NAME OF THE MOVIE: Kitte Mil Ve Mahi (Where the Twain shall meet)
DIRECTED BY: Ajay Bhardwaj
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SYNOPSIS
DURATION 72 mins
YEAR 2005
COUNTRY India
LANGUAGE Punjabi
'This film, first of Ajay Bharadwaj''s trilogy on Punjab, contends the dominant perceptions of the economic and spiritual heritage of Punjab. It does so through a people’s narrative on the preservation and regeneration of its ‘little’ traditions, which often appear seamlessly cultural and political. The film invites the audience to travel to the heart of Punjab. To enter a world of Sufi shrines worshipped and looked after by Dalits. To listen to B.S. Balli Qawwal Paslewale, the first generation Dalit Qawwals born out of this tradition. To join a fascinating dialogue with Lal Singh Dil—a radical poet, a Dalit, converted to Islam. To meet the last living legend of the Gadar movement, Baba Bhagat Singh Bilga, who contests the subversion of a common past, while affirming a new consciousness among Dalits, within and beyond Punjab. The interplay between the constituents of this mosaic brings to light the triple marginalisation of Dalits—amidst the agricultural boom that is the modern Punjab, in the contesting ground of its ‘major’ religions, and in the intellectual construction of their ‘syncretism’.'
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Ajay Bhardwaj is a filmmaker and scholar whose work meditates on the relationship between aesthetic and subversive, art and identity, and history and memory. In his long stint as a documentary filmmaker, he explored the northwestern state of Punjab in India for a decade. This phase culminated in his Punjab trilogy—a set of documentaries located at the intersection of Dalit religiosity, performance traditions, and memories of partition. Bhardwaj is a recipient of the Public Scholars Award at the University of British Columbia, where he recently completed his PhD on South Asian Left-wing cultural activism in British Columbia. The doctoral documentary, \"When the Tide Goes Out,\" accompanying his dissertation that examines representational absences in multimedia archive, has been selected for screening at the Vancouver International South Asian Film Festival 2022.
PERSONNEL
Cinematographer Ajay Bhardwaj
Editor Sachindra Bisht
Sound Designer Asheesh Pandya
Producer(s) Ajay Bhardwaj