‘cinema as Documentation’ - Monthly Lecture Series at Open Space

Open Space this time is organising a monthly lecture series, titled Cinema as documentaion. Open Space,has been using diverse audio-visual media such as features and documentary films, shorts and PSAs as awareness raising outreach tools through regular screenings, film festivals and moderated discussions. In continuation of its endeavour, Open Space has initiated a monthly lecture series titled, ‘Cinema as Documentation’ which will look at film as a medium of social, economic and historical documentation, while exploring other aspects of the medium such as its art and aesthetics. Each lecture will be followed by a film screening the next day.



‘The Filming of a Metropolis’, the first lecture in the series, will discuss history as a series of parallel narratives recorded through the medium of cinema, through the point of view of some landmark filmmakers of the 20th century. Through audio-visual clips the lecture will guide the viewer to look at a great city at a particular period in history through the cinematic language of non-linearity which transforms the subject, i.e the city into the central character of the film.



The lecture will be facilitated by Ajit Duara, film critic, film script-writer and teacher of film studies who divides his time between Pune and Mumbai. He has been writing since 1984 and teaching since 1990. He completed his graduation in English (Hons) from St. Stephens College, Delhi, and took an M.F.A. in Film scholarship/Criticism from Columbia University, New York City.



Screening of the feature film, Hiroshima Mon Amour (Dir: Alain Resnais). Hiroshima Mon Amour tells the story of a French actress who performs the role of a nurse in a film being shot in post-war Hiroshima. There she meets a Japanese man. Using flashbacks intercut into this present day love story, the woman tells of her experiences during the Second World War in France during the German occupation, and the consequences when the war came to an end. The film combines fiction and documentary.