IFA Film Screening: Wall Stories | November 27, 2015 | FICA, Delhi

India Foundation for the Arts
in collaboration with
Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art (FICA)
presents a screening of
Wall Stories
by Shashwati Talukdar
Duration: 40 minutes | Language: Hindi with English Subtitles
Friday | November 27, 2015 | 5:30 PM | FICA Reading Room
D-42, Defence Colony, New Delhi

Join us for a film screening of Wall Stories, and a discussion with filmmaker Shashwati Talukdar, on November 27, 2015 at the Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art (FICA)!

Wall Stories is about how a dispossessed saint, a newly minted gentry and generations of painters created a syncretic culture in the Western Himalayas. Inventive, witty and playful, the film subverts the usual narratives about society and history in a valley that was on the edge of the Mughal and British Empires.

The film is a pictorial journey through the Garhwal region in the Western Himalayas. Centered on Dehradun between the rivers Ganga and Yamuna, it tells the fascinating story of the history and culture of its people through mural paintings found in the area, and the daily life that is lived around them.

Going from a portrait of Noor Jehan dressed as a Pahari lady, to depictions of the 'Indar Sabha' the first Urdu full length play, and one of the richest repositories of illustrations of the Janmsakhi (the life of Guru Nanak), these painting from the end of the 17th to the 19th century defy the boundaries of low art and high art, religion and received history.

Wall Stories uses imaginary conversations, treats the subject of the paintings as living subjects and plays with its thematic matter to explore the space and meaning created in the everyday lives of the people who encounter these paintings.

About Shashwati
Shashwati Talukdar, has an an MFA in Film and Video Arts from Temple University, Philadelphia, USA and an MA in Mass Communications from Jamia Millia Islamia. She has directed over a dozen short films and videos, which have been screened at venues including the Margaret Mead Festival, Berlin, the Whitney Biennial in New York, Kiasma Museum of Art in Helsinki and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia. She has been supported by entities including the Asian Cine Fund in Busan, India Foundation for the Arts, Jerome Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts. She has been awarded the James T. Yee Mentorship Award from NAATA (2002) and the Project Involve Fellowship (2003) from IFP/New York. In addition, Shashwati has taught at NYU, Arcadia and Temple University. She lives between Taiwan and India.

The film will be followed by a discussion with the filmmaker.

Please do join us for refreshments before the event.
For details, write to Tanveer Ajsi at tanveerajsi@indiaifa.org