NEW DELHI: Three Indian documentaries will be screened at the International Documentary Film Festival that will be held in Amsterdam from 20 November to 1 December.
Menstrual Man by Amit Virmani and Powerless or Katiyabaaz by Fahad Mustafa and Deepti Kakkar will screen under the Reflecting Images: Best of Fests section; and My Name is Salt by Farida Pacha will compete in the IDFA Competition for First Appearance section.
Amit Virmani’s Menstrual Man is a Singapore – India production. Arunachalam Muruganantham is considered a madman in his village for he has achieved a feat that is considered to be pervert by his community. He has devised a manually operated machine to make low-cost sanitary pads. The napkins are made by and for rural Indian women. The film made its Canadian Premiere at the HotDocs, the Canadian International Documentary Film Festival in Toronto this year.
Powerless or Katiyabaaz traces the city of Kanpur that has 15-hour power cuts. Hundreds of people steal electricity, amidst high risks, to meet their needs. The real trouble starts with the entry of the first female chief of the electricity company who vows to wipe out all illegal connections. Powerless has been one of the most talked about documentaries of the year. The film premiered at Berlinale Forum and competed at the Tribeca Film Festival 2013.
My Name is Salt is a documentary on the salt families of India. Every year the monsoon turns the desert into sea, washing away the salt fields. Thousands of families move to the desert for eight months to extract salt from the earth. Farida Pacha’s The Women in Blue Berets was screened at Open Frame 2012, organised by the Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT) in collaboration with the India International Centre, New Delhi.
