Firaaq - Updated w/video

Today was the opening night for SAIFF (South Asian International Film Festival) in New York. Just came back from the opening night and todays feature was a directorial debut feature film by Nandita Das - Firaaq....In Such Times.

"An urdu word meaning both separation and quest, Firaaq - is a movie set during the aftermath of the Gujarat Province riots in 2002, when Hindus and Muslims clashed: women were raped, and families slaughtered in a stunning replay of the partition. The film was made in Urdu, Gujarati and English. The director brings intensity to her characters’ plight, with sharp instinct for rooting out their hidden fears." - Source for the above statement

The movie left many speechless and introspective. Even though the movie is set post the Gujarat riots - it still has an international appeal as it talks more about the apathy of sufferers after the incident and not much about the incident itself. Infused with light comedic parts, on the whole it is a film about human relations, agony, separation and anguish caused by the stereotypical division between Hindus and Muslims.

Questions that were raised in the movie that makes one ponder deep and hard :

1) How tough is it to be a Muslim living among Hindu majority?

2) What is the fault as an innocent child - just that he is born in certain religion?

3) Can best friends from different religions still be friends after such a horrific incident? Do they think before inflicting terror on each other or does the mass hysteria take over their kinship?

4) How should a woman react - side with the males of her family even though she knows they have been part of the horrific incident inflicting trauma and physical abuse to other women of other religion or side with that affected women.

and many more such little questions brilliantly intertwined into the movie.

Am not going to reveal much as I do recommend all of you to see it. It is going to be released in early 2009.

After the movie there was a question and answer session with Nandita Das and Deepti Naval one of the actors in the movie. Some of the other starcast of the movie included veteran actors -Naseruddin Shah, Paresh Rawal, Sanjay Suri, Raghuvir Yadav and Tisca Chopra. Also the most compelling face of the movie is of the child artist - Shehmat Khan.

Answering to one of the questions from the audience -

Being that there is such deep rooted stereotyping in our society based on religion, will such riots ever stop?

Nandita gave a very interesting response. Paraphrasing from memory.

We are born with some givens - man/woman, nationality, religion - things that we dont have a choice of. These are identifiers that characterize our being and define our behaviour and general outlook to life. These cannot change.

But when these very basic identifiers are questioned or sometimes triggered we try to retaliate in order to gain back our self identity. This is the basis of why we love/hate a person and that cannot change or will not till we respect that others too can coexist.

Here is another blog link with a more detailed description of the movie - Lotus Reads

Next up is the world premier of Madhur Bhandarkars (Page3 and Traffic Signal fame) Fashion. Will write about it if I find it interesting.

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Update:
Due to everyones positive comments - I did a bit more search and found this video. Will reply to the comments later in the day. - Thanks