 (AFSPA).
Read the rest of the article and interview on Tehelka here
THE UNLIKELY OUTLAW
The immensity of Irom Sharmila Chanu’s now six-year-old protest is matched only by the paralysing indifference of the State and the national media, says Shoma Chaudhury
An ordinary November evening in Delhi. A slow halting voice breaks into your consciousness. “How shall I explain? It is not a punishment, but my bounden duty…” A haunting phrase in a haunting voice, made slow with pain yet magnetic in its moral force. “My bounden duty.” What can be bounden duty in an India bursting with the excitements of its economic boom?
You are tempted to walk away. You are busy and the voice is not violent in its beckoning. But then an image starts to take shape. A frail, fair woman on a hospital bed. A tousled head of jet black curls. A plastic tube thrust into the nose. Slim, clean hands. Intent, almond eyes. And the halting, haunting voice. Speaking of bounden duty.
That’s when the enormous story of Irom Sharmila begins to seep in. You are in the presence of something historic. Something unparalleled in the history of political protest anywhere in the world ever. Yet you have been oblivious of it. A hundred TV channels. An unprecedented age of media. Yet you are oblivious of it.
Irom Sharmila, 34, has not eaten anything, or drunk a single drop of water for six years. Six years. She has been forcibly kept alive by a drip thrust down her nose by the Indian State. For six years, nothing solid has entered her body. Not a drop of water has touched her lips. She has not combed her hair. She cleans her teeth with dry cotton and her lips with dry spirit so she will not sully her fast. Her body is wasted inside. Her menstrual cycles have stopped. Yet she is resolute. Whenever she can, she removes the tube from her nose. It is her bounden duty, she says, to make her voice heard in “the most reasonable and peaceful way”.
Yet we have remained oblivious to it. Read the rest of this entry »
Portraying unheard voices and unravelled lives
- Staff Reporter
KOZHIKODE: “For people who live in less troubled regions, it is impossible to imagine the extent of anguish and violence the people of Manipur experience. I made Untitled: 3 Narratives on Women and Conflict in Manipur (a trilogy of short films) because of a very strong need to get the situation in that State to be seen by the people,” says filmmaker Kavita Joshi, when asked what inspired her to make the telling narrative on the situation in Manipur.
Irom Sharmila, Manipuri woman who is on a six-year hunger strike to highlight the anguish of her counterparts in the State, is a protagonist featured in the trilogy that highlights the daily struggles of women in Manipur.
Kavita’s film Women and Conflict in Manipur was the inaugural film at the Asian Women’s Film Festival held in Kozhikode from November 4 to 7. It set the tone of the fete that sought to project exclusively the works of women from Asian countries with portrayals of “voices unheard and lives unravelled.”
The festival package got up by the International Association of Women in Radio and Television was showcased under the aegis of the Women’s Initiative, Kozhikode, Navatharangam, and the Cultural Initiative.
Read the full article here:
http://www.hindu.com/2006/11/12/stories/2006111207490300.htm
UNTITLED: 3 NARRATIVES
On Women and Conflict in Manipur
[Documentary shorts; India; 2005]
[17 min; colour; Manipuri with English subtitles]
12 women protest naked on the streets of Manipur. A mother laments the extra-judicial killing of her teenage son. For 5 years now, a young woman has been on a fast-to-death. What fuels these anguished protests?
Manipur is a conflict-torn state in India’s North-East region. For decades, it has witnessed insurgency and armed separatist movements. The Indian government has attempted to crush these through force, using its military power. Arrests, torture, extra-judicial killings – Manipuri people havefaced them all. Yet, little is heard about Manipur and its troubles. This is a place that mainland India has marginalised; that the world has forgotten.
A film in 3 chapters, this project documents the extraordinary narratives of Manipur’s women:
1. The Mothers’ Protest (5m 20s):
focuses on the naked protest by the Imas (mothers) of Manipur after the custodial killing of Th. Manorama.
2. Lament (4m 55s):
centers on the disapperance of the schoolboy Yumlembam Sanamacha and the impact of this upon his family.
3. Fast Unto Death (6m 20s):
is the story of the extraordinary protest of Irom Sharmila, a young woman who has not eaten for over 5 years now.
FOR COPIES / ENQUIRIES, CONTACT: kj.impulse (at) gmail.com
FESTIVALS / SCREENINGS / AWARDS
Bilbao International Festival 2006 Spain * VIBGYOR 2006, Kerala * IAWRT IIC Asian Women’s Film Festival Delhi 2006 * as also Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Calicut
Winner of the Best Film on Human Rights, 18th CEC UGC Awards
Winner of the III Best Film at VIBGYOR 2006, Kerala
Also – Citation for Best Film and Technical Excellence in Editing – 18th CEC UGC Awards
KEY CREW
Directed and Produced by: Kavita Joshi Camera: Sunayana Singh Sound: Asheesh Pandya Editing: Mahadeb Shi Production Company: Impulse
READ A LONGER SYNOPSIS IN THE TEHELKA MAGAZINE
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main17.asp?filename=Cr032506naked_on.asp
Irom Sharmila in Custody
SUPPORT IROM SHARMILA
SUPPORT THE PEOPLE OF MANIPUR AND CIVIL SOCIETY GROUPS IN THEIR FIGHT AGAINST THE AFSPA
On 9th October 2006, Irom Sharmila refused all medical attention. Sitting in her tiny hospital room in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS, Delhi), she resolutely withdrew the force-feed tube from her nose against all medical advice.
Sharmila Irom has been on a fast-to-death for over six years now. Six years without food, without even a drop of water touching her lips. Six years without meeting her mother, and rarely being allowed access to her family. Six years of being held under arrest repeatedly on charges of “attempted suicide” by the government.
Sharmila’s demand is simple – repeal the Armed Forces Special Powers Act 1958. But this is a demand the Indian government is simply not prepared to listen to. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act is a particularly black piece of legislation that gives the authority to India’s armed forces, to arrest, search or destroy property without warrant; to shoot – and even kill – on suspicion alone. What is more, it gives the armed forces near-total immunity against any judicial action. Sharmila’s home state of Manipur has been reeling under this act for decades now. So have large parts of North-Eastern India.
On 4th October this year, Sharmila arrived from Manipur to Delhi to continue her epic fast on the streets of Delhi. For days and nights, she camped and slept on the footpaths of Delhi, at Jantar Mantar. Thereafter, in a characteristic midnight swoop, a large force of over a 100 police personnel picked up Sharmila and detained her at AIIMS on the night of Friday the 6th. Once again, her “crime” – attempted suicide!
Sharmila is currently under arrest in Delhi, at AIIMS.
READ MORE ON THIS SUBJECT
READ KAVITA JOSHI’S INTERVIEW OF IROM SHARMILA IN TEHELKA
Young, stoic and dogged, Irom Sharmila has been on a fast-unto-death since November 2000. She wants the repressive Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act repealed. The Act gives draconian powers to the security forces http://www.tehelka.com/story_main17.asp?filename=Cr032506_Iroms_iron.asp
READ SHOMA CHAUDHURY’s SEARING PORTRAIT: THE UNLIKELY OUTLAW
“How shall I explain? It is not a punishment, but my bounden duty…” A haunting phrase in a haunting voice, made slow with pain yet magnetic in its moral force…
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main23.asp?filename=Ne120906The_unlikely_CS.asp&id=1#
and page 2
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main23.asp?filename=Ne120906The_unlikely_CS.asp&id=2
READ HARSH DOBHAL IN COMBAT LAW
New private ward. All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi. As you enter the building, about a dozen policemen…
http://combatlaw.org/information.php?article_id=835&issue_id=31
READ NANDINI SUNDAR’S ARTICLE ON SHARMILA IN TOI
When we first heard of Irom Sharmila in 2004, she had already been fasting for four years in protest against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). In July that year, a young woman…
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2132074.cms
READ KARTYK VENKATARAMAN ON IROM SHARMILA’S ARRIVAL IN DELHI; INDIAN EXPRESS
Manipur’s most famous protestor, Sharmila Chanu, poses a tough dilemma for the national government
http://www.indianexpress.com/story/14153.html
READ SIDDHARTH VARADARAJAN ON THE AFSPA; IN THE HINDU
The question of repeal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act needs to be debated publicly in the light of the Justice B.P. Jeevan ReddyCommittee’s report.
http://www.hindu.com/2006/10/10/stories/2006101002661100.htm
READ THE: BARE ACT OF THE AFSPA 1958
please follow this link
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGASA200252005
A pdf will open. Go to Appendix I, page 25. Or, go to:
http://kavitajoshi.blogspot.com/2006/10/afspa-1958-read-bare-act.html
JEEVAN REDDY COMMISSION REPORT IS NOW ONLINE
http://www.hindu.com/nic/afa/
FACTSHEET ON AFSPA: SAHELI AND PUDR
http://kavitajoshi.blogspot.com/2006/10/armed-forces-special-powers-act-1958.html
READ MORE ON: MANIPUR CAMPAIGN WEBSITE
http://manipurfreedom.org/
PRESS COVERAGE OF SHARMILA’s PROTEST IN DELHI
http://manipurfreedom.org/press/
PHOTO GALLERY OF SHARMILA’s DELHI FAST
please see the link on the blogroll
Irom Sharmila in Custody
IROM’s IRON IN THE SOUL
Young, stoic and dogged, Irom Sharmila has been on a fast-unto-death since November, 2000. She wants the repressive Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act repealed. The Act gives draconian powers to the security forces and has repeatedly been used with brazen brutality in the Northeast. For five years, she has been imprisoned and force-fed by the State for her ‘crime’. Filmmaker Kavita Joshi spoke to her in the hospital room in Imphal, her prison
An eye: piercing, intent. A nose, covered by a swatch of medical tape, as a yellow tube forces its way in. Lips, stretched tight as if in pain. A woman sits against a bare wall, huddled under a blanket, tightly hugging herself. This is my first impression of Irom Sharmila as I walk to her hospital bed. She is incarcerated at the security ward of JN Hospital in Imphal, Manipur, in custody of the Central Jail, Sajiwa. It takes her immense effort to speak, but she tries her best. “How can I explain? This is not a punishment. It is my bounden duty at my best level.”
Irom Sharmila has not eaten for over five years now. For this, she has been locked up in jail by the government under very dubious charges and is being forcibly nose fed. Since November 2000, Sharmila has been on a fast-unto-death, demanding the removal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act 1958 (AFSPA).
Read the rest of the article and interview on Tehelka here
Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958
An Act to enable certain special powers to be conferred upon members of the armed forces in disturbed areas in the State of Assam and the Union Territory of Manipur.
Be it enacted by Parliament in the Ninth Year of the Republic of India as follows:
1. (i) This Act may be called [The Armed Forces (Assam and Manipur) Special Powers Act, 1958].
(ii) It extends to the whole of the State of Assam and the Union Territory of Manipur.
2. In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires: Read the rest of this entry »
[- a factsheet adapted by the SAHELI and PUDR team from earlier reports and submissions to the Jeevan Reddy Committee]
Over the last five decades, heavy militarisation in the north east has taken its toll on normal civilian life and led to innumerable instances of violations committed against the civilian populations there. Encounter deaths, extra judicial killings, disappearances, arbitrary arrests, rape and torture have been a regular feature among the relentless series of atrocities meted out to the people by the army with impunity, especially in areas where they are protected by legislation like AFSPA.
Some of the most widely known incidents of such excesses in the north east are:
• army torture and violence against the villagers of Oinam (Manipur) in 1987 who were detained in army camps, beaten mercilessly, given electric shocks. At least 3 women were raped, 15 villagers killed, and many left permanently disabled; Read the rest of this entry »
