[Sarai Newsletter] MAY 2003

[The Sarai Programme]

CONTENTS : MAY 2003
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PRESENTATION @ SARAI
May 5 	ELECTROSIA: electronic music & poetry by Mexican poets & sound artists

FILMS @ SARAI
May 16	Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler (1922), Directed by Fritz Lang, Germany

May 17	Ivan the Terrible Part I (1943), Directed by Sergei Eisenstein, USSR

May 18	Night of the Hunter (1955), Directed by Charles Laughton, USA  

May 19	Sansho the Bailiff (1954), Directed by Kenzi Mizoguchi, Japan

May 20	Imitation of Life (1959), Directed by Douglas Sirk, USA

May 22	Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Directed by Jean Luc Godard, France

May 23	Images of the World and the Inscription of War (1989), Directed by 				
		Harun Farocki, Germany 

May 24	Jagte Raho (1957), Directed by Shombhu and Amit Maitra, India

May 25	Subarnarekha (1962), Directed by Ritwik Ghatak, India

May 26	Amores Perros (2000), Directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Innurita, Mexico
 

WORKSHOP REPORT:  First National Indic-Font Workshop 

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Dear Friends,

This May we take a break from the regular Friday film screenings to focus on 
the “Introduction to Film Studies Lecture Series" in the second half of the 
month. The ten days (May 16-26, with a break on May 25)  will be filled with 
illustrated lectures, film screenings and discussions. Registration for the 
series close on May 5. Evening film screenings, scheduled an hour later than 
our regular screening time, at 5:30 pm, will be public. But the month starts 
with an exciting evening of electronic music and poetry. Read on... 

PRESENTATION @ SARAI
	Monday May 5, 2003, 5 pm
	ELECTROSIA: electronic music & poetry by Mexican poets & sound artists
	Presented by Carla Faesler, Mexican poet

Electrosia (electronic music & poetry) is an ongoing project undertaken by 
Mexican poets, sound artists and DJ's, as a way to experiment with new means 
through which poetry can be delivered. The project started in 2002, and 
gathers the work of Mexican poets from the 60's and 70's generations, as well 
as those of the main underground collectives of the contemporary electronic 
music scene in Mexico City. 

Electrosia's aim is to produce a CD that will offer an alternative channel to 
the traditional ways in wich poetry is divulged in Mexico. Carla Faesler has 
authored   books of poems  including 'No tu sino la Piedra'. Her poetry has 
appeared in literary magazines in Mexico and is part of 'Sin Puertas 
Visibles', an anthology of contemporary poetry written by Mexican women. She 
lives in Mexico City and works as a jounalist and editor advisor.

The presentation is in collaboration with the Embassy of Mexico in India.


FILMS @ SARAI
As part of the "Introduction to Film Studies" Lecture Series Sarai will screen 
classics of World Cinema every evening between May 16 to May 26. All 
screenings are at 5:30 pm, at the Seminar Room, Centre for the Study of 
Developing Societies, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi -110054. The films are listed in 
the order of screening.
This schedule is subject to last-minute changes. Screenings for May 21 will be 
announced later. 

	Friday May 16, 2003, 5:30 pm
	Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler (1922), 130 minutes
	Directed by Fritz Lang, Germany

In 'Dr Mabuse: The Gambler' Fritz Lang evokes the soiled and shoddy world of 
crime-infested and inflation-racked post World War I Berlin. 

Employing his supreme powers of disguise and hypnosis, Mabuse surrounds 
himself with loyal servants and criminal henchmen who assassinate his rivals, 
manipulate the stock market and seduce wealthy citizens out of their riches. 
In a seedy underground cabaret, Mabuse, with the help of beautiful dancer 
Cara Carozza, hypnotizes a bored, wealthy man named Hull. After losing large 
sums of money to a disguised Mabuse, Hull is warned by police detective Wenk 
that he has been the victim of a master criminal. Hull ignores the warning as 
he has been seduced by Cara into thinking it was an honest game. Meanwhile, 
Wenk solicits the assistance of rich Countess Told in his endless attempts to 
capture Mabuse and his gang. When Cara is arrested, Mabuse retaliates by 
kidnapping Countess Told and eluding Wenk and the police once again.

Using special effects, complex editing, fade outs, animation techniques and 
superimpositions, Lang took the lessons he learned in the supernatural films 
of German expressionism and applied them to this epic story of the underside 
of Germany. 

	Saturday May 17, 2003, 5:30 pm
	Ivan the Terrible Part I (1943), 94 minutes
	Directed by Sergei Eisenstein, USSR

Originally conceived as a historical epic in three parts, Sergei Eisenstein's 
biography of Czar Ivan IV, the murderous 16th-century unifier of the Russian 
people, was truncated by the director's death in 1948, as he was about to 
begin part three. 

Starring Nikolai Cherkassov as the eponymous ruler, Part I opens with the 
16-year-old's opulent coronation in 1546. He breaks with the custom of 
marriage to a foreign princess by marrying a Russian girl, Anastasia 
Romanovna, thereby offending the nobility. In an effort to expand his 
territory eastward, he leads an army of 100,000 to seize Kazan, succeeding 
only after a long and bitter campaign. After contracting a seemingly fatal 
illness, Ivan summons the Boyars, led by his aunt Euphrosinia, but they 
refuse his demand to swear allegiance to his one-year-old son, greatly 
angering the czar. When Ivan miraculously returns to health, he begins to 
consolidate power in opposition to the Boyars. 

Set against a 16th century backdrop, the spectucalrly ornate set design and 
costumes, along with a performance style influenced by Russian classism, 
grand opera and Kabuki theater, and huge close-ups combine with Prokofiev's 
choral music to make this film one of the classics of Russian cinema. 

	Sunday May 18, 2003, 5:30 pm
	Night of the Hunter (1955),  93 minutes 
	Directed by Charles Laughton, USA  

The Night of the Hunter (1955) is a classic thriller-fantasy, and the only 
film ever directed by the great British actor Charles Laughton. The 
disturbing, complex story was based on a popular, best-selling novel set in 
the Depression era.

The protagonists are children remorselessly pursued by an obsessive, 
homicidal, and misogynous preacher who, having murdered their mother, seeks 
to steal from and kill them too. One of them at least knows that the word 
"hate", written on the fingers of the preacher's left hand, is more 
appropriate than the word "love" tattoed on his right.