Poetic Musings

Sunday evening marked the return of imaginative thought,of word and visual imagery in flow. As the Sadho Poetry Film Fest kicked off,so did a process of indulgence of a world beyond the mundane. “That’s the aim of Sadho,to bring people closer to nature,to involve them in a soul-stirring experience,” say Jitendra Prasad and Ashwini Chaudhary,both from Chandigarh. The former is a product of Government College for Men and founder of Sadho,the latter a jury member and director of the movie Dhoop.

“We bring a bonanza to Chandigarh which includes ten international poetry films,sign-language poetry films followed by an interaction with the Dutch film-makers,and films by 13-year-old film-makers Sidharth Saxena and Shashwat Mudgal,” they inform. Along with them were independent Dutch filmmakers Leendert Pot and Anja Hiddinga who came with their film Growth. Shot in a church,their film captures the poetry of two hearing impaired poets and how,through a liberating visual expression,they gave empowerment to the use of sign language across the world.

Apart from this,the fest screened Chail by Sidharth Saxena. A visualisation of a poem he wrote in 2008 and which was published on the Sadho website,the film explores the interplay between the worlds of monkey and men,played out in the fertile imagination of a child. Ek Sapna,an animation by Shashwat Mudgal is based on a poem by his 12-year-old sister Anagha. Of Buddha & Other Beings,a trilogy of poetry films by Nandan Saxena & Kavita Bahl,and O’ Autumn Winds! based on three Haiku by the Japanese poets are the other films to be showcased.