Indymedia cinema and the RampART Creative Centre have been hosting a week long festival of documentary films from India. From Monday 10th to Saturday 16th January, each day focused on a particular social or political issue. This festival brings to London’s East End some documentaries that are rarely seen, inside or outside India, with the intention of creating spaces for debate. Some disturbing, some impassioned, others humorous, all inspiring and controversial, these films provide a glimpse into some of the most difficult challenges facing Indian society.
During film festivals in India attempts have been made to censor films covering these events. Now the same is happening in London. Last week, the ramparts social centre started to receive threatening emails, and anonymous comments posted on the ramparts web pages [1] from people trying to force the venue to cancel the film festival. They claim that the films present Hinduism in a bad light and that the organisers have an anti-Hindu agenda. The threats began after an email posted on nationalist Hindu mailing list alerted members of right wing Hindu groups such as the BJP and the VHP (both part of the Sangh Parivar, the family of Hindu fundamentalist organizations spawned and led by the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh). However, of course, the organizers refused to bow to the threats and the festival went on as other venues came forward to offer alternative places to show the film should disruption take place. In the end, there was no disruption, and attendance was very good. [2]
Activists arrested over Gujarat videos | Festival programme | rampart newsletter
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Among the films shown, there were several which focus on religious intolerance and fundamentalist violence which resulted in a massacre in Gularat. Rakesh Sharma's film 'Final Solution' (screened on Saturday) and several other documentaries that investigate the brutal bloodshed in Gujarat in 2002 were banned by India's censorship board (whist the BJP was in power) and faced threats from extremist groups.
Thanks to all who value and support free speech and helped to ensure that fascists groups did not disrupt the screenings by turning up.
Comments
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no distruption
17.01.2005 00:25
n
feature
17.01.2005 15:53
the film featival is over and you then you start to wake up. yep, other things somewhere in the world are more important, that what's going on in your town...
zzzzzzzz
information for action
18.01.2005 02:15
Is it meant to be important or useful?
Would the feature about the film festival have been important or useful if it had been published earlier and is more or less important now?
If published before the event it might have been considered an advert but it would have been useful as people could have learnt about the event and acted on that knowledge by attending. The fact that the venue was threatened by fascists wanting to censor the films would also have represented important information which could have been acted on by people turning up to support the organisers and defend against disruptions. In this regard it seems fair to say that it would have been both important and useful mostly due to providing information on which people could act.
Now, the feature was published after the event. Certainly no good as an advert as nobody could go back in time to attend. It is news perhaps, in that it refers to events that have happened recently. But is it important or useful to been given this information at this stage? Can anyone act on the information after the event in order to attend or to protect freespeech? No. So it seems not very useful and probably not very important.
Should this test be applied to all indymedia news or features? Probably not but it is perhaps a good idea to consider the moto of varous grassroots publications 'information for action' as indymedia is hopefully not a medium for providing news as passive entertainment but instead a tool to arm people with knowledge that they can act on.
Lets try to keep things useful and timely.
ps. Well done to all those involved in the film festival.
x
its wrong - not just late
18.01.2005 02:22
Also, the film 'final solution'. I was there on saturday and that wasn't screened and it wasn't in any of the programmes I saw either so I don't understand why that appears in the feature.
But better late than never I say ;-)
ppl
why bickering?
18.01.2005 18:13
As to wether the feature was posted too late - well if I wanted to go down that night for the opening of the film festival, I would have found the details on the newswire or on the RampArt Website.
For me the interesting story is about this social center in the east end, the opening of an open activist space in an area where it won't exist without conflict. I remember reading something about the RampArt New Years Party on the newswire, and that one of the local DJs who I believe is sometimes playing music on RampArt radio wanted to run his own, commercial party at the same time in the same place, and how the RampArt Crew had to deal with this conflict. Sorry for not linking to the correct post here, but I think this is extremely intersting, shows how "real", lively and sometimes courageous the RampArt Crew is.
I want to hear more of these stories, where a local and not necessarily activist community is coming to terms with a squatted social center, and vice versa - and how sometimes this does not work. And I don't care wether these stories turn up a few weeks or months late.
jablon