The Lantern in London

This film festival is a reality show with a difference. Persistence Resistance,a festival of short films and documentaries,has screened stark,often disturbing,sociopolitical realities for the past three years. Organisers Magic Lantern Foundation,a Delhi-based organisation,will now carry its cache of hard-hitting films to the UK,showcasing these at Goldsmiths University of London,London School of Economics,School of Oriental and African Studies,University of Westminster and Brunel University. “Our collection comprises issue-based films,and we were keen to show these to people from the academic field,” says Ranjan De,co-founder of Magic Lantern Foundation.

The eight-day-long festival,starting November 1,will be inaugurated with an Odissi performance by Urbi Basu and her troupe. The piece will complement the inaugural film,Bhavantarana,whose storyline travels to a time in India when dance was a form of prayer and a male-dominated art form. The other offerings include Cowboys in India,about tribal villagers fighting enforced development in their village,Delhi Mumbai Delhi,a look at the lives of bar girls,and Something Like a War,which examines India’s Family Planning programme from the perspective of women,its primary targets.