As part of our Film & Documentary Screening series this month we bring to you U.K. premiere of documentary film Soz – a Ballad of Maladies by Tushar Madhav and Sarvnik Kaur, followed by a brief discussion. Programmed by Vasudha Wantu.
Soz – Of folk, rock and hip-hop, this documentary captures the rhythm and blues of resistance in Kashmir through portraiture of those artists and musicians who have turned their art into weapons of resistance during periods of heightened state repression and violence in the region. From traditional Kashmiri poetry and folk music to the political lyricism of modern hip-hop and rock, the film negotiates with the questions of survival, resistance and expression of art in one of the world’s most militarised zones.
The film won President of India’s 64th National Film Award for Best Debut Film in 2016. Soz also won the Ram Bahadur Trophy for Best Film at ’11th Film Southasia Kathmandu’ and Best Documentary at 10th IDSFFKerala besides being screened and widely appreciated at several international and Indian film festivals.
“Here is a film that broadens that is sought to be narrowed. It reveals a fierce and thoughtful spirit that continues to flourish in a place and among a people that have been brutalised for centuries.” Arundhati Roy (Author, activist & winner of Booker Prize 1997.)
Language: Hindi, Kashmiri (with subtitles) & English
Duration: 85min.
Tushar Madhav is an independent documentary filmmaker and editor based in Mumbai. He studied M.A. Mass Communication at the AJ Kidwai Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia University in New Delhi. In 2017, he was awarded with the 64th National Film Award of India for Best Debut Film for his first feature documentary Soz – A Ballad of Maladies. Based on the music and art of resistance in Kashmir valley, the film also won several other important South Asian film awards such as Ram Bahadur Trophy for Best Film at 11th Film South Asia Kathmandu and Best Documentary at 10th International Documentary & Short Film Festival of Kerala. A previous independent film fellow of Public Service Broadcasting Trust in India, arts research fellow, India Foundation for the Arts, Bangalore and current fellow, Uniondocs Center for Documentary Art, Brooklyn, Tushar has also edited independent documentary films and non-fiction series for digital platforms. He is currently working on an independent hybrid documentary film based on the life, art and death of famous Indian painter and sculptor Jangarh Singh Shyam. Besides working on films and television, Tushar has also been teaching filmmaking at various universities and colleges of India for over 5 years.
Sarvnik Kaur is a writer and documentary filmmaker. She strives to tell stories that hide anxiety and conflict just beneath the surface of the ‘normal’ and the ‘mundane’. Her first feature documentary film ‘Soz – A Ballad of Maladies’ is a departure from Kashmir’s Orientalist stereotype of a paradise, in Indian popular imagination. The film explores the tradition of political resistance through music and poetry in Kashmir through the work of those poets, hip-hoppers, musicians and artists who have turned their art into weapons of resistance during periods of heightened state repression and violence in the region. Her debut novel ‘Where Arrows Meet’ was published in 2012. An alumna of AJK Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Milia Islamia University Delhi, she currently resides in Mumbai.
Doors: 15:30 | Screening: 16:00 | Entry Free
