Amar Lenin / My Lenin (Dir. Ritwik Ghatak, 1970, India)
‘The river and fields reverberate with the sounds of the hammer and chisel’ go the lyrics for what appears to be a popular folk song venerating the cultural significance of…
Category: Documentary
THE SACRIFICE OF BABULAL BHUIYA (Dir. Manjira Datta, 1988, India/UK)
Opening with a series of slow motion shots of a semi-naked labourer working in the punishing heat, the body blackened by the coal is visually conducive of the ways in…
THIS SHAKING KEEPS ME STEADY (Dir. Shehrezad Maher, 2018, Pakistan / U.S.)
In a measured yet painterly wide shot towards the end of what is a hybridised work Maher trains her erudite eye under a bridge, a sort of non-space with a…
MACHINES (Dir. Rahul Jain, 2016, India/Germany/Finland)
The worker as machine is not a new phenomenon. It goes as far back as the industrial revolution. But I have to admit though. I thought this documentary was going…
