IMPHAL: Filmmaker Haobam Paban Kumar will speak on Cinematic Discontents in a panel discussion on March 12 in the three-day International Workshop on New Imaginaries of Anticolonial Resistance: States, Societies, Media and Markets. The workshop, funded by Volkswagen Stiftung Pioneering Project on ‘Societal Transformation’, will be held from March 11-13 at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi.
Other speakers include renowned filmmakers Paromita Vohra, Shaunak Sen and Yousuf Saeed.
Haobam Paban Kumar is an Indian filmmaker from Manipur. His films and documentaries have been screened in several places across the globe. Haobam Kumar’s debut feature film Loktak Lairembee (Lady of the Lake) won the National Film Award for Best Film on Environment Conservation/Preservation at the 64th National Film Awards 2017.
He also won the German Star of India at the 14th Indian Film Festival in Stuttgart, Germany for the film in 2017. Paban Kumar’s documentary AFSPA 1958 in 2006 was one of the highly critical and widely appreciated films across the globe for his daredevil attempt to showcase the harsh reality of the ill effects of Armed Forces Special Power Act in Manipur state.
Also Read | Haobam Paban Kumar to Attend Indigenous Cinema: South Asian Perspectives in Abu Dhabi
Paromita Vohra, an Indian filmmaker and writer, is known for her documentaries on subjects such as urban life, desire, pop culture and gender. She has also written the screenplay of the award-winning feature film Khamosh Pani. Her film production company Parodevi Pictures is based in Mumbai.
Shaunak Sen is an Academy award nominated Indian filmmaker, video artist and film scholar. His documentary film on environmental issues, All That Breathes, won the Grand Jury Prize in the World Cinema Documentary Competition at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival and the Golden Eye award for the best documentary at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. It was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
Also Read | Manipuri Filmmaker Haobam Paban Kumar to be Celebrated in Retrospective at IDFFB 2024
Yousuf Saeed is an independent filmmaker, scholar and archivist based in New Delhi, producing documentary films and writings on shared art and cultural traditions of South Asia since 1990. His films like Basant (1997), Sufi Sama (1998), and Khusrau Darya Prem Ka (2015) feature Indo-Persian music and literary heritage. Yousuf’s feature-length documentary Khayal Darpan (2006) on the classical music tradition in Pakistan has been screened worldwide.