Events

Launch of website

Launch of website in Bangalore, maybe Hyderabad, Madras

Experimenta Film Festival, Bangalore

Screening followed by discussion with Deepa Dhanraj and Nicole Wolf

Screening and panel discussion with union activists (tbc)

Hyderabad English and Foreign Languages University

Screening and seminar with Deepa Dhanraj and members of Stree Shakti Sanghathana

Batalha Centro de Cinema, Porto, Portugal

Invitation to screen all Yugantar films plus seminar with Deepa Dhanraj

Berlin, House of World Cultures

“Going on strike! Friendship Synergies and the Nowness of Yugantar.” Screening of Tambaku Chaakila Oob Ali, presentation of Yugantar website in progress and conversation between Deepa Dhanraj, V. Geetha and Nicole Wolf. ‘Yugantar, India’s first feminist film collective, left a potent legacy of feminist and collective filmmaking practices. Founding member Deepa Dhanraj and feminist historian V. Geetha present some of Yugantar’s films, the new online research platform that will make the films and further material accessible and reflect on political friendship and the resistance practices of strikes.’

Sudesha @ Jacaranda Tales, a festival on Women and Nature

Screening and discussion with Deepa Dhanraj, Bangalore Film Society

House of World Cultures, Berlin

Podcast: Lakshmi Padmanabhan in conversation with Deepa Dhanraj, as part of: “No Master Narratives. Feminist Worldmaking and the Moving Image”, curated by Erika Balsom and Hila Peleg

24th Seoul International Women's Film Festival (South Korea)

Screening of all Yugantar films and Something like a war, Special Talk by Deepa Dhanraj, Roundtable discussion on the restoration of films by female filmmakers focused on re/writing film historiography with feminist perspective and post screening discussions.

Hyderabad Literature Festival

Screenings and discussion with Deepa Dhanraj

London, Essay Film Festival “Is this just a story? Celebrating the Yugantar Collective”

This programme featured three recently restored prints of films made in the 1980s by the India’s first feminist film collective, founded in Bangalore in 1980 by Deepa Dhanraj, Abha Bhaiya, Navroze Contractor and Meera Rao. Between 1980 and 1983, during a time of radical political transformation in India, Yugantar created four pioneering films together with existing or emerging women’s groups.

Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen

Screening  of  Tambaku Chaakila Oob Aali

FilmFest, Melbourne

Screenings of Idi Katha Maatramena, Tambaku Chaakila Oob Aali, Molkarin

Moma (NYC, US)

Screening of Yugantar films as part of selection of Arsenal archive films, online conversation between Deepa Dhranraj and Nicole Wolf

“Friendship Synergies: The Yugantar Collective.” , Berlin, Arsenal Institute of Film and Video Art

Screening of Tambaku Chaakila Oob Ali and premier of newly restored copy of Sudesha, followed by discussion with Abha Baiya and Deepa Dhanraj

Thinking Feminism, Gail Omvedt

Course taught by V.Geetha at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai. The course included screenings of Molkarin (Maid Servant), Tambaku Chakila Oob Aali (The tobacco heap is ready to ignite), Idi Katha Maatramena ? (Is this just a story?) These films, created and produced by Deepa Dhanraj [Yugantar film collective], pertain to the times that Gail Omvedt defines as constituting the conjuncture that made for women's dissent, protests and feminism. The first refers to the struggle of the Domestic Workers' Union that Gail writes about; the second to the struggle of tobacco workers at Nipani, which also she was familiar with. The last is a film that features women who were part of the Progressive Organisation of Women (POW) founded in Hyderabad in 1974 and she takes note of their work as well.

Singapore International Film Festival

Screening of Idi Katha Maatramena

Forms, Voices, Networks: Feminism and the Media, at German Historical Institute London

Yugantar Film Collective was featured as part of the exhibition Forms, Voices, Networks which explored the intersections between the growth of mass media and women’s rights movements in a transnational context during the 20th century. Centred on the histories of feminisms and the media in Britain, Germany and India, this project drew attention to little-known or unheard voices and stories and made connections between activists and the media across time and space. Developed by the International Standing Working Group on Medialization and Empowerment, curated by Maya Caspari (GHIL) and coordinated by Jane Freeland (GHIL). A digital copy of the exhibition will be saved at the German Historical Institute London.

Kinothek Asta Nielsen, Frankfurt

Screening of Idi Katha Maatramena

Sarajevo

Screening of Idi Katha Maatramena, Tambaku Chaakila Oob Aali

Berlinale, Forum Expanded “Of strikes, Visions and Friendships: The Yugantar Film Collective

Screening of the newly restored Tambaku Chaakila Oob Aali and Idi Katha Maatramena, followed by a discussion between Abha Baiya, Deepa Dhanraj and Nicole Wolf

Akademie der Künste der Welt, Cologne “Speculative feminist ciné-geographies”

Lecture by Nicole Wolf followed by conversation with Madhusree Dutta

Summer School: ‘Filme Bewegen’, Arsenal. Institute of Film and Video art, Berlin.

Presentation of research and collaboration with Deepa Dhanraj on digitisation of Yugantar film collective films, by Nicole Wolf

Cividep, Bangalore

Screening of Tambaku Chaakila Oob Ali to union activists, hosted by Cividep Bangalore, followed by discussion with Deepa Dhanraj

Centre for Women’s Studies, School of Social Sciences, University of Hyderabad

Screening of Tambaku Chaakila Oob Ali and Idhi Katha Matramena and presentation by Nicole Wolf: “Re-projecting Yugantar. Legacies of a feminist film archive.”

Vision Mix 6-day workshop JNU, Delhi

Workshop with lectures and discussions organised by Lucia Imaz King and Rashmi Sawhney, with Vision Mix artists and associates

‘Relations, co-habitations, alliances. Reflections on cinematic friendship and critical global publics’

Lecture by Nicole Wolf

Visible Evidence 21, Delhi

‘Current urgencies, feminist legacies and political fiction’, with Sheba Chhachhi, Deepa Dhanraj and Madhusree Dutta; workshop/ panel, chaired by Nicole Wolf, for Visible Evidence 21, December 11-14, 2014

Kunstwerke, Institute for Contemporary Art

“Engaging cinema. Re-viewing collective practices” Seminar organised by Nanna Heidenreich and Nicole Wolf, with Deepa Dhanraj.