KHOJ organised an evening of film screenings from the Creative Documentary Course (CDC), Sri Aurobindo Centre for Arts & Communication (SACAC).
Chaaya (From the Shadows), Dir. Nundrisha Wakhloo, Dur.24 min, CDC Diploma Film-2015
The filmmaker finds, in some places and people in Mehrauli, a canvas of internal and external spaces. She explores various elements of the physical and psychological that prevail in our society, elements that shape our fundamental ways of being. What are the expressions of desire, longing, pain, grief, belief, strength and joy- the complexities that possess this known and unknown world?
Maine Dilli Nahin Dekha (I Am Yet To See Delhi), Dir. Humaira Bilkis, Dur. 19min, CDC Diploma Film-2014
The film is a subjective journey, exploring a new city. The filmmaker discovers the soul of the city, not in its museums, mausoleums and architecture, but in her relationship with its people. The process of looking at the urban space offers the filmmaker a chance to relook at her own space, identity and cultural moorings. Moving alone to Delhi to study film, the ‘I’ loses herself in the city, her camera becoming a part of her. Listening to the breath of the people who inhabit this place – its roads, markets, mosques and tourist spots – and following where her gaze takes her, she picks up casual conversations and the general buzz, beginning to hear the timbre of the city. Sinking deep into the word that is ‘I’, she spells out the quavering movements of her outsider feelings. A personal journey inscribing Delhi’s pulse.
Saatvin Khwahish (Seventh Wish), Dir. Varun Trikha, Dur. 27min, CDC Diploma Film- 2014
The film looks at the politics of representation in the denounced poetry of Rekhti, colloquial Urdu poetry written in the language and voice of women. Guided by this poetry, the film creates a womanscape through the fragments of the lives of some women and Gjins, the intangible survivors of Rekhti. Within this world, it imagines desires considered outrageous- desires that led to a century of rejection and suppression.
Film Festivals and Screenings
Delhi International Film Festival
Delhi Shorts International Film Festival
Dhaka International Film Festival, Bangladesh
Dharamshala International Film Festival
Film Appreciation (FA) Course, Film & Television Institute of India (FTII)
IAWRT Asian women’s film festival
India International Film Festival of Prayag
Kochi- Muziris Biennale, as part of a students’ package, Undiplomatic Tales
Kolkata Shorts International film festival
Nashik International Film Festival
National Student Film Awards (Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Government of India)
Pärnu International Film Festival, Estonia
South Asian University
Students Film Festival of India
The Bangalore Queer Film Festival
Vibgyor International film festival
We care film festival
Women Making Films
Woodpecker Film Festival
Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, Japan
About the Creative Documentary Course (CDC)
The Creative Documentary Course at Sri Aurobindo Centre for Arts & Communication (SACAC), New Delhi has been envisioned as an intensive filmmaking course with an integrated approach that opens out the world of cinema to students, enabling them to engage strongly with filmmaking. Over the 18 months, students engage in a rigorous exploration that entails intensive work with one primary goal – that of being in touch with themselves and of searching for their own voice. The pedagogy works with the belief that all narratives, themes and subjects have been addressed by someone, somewhere, sometime. True originality lies in the filmmaker’s own perspective, their own unique position, reflections, and perceptions.
