Mumbai – DECO SCREENINGS

Mira Nair’s 1985 documentary exploring the ‘respectable’ and ‘immoral’ stereotypes of women in Indian society told from the point of view of two strip-tease dancers in a cabaret house in Bombay. There are no voice-overs by either the dancers nor the men who frequented the cabaret club. Nair explores the marginalised quite often in her lms, male and female. This time, it is the marginalised women in Bombay who have been cast out because of the ‘nature’ of their jobs. This is a striking exploration of patriarchy, hypocrisy, and the politics of the male gaze in urban India.

Venue: Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Education Centre

A documentary that sits at the intersection of cinema, India’s fast fading theatres, and Art Deco, Cinema Pe Cinema delves into the personal stories of individuals who created and preserved the cinemas, and those for whom they were meant. It serves as a tribute to these fading cultural spaces – some of them gorgeous Deco gems – and highlights their signicance as places of shared experience and reecting on the changing landscape of Indian cinema.
The screening will be followed by a discussion on the legacy of heritage cinemas in India, and reimagining their future with Atul Kumar, Vani Subramanian, Jigna Desai and Meenakshi Shedde.

Venue: Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Education Centre
4.30 PM – 5.45 PM (screening); 5.45 – 6.45 PM (discussion)

Art Deco Alive! in association with The Revolver Film Club presents a screening of Susheel Kurien’s Finding Carlton. The lm explores the African American jazz diaspora in South Asia, and brings to life a remarkable example of early cultural globalisation. Built around a portrait of surviving Indian jazzman, the maverick guitarist Carlton Kitto, the lm is a journey into India’s little-known Jazz age that lasted from the 1920s to the 1970s. The screening will be followed by a discussion led by Naresh Fernandes. Naresh will be joined by Ratan J Batliboi and Nakul Mehta.

Venue: Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Education Centre
4 PM – 5.20 PM (screening); 5.30 – 7 PM (discussion)