Film Screenings
Ladies Only
Rebana Liz John, Milann Tress John
A still from the film Ladies Only. Courtesy of Rebana Liz John
“What makes you angry?” asks the filmmaker. A small film crew enters the ladies’ compartments of the local trains in Mumbai. Chance encounters and acquaintances are invited to reveal their opinions, their confessions and their stories in a ‘public’ space. Their diverse answers thread themselves into an unfolding tapestry of details and observations. The light on the faces, the figures in the background, the driving noises of the train and the interactions between the travellers bring the space alive. Black and white images distil the essence of the space.
A poetic rhythm takes us across Mumbai and its mix of cultures, languages and faces, providing insight into how urban Indian women see and shape their lives. Through a feminist lens, the filmmaker explores what ambitions and freedoms mean for women in a hyper-industrial, wealth-driven and complex world.
Join us for the screening of the film Ladies Only by Rebana Liz John, as she explores the diverse narratives of women from the ladies’ compartments of the local trains in Mumbai. The film screening will be followed by an online Q&A session with Rebana Liz John and the Cinematographer of the film, Milann Tress John.
The film screening has been curated under Thinking Cities, MAP’s public programming theme for the quarter. Through this theme, we explore and reimagine cities through the lenses of space, identity, history, memory and more.
Rebana Liz John
Filmmaker
Rebana Liz John is an Indian artist-filmmaker who grew up in Mumbai. Filmmaking became her primary medium while studying at the Srishti School of Art, Design & Technology in Bangalore, India (2004-08). She graduated from the Postgraduate programme in Film/Media Art at the KHM/ Academy of Media Arts Cologne, Germany, where she refined her documentary practice while reframing existing approaches and formats. Her interests lie in non-fiction narratives and the mutating position of an artist/filmmaker in society.
Experimentation in non-fiction narratives, art in public space, animation and writing, are her modus operandi. Her documentary ‘Ships Outside My Window’ has travelled to film festivals around the globe and also won ‘Best Student Documentary’. Her feature-length documentary ‘Ladies Only’ premiered at the Busan International Film Festival 2021, won the Compass Perspective Prize at the Berlinale 2022, the Second Best Documentary at the International Documentary Short Film Festival Kerala (IDSFFK 2022) and was nominated for the First Steps award 2022.
Milann Tress John
Cinematographer - Ladies Only
Milann Tress John has written and directed films exploring the themes of transgender rights, ethnomusicology, Indian craft processes and indigenous folk art practices across rural India. She specialised in Film as a post graduate at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad and graduated as an IT engineer from the Army Institute of Technology, Pune. As Creative Director at the Mumbai-based 21 Tigers Entertainment, she directed films commissioned by National Geographic, Vh1, Z Café, and Epic TV. She set up Gatika, an independent film production studio with a focus on rural India, nine years ago in Goa. Her films have screened at festivals worldwide and have received several awards, including the Best Sound Design in Documentaries for ‘Notes from a Craftsman’ at the Indian Recording Arts Academy Awards, the Long Film Commendation Award for ‘The Little Princes of Rajasthan’ at the International Folk Film Festival and the Compass-Perspektive Award at Berlinale. She was the cinematographer for ‘Ladies Only’, which was awarded the Second Best Long Documentary at the International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala.
