Film Screenings
Imprints
Join us for Imprints–an evening of films, stories and conversations that offer poignant explorations of a range of complex and interconnected gendered experiences hosted by the Rough Edges team.
We will be screening three short films, Making Space (2024) by Nikita Parikh, Log Kya Kahenge (What will People Say) (2024) by Rafina Khatun and Umbro (2024) by Prachee Bajania. Following the screening, the filmmakers will be in conversation with Arundhati Ghosh.
Imprints is a touring series of film screenings and conversations hosted by Rough Edges–a documentary film initiative that mentors, produces and disseminates imaginative documentary films with a focus on queer and feminist politics. These films celebrate our diversities, our individual and collective desires, resistances and solidarities. Produced, mentored and developed under the Rough Edges Uncode Fellowships, they are distinct in their form, approach and expression and provoke reflection on many truths–of persistent patriarchies, barriers and stereotypes, interactions with caste, class, religion and labour, and the vulnerability required to confront these. Above all, they delicately find and frame the everyday stories of women.
About the films:
Making Space by Nikita Parikh
14 minutes | Hindi with English subtitles | 2024
Alsana lives in a small, chaotic neighbourhood in Ahmedabad, cut off from the rest of the city by an 85-acre landfill on one side and a highway on the other. In a place like this, a room of one’s own is hard to come by, but Alsana has a corner. Meanwhile, Alsana’s drawings show signs of the society seeping in, as she grapples with her identity and conflicts closer to home.
Log Kya Kahenge (What will People Say) by Rafina Khatun
40 minutes | Hindi, Gujarati with English subtitles | 2024
Gulnaaz remains committed to using community radio to shed light on injustices and oppressions faced by marginalised communities, despite constant scrutiny and control by her family and community. Through her empathetic storytelling, she brings attention to untold narratives and advocates for unity and harmony. Amidst her fight for social change, Gulnaaz grapples with her own struggles for freedom and autonomy. This is the story of a young Muslim woman dreaming differently in a patriarchal society determined to silence her.
Umbro by Prachee Bajania
34 minutes | Gujarati, Hindi with English subtitles | 2024
Umbro, the threshold of a home, is the liminal space that speaks to the lives of women, including the filmmaker’s mother and her friends who live in the small town of Dhrangadhra in central Gujarat. The Film explores joyful friendships among women, routinely dismissed and unsung – carrying in them moments of shared stories, solidarities, conflicts and, most of all, routine acts of resistance. Umbro attempts to locate these flights of desire in the everyday, while celebrating the women’s indomitable love for life, and each other.
This event is part of VISIBLE/INVISIBLE:Representation of Women in Art through the MAP Collection exhibition programming.
Image Caption: Still from UMBRO (2024), Prachee Bajania. Image Courtesy: Rough Edges
Bookings
Rough Edges
Rough Edges is a nascent initiative that seeks to enable, mentor, produce and disseminate imaginative documentary films that explore diverse, intersecting and complex realities, boldly informed by feminist and queer politics and a commitment to social justice. Supporting films across multiple political and aesthetic practices, we hope to celebrate the distinctive voices of women, trans and queer artists, collectively catalysing conversations around contemporary narratives and how they shape us. Through the making and sharing of films, we aspire to engagements with intention, perspective, process, form and expression and how they resonate in a structurally intricate and unequal world.
Founded by Ridhima Mehra and Tulika Srivastava, who draw on over two decades of experiences with the commissioning, creative realisation and outreach of close to 700 films, diverse in artistic form, subject and authorship.
Arundhati Ghosh
Arundhati Ghosh is a writer, cultural practitioner, social activist and traveller, living across many worlds. Based in Bangalore with three decades of experience in the arts and culture, she served as the Executive Director of India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) between 2013 and 2023. Her awards include the Global Fundraiser Award from Resource Alliance, Chevening Clore Leadership Award (2015-2016), Chevening Gurukul Scholarship at the London School of Economics (2005-2006), and Salzburg Global Seminar Fellowship.
She contributed on advisory boards of the Seagull Foundation for the Arts, Blind with Camera and Toto funds the Arts, and continues to do so for The Museum of Art and Photography (MAP), Shomokaleen Protibidhan (a feminist magazine in Bangla), the Solidarity Foundation, Sangama and Maraa.
She has co-curated the International Theatre Festival of Kerala 2020 organized by Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi. Arundhati actively volunteers with many citizen initiatives that work towards a just and equitable society. She speaks on arts and philanthropy for leading Indian and international organisations including International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies (IFACCA), Kelola Foundation, On the Move, Festival Academy Europe, UNESCO Berlin, The Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC), Kultura Nova Foundation, University of Leeds, Theatre Cooperative Turkey, among others.
Nikita Parikh
Nikita Parikh came to filmmaking through working with children. She traveled to classrooms across the country making videos for Teach for India, an NGO which works in government and low-income private schools. During her Master’s degree in Education at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, she started researching and using participatory media with teenagers. She is driven to create films which promote understanding, empathy and change.
Rafina Khatun
Rafina Khatun is a filmmaker and editor, dedicated to amplifying the voices of women through her work. With a degree in Journalism and Mass Communication from Calcutta University, she has honed her skills by assisting renowned filmmakers like Debalina, Susmita Sinha, Sankhajit Biswas, Farha Khatun and Baudhyan Mukherji on various documentary and fiction projects.
In 2021, Rafina was awarded the prestigious Third Eye Fellowship from Nirantar Trust, which enabled her to create her debut film A Journey to Home, which intimately explores the unfulfilled dreams of her family members. She has worked with Drishti in Ahmedabad, where she edited films and actively participated in community skill training programmes. Currently, she is pursuing Editing at SRFTI.
Prachee Bajania
Prachee Bajania is a filmmaker, editor and writer. A post-graduate of the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad (Film and Video Communications), and the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune (Film Direction and Screenplay Writing), Prachee’s journey is marked by eleven independent documentaries commissioned by esteemed institutions such as India Foundation for the Arts, Charles Correa Foundation, Sahapedia, Rough Edges and more. Her work resonates deeply with societal and humanitarian themes.
Prachee has written and directed four short fiction films including The Spell of Purple, a distinguished entry in the Indian Panorama at the International Film Festival of India, Goa. More recently, Prachee worked in the direction team of the web show Jee Karda, produced by Maddock Films, released in June 2023 on Prime Video.
